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shivendrashukla · Posted: Sun Jul 19, 2009 2:26 pm Post subject: IC 863 Delhi-Mumbai

Preview to the trip – I am doing a PG course in Mumbai, while my hometown is Delhi. So when vacations from my college were announced, I quickly went online and searched the lowest airfare from Mumbai-Delhi and Back. Lucky to have found Kingfisher Red from Mumbai to Delhi and Indian Airlines (now Air India) from Delhi to Mumbai. A round trip would have set me, rather my father, back by 4800 rupees. Good deal I must say. This TR covers the return trip from Delhi to Mumbai. The one from Mumbai to Delhi I will pen down read type, later.

I was booked from Delhi to Mumbai on IC 863, departure from Delhi at 1700. Incidentally this flight was coming in from Chandigarh and would continue to Mumbai. Quickly checked the status of the flight from Indian Airlines website and was quite surprised to find that the flight was on time. Picked up my bag and took my car. It had not been raining in Delhi since the time I had come about 10 days back. I expected no difference today as well. But Mother Nature had different ideas. It literally poured on that day, so much so that it created a traffic jam on the very wide inner ring road. The Delhi metro accident did not help the cause either, contributing to the jam. For a 1700hrs departure, I was still at Bikaji cama place at 1600. Thankfully traffic cleared up and managed to reach the airport by 1615hrs. Grabbed a trolley and put in my luggage, showed my ID and e-tkt to the CISF guy at the gate and ran to the X-ray. Got my baggage x-rayed and ran to the counter. There were plenty of IC counters at 1A. Missing were Kingfisher, which seemed to have moved to the new swanky terminal 1D. MDLR has moved here. There were 2 people in front of me. The rather old looking agent at the counter checked me in. I asked to be seated in front of the aircraft, as I always do. He said that all the aisle seats are full and offered me middle seat at 11B, which I gladly accepted. Later it turns out that most of the window seats were empty and all the aisle and middle seats were full!!! Strange are the workings of Indian Airlines. Anyways proceeded for security check. It took me about 10 mins to get the security checked. I was made to take out my laptop before it was x-rayed separately. Strange. As soon as I cleared security, we were announced for boarding. So in the same step, I moved towards to gate and climbed on to the bus, after being checked again by security. The driver drove for about 100 meters and stopped in front of Airbus A321 VT-PPH. This would be my first time on new Indian airlines stock and I was looking forward to that. Climbed up and took my seat. Now the disappointment starts. The seats were shabby and looked as if it was not cleaned since the aircraft were delivered. Food stains were found all over the seat. The ear-plugs were kept in a small polybag and at first look, looked used. Anyways 1700 doors were closed and ten mins later we started taxing. We were to depart from the new runway. Rains meanwhile had stopped. Taxing took almost 22 mins and we arrived at the threshold of the runway at 1730hrs. Immediately aligned and took off. Turned right immediately after getting airborne. Meanwhile I had tuned into the IFS and was watching madagascar2. Their IFS consisted of only 6 video and 6 audio channels. Pretty basic as compared to Kingfisher’s. Also there was no wheel cam. So I had to contend with watching the revolving map, which I think is standard from Airbus.
After about half an hour of getting airborne catering was started. I opted for non-veg and again, it was disappointing. The tray looked shabby, SATS had done a miserable job, the plastic container was chipped from one side and cup clearly looked used and washed. Not particularly pleasing. The food wasn’t good either. It had some noodles like stuff (actually looked more like sewaii) and chilli chicken. Hopelessly tasteless. The saving grace was the FA’s who cheerfully served everyone. Coffee was ok. I really hope that if Indian Airlines-Air India has to get out of the mess they currently are in, the catering needs to improve dramatically. At the same time, their interiors also need to be cleaned regularly.
Now we were approaching Mumbai and for a past couple of days, the rains were playing havoc there. Same was visible in the air as well. The turbulence was bad. The pilots did a great job in handling the aircraft in that weather. The clouds were in the darkest shade of grey and low. We broke through the clouds somewhere near thane creek. The visibility below was good and we came into land at exactly 1900hrs. Touched down and exited via taxiway N1 and into the IC terminal. Now we were not docked to the aerobridge but were made to get off from the ladder and from the right front door instead of the usual left front door. This is the first time I have alighted like this. Anyways got into the bus and arrived at the terminal. Around 5 minutes after I came into the terminal, my luggage too arrived. Impressive.

So this was my trip report. Although I was impressed with the operational part of the journey, I was thoroughly disappointed at the food and interiors. Indian Airlines has to seriously improve on its food quality and cleaning, if they want to get back into black. If you are not interested in food, they you can fly Indian Airlines. Otherwise, I would not recommend it.
Sorry no pics as I did not take my camera along. Hope you liked it. Comments welcome.
Cheers
Shivendra

Spiderguy252 · Posted: Sun Jul 19, 2009 5:08 pm Post subject:

Hey! That should be Air India, not Indian Airlines!

Nice report, though.

-Varun
_________________
Yeah.

karatecatman · Guest

Great Shiv.

Pity no pictures.

sriramhariiyer · Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 6:58 pm Post subject:

iflytb20 · Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 11:08 am Post subject:

himmat01 · Member Joined: 19 Dec 2006 Posts: 1392 Location: DEL

Right doors are for boarding at BOM during the rains when the a/c is parked in a position where the left door faces west. This is because the winds and rain are coming in from the west.