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Spiderguy252 · Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 3:35 pm Post subject: Gulf Air messes up KWI-BAH

Hello members!

This TR covers a 1hr 5minutes sector on GF 212 on the sector KWI-BAH, which I flew on Oct 19, 2009.

I apologize for the absence of photos in this TR. My cellphone, with which I normally take pictures was totally out of battery. Crying or Very sad

But I've included a few images from A.net (copyright) which should improve the experience.

Departure from KWI would be 7:45AM. The flight would arrive at BAH at 8:50AM. Or so I thought.....

I booked the Economy Cabin for the flight. The ticket price was KD 33/-. However, a day before the flight, I received a call from the GF Kuwait office asking whether I would like to upgrade to a J seat for KD 66/-. I refused, realizing that J was pointless on such a short flight. The agent then dropeed the price to KD 51/-. Shocked

As I hesitated, he disconnected the call. I never heard from them again. I read another TR on A.net where GF was haggling the price with another customer on F. (9W's leased birds). This airline is in huge trouble, one can infer.....

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/trip_reports/read.main/158341/

On the day of departure, I left for KWI at 5 in the morning, arriving at the airport at 6. There was a huge queue in front of the GF check in counters. As I approached the counter, I realized that Jazeera had cancelled their KWI-BAH flight and were rebooking pax on GF instead, hence the commotion. I stood in the queue for 2 hours. It was moving at a snail's pace. By the time I approached the desk, it was already 8AM, 15 minutes past the scheduled departure time. The check in agent seemed harried and he printed out the boarding pass and scribbled something on it. He then checked in my luggage and turned to me and said:

"Sir, you've been upgraded to Business Class. But we advise you not to use the lounge as we're already delayed"

Turns out I'm flying J after all. Laughing

I hurried past immigration and proceeded towards Gate #20. This gate is not connected to a jetway. So we were bussed to the aircraft which was parked at a remote stand. The GF livery generally looks quite nice, gold, with the blue falcon. But on this particular aircraft, the stickers were peeling off and it looked old and worn out.

Airline: Gulf Air
Aircraft: Airbus A320-212
Registration: A9C-EJ (Formerly A40-EJ)
First Flight Date: 01/04/1994

Load in J: 100%
Load in Y: 100%

Scheduled Departure Time: 7:45AM
Actual Departure Time: 2:15PM
Scheduled Arrival Time: 8:50AM
Actual Arrival Time: 3:20PM

Flight Time: 1 hour, 5 minutes

A9C-EJ in 50th anniversary colours. Copyright Trevor Mulkerrins

A9C-EJ at BOM. Copyright Vivek Manvi Wink

We were left waiting in the bus for close to 20 minutes before the aircraft door was opened. Even though I was a business class passenger, I boarded along with the Y pax through the rear door, strangely. Their were no stairs attached to the front door of the aircraft.

Upon entering the cabin, I was directed to my seat - 2A. The cabin felt irately hot, as the aircon was not working. The FAs, after getting us seated, just disappeared! Many of us were dying for a drink, but there was no one to serve us!

GF 320 J cabin. Copyright Konstantin von Wedelstaedt

Moreover, the lights kept flickering. That and the heat proved to be unbearable. I pressed the caller button. No Answer. I then took a walk down the length of the aircraft and realized that all the FAs were having a nice chat at the very back of the plane. I requested for a drink and enquired about the length of the delay. They said that they had problems with the aircraft door and would depart as soon as they fixed the problem. On the way back to the J cabin, I saw KU engineers working with the rear door. In the background, I saw an EK 77W lift off to DXB. I wish I was in that plane... Crying or Very sad

I then discovered that my J seat would not recline. Looking around, I saw that this was the case with most of the other J seats as well. A Kuwaiti businessman got pissed off by this point and started arguing with a cabin crew who had just turned up in the cabin.

An hour later, the captain came on line and notified us about the problem with the aircraft door, and asked us all to deboard and wait at the terminal until the problem was fixed. I gladly wanted to get out of there, as I was very hungry by the time, just like every other passenger out there.

We were bussed back to the terminal and I entered the J lounge and had some food. I made a mental note never to fly GF again. Honestly, the only good thing that had happened so far was the upgrade. Back in 1999, I had flown KWI-BOM on GF in F, and found the service levels to be much better than what it is today.

At 1PM, we were finally asked to board the bus again. Again, I boarded along with they Y pax. I was alotted the same seat. This time though, the drop down LCDs were lowered and were playing Candid Camera. All of them kept flickering, possible due to their age. We pushed back at 2:15PM and proceeded towards the runway. We were third in line for take-off, behind a Wataniya Airways 320, and an Emirates 345. Behind us was a Thai 346 and a KU 343.

The 320 performed a noisy take-off run and we were up through the clouds in a few minutes. The captain came on line, apologized for the delay and said that all connecting passengers who had missed their flights would be put on other flights.

We were then served a snack box, which consisted of a sandwich and a bottle of water. I wonder what Y was like. Rolling Eyes

The cabin had cooled down as we climbed, even though the aircon was not working. The flight itself was uneventful. I whiled away the hour by reading the inflight magazine, which was pretty decent. The headphone socket in my seat provided audio for just the right ear, and the screens were flickering, as mentioned before. The seat, though J was extremely uncomfortable. The padding was like sponge and very thin. Anybody travelling like this for more than a few hours would probably end up with a back-ache.

We began descent to BAH soon after and touched down on the airport's main runway. We parked at a remote stand and were bussed to the terminal. The 2 bags I had checked in took close to an hour to arrive and it appeared that many pax had lost their luggage. Terrible Service!

Scores:

Punctuality: 0/10
Seat: 1/10
Catering: 2/10
Aircraft Condition: 1/10
Entertainment: 2/10

Total: 6/50 = 12% = One star out of Five.

The conclusion here is pretty simple: Don't even think of flying GF unless it's a last resort.
_________________
Yeah.

Manish Soni · Member Joined: 09 Sep 2009 Posts: 102 Location: LHR

Ouch !
You would have been such a happy man de-boarding Razz

Btw, EK A345 & TG A346 to DXB & BKK respectively i'm assuming, is that what they get regularly or one-off ?
I'm surprised if the loads are regularly so high on those sectors requiring such large equipment.

Spiderguy252 · Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 11:04 pm Post subject:

Manish Soni · Member Joined: 09 Sep 2009 Posts: 102 Location: LHR

Hey thanks for the photo, its nice especially since you get to see so little from KWI.
That spot just off the left where the car is driving away seems a nice place to spot Exclamation

sri_bom · Member Joined: 22 Dec 2006 Posts: 2365 Location: Singapore

Nice Report.

Once upon a time Gulf Air was the queen of the skies on the India Gulf routes sad to note that its spiralling from bad to worse.

I faintly remmeber a few memories when I flew GF from Manamma to Bombay via Dubai I would have been about 7 years old it was early 80's and I think the aircraft was a tri-star.

Sri_Bom

Spiderguy252 · Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 5:10 pm Post subject:

sri_bom · Member Joined: 22 Dec 2006 Posts: 2365 Location: Singapore