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Spiderguy252

Airline: Jet Airways
Aircraft: Boeing 737-800
Registration: VT-JBS
First flight date: 7th October, 2010

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

Scheduled Departure Time: 9:10 PM
Actual Departure Time: 9:10 PM
Scheduled Arrival Time: 3:15 AM
Actual Arrival Time: 3:15 AM

Flight Time: 3 hours, 35 minutes

Check-in: Full flight apparent from queues, unfortunately there were only three desks open = 2 Y and 1 J. The agent handling J periodically lifted pax from the Y line when he was running free. Nice.

Pre-Boarding: Watched the concourse for a bit. Caught the new UA livery on a 772 departing to BAH, amidst the usual KUs and J9s.

Boarding: Began at 8:35 PM. Pretty organized and no sign of ILBST, possibly because of the rare lack of labour traffic. Crew warm and welcoming at the door.

Aircraft: Classy plane, near brand new. Wall panels and luggage bins were white to the nth degree, not mustard/off-white. All IFE screens appeared to be functioning as passengers were settling in. Roof lighting was crystal clear as well.

Seat: Rexine leather seat. Good enough for 3:35's worth, but DEL-SIN or the like may not be the most comfortable ride. Decent legroom as well, but lower than KU's 77E or 343 - it's competition on this route.

Departure: Take-off as scheduled after queuing behind an SV 744.

Meal: Dinner served right after we reached cruising altitude, and was pretty edible for the most part. That's all you ask from airline food anyway. But the crew took a long time to clear the trays, which was unfortunate as most of us wanted to sleep.

IFE: Crew turned off lights after service and distributed blankets to all the Y pax. Bright IFE screens only source of lighting in the cabin. Watched nothing, fell asleep with my iPod plugged in. Woke up later and turned on the airshow as we began descent into India. Flight path was linear - a straight line from KWI to BOM. No ducks or turns.

Crew: Was asleep for the most part, but the 2 female FAs were pretty attentive to the call buttons. Also helped a bloke with his immigration form right before landing.

Arrival: Touchdown on time, but were unfortunately made to park at a remote stand next to an AI 77W. Here's where things got a bit messy - apparently the J pax were to deboard from the front and Y from the rear door, but no bus turned up at the back. So all the Y pax jostled to get to the forward doors instead. Pretty chilly morning at BOM.

Post-arrival: Had an onward connection to MAA, but thanks to a cyclone (Dec 31) I had asked them to change the routing to BLR instead. At KWI I was asked to collect the boarding card to BLR at BOM. However, they couldn't put me on any 9W BLR flight for whatever reason and booked me on an AI flight instead, to BLR. AI 603 I think. That's where the real fun of the new year began, but I'll save all of that for another TR.

Scores:

Punctuality: 10/10
Seat: 9/10
Catering: 8/10
Aircraft Condition: 10/10
Entertainment: 10/10
Crew: 6/10

Total: 53/60 = 88% = Four stars out of Five.

I dunno what's not the deal with 9W. After several routine flights with them over the past couple of years (BLR, BOM, MAA, KWI) I can't seem to find any terrible fault in their service. Yeah, they may not nail it but are far better than the alternatives on the sectors in which they operate. I haven't posted on here much recently, but I have been reading and jasepl's posts make this airline sound like a Biman clone! Twisted Evil

Cheers.
Varun
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Yeah.

me111993 · Member Joined: 04 Sep 2009 Posts: 3225 Location: MAA/AMD

Thanks for the report Varun! You've hit every point that is needed to be covered!

KWI/RUH are perhaps the worst flights the flight crew can possibly get, 3:30 hour + flights and immediate turn-arounds. That too in the middle of the night.

Sure there're various facets where in they can improve, but overall they still come-off pretty good.
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sumantra · Member Joined: 28 Oct 2007 Posts: 4685 Location: New Delhi

Varun, thanks for posting another very nice trip report (precise, concise, to-the-point). I like the structured way in which you put this report. You seem to have had a nice experience with Jet airways - there does not seem to be anything negative, save the late clearing of the meal trays. As Rishul explains, this routing is a bit hard on the crew, and I guess it shows. You have left us asking for more. First, a trip report coming from someone who was fairly regular in posting his experiences. Second, you have left a mystery for us in the end - an Air India BOM-BLR journey, which you say is `where the real fun begins'. Yes, we are eagerly waiting for this trip report!
Cheers, Sumantra.

Spiderguy252 · Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2012 1:52 am Post subject:

Thanks for the responses. Yeah, I'll type up the next report when I run into the weekend or something.

Spoiler Alert: It involves the aircraft's tire bursting. Razz

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Nimish · Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2012 11:25 am Post subject:

Great report - thanks for posting. Also do post the transfer experience/ process at BOM - hopefully it's improved over the years.
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sumantra · Member Joined: 28 Oct 2007 Posts: 4685 Location: New Delhi

Spiderguy252 · Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 2:41 am Post subject:

Was busier than I thought over the past couple. In a few more days, for certain. Smile

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jasepl · Member Joined: 26 Jul 2008 Posts: 4257 Location: bund-bay

Nice to-the-point report. Thanks for sharing. Unsurprisingly, the JetChildren will find a way to eff something up. They're very talented like that.

Firstly, you're comparing with Kuwait Airways. Do we really want to go down that path? Of course, knowing Jet, they will point to Ryanair (eg: but even Ryanair does...), and find a way to come out on top there.

And even the guarantee of coming out on top when it comes to Ryanair is increasingly precarious.

Secondly, going KWI-BOM will be very different from going BOM-KWI. When you do the return, you will indeed find that the allegedly most beautiful airline (ever) is almost exactly as hopeless as Al Yemda on the ground. The only difference is that BOM is Jet's home base, not Al Yemda's. Given how the on-ground experience at departure is the single most stressful part of travel, that's quite a failing.

Thirdly, it's Y. All airlines are more or less the same there, except for the kit.
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Spiderguy252 · Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 4:18 pm Post subject:

jasepl · Member Joined: 26 Jul 2008 Posts: 4257 Location: bund-bay

Not quite. You feel the difference more if your're an elite or flying premium.

There are plenty of things within an airline's control, that Jet doesn't bother with:A lounge, a proper premium check-in, personal escorts (not always available), car service from home to airport, personal car between terminal and plane, dedicated bus and so forth.

Whilst it's true that Jet being the largest operator at Sahar means they will be impacted more, the converse is also true, that it is perfectly reasonable to expect more out of them than airlines with only two flights or from those for who Sahar is just one spoke amongst many.

I personally only care about the queue and hassle reducing measures, but the fact remains that they fall short in basically every single area when it comes to the ground service at their home base.

Jet barely do the bare minimum, as if BOM were an obscure, unimportant spoke in their network.
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sri_bom · Member Joined: 22 Dec 2006 Posts: 2365 Location: Singapore

Varun thanks for taking time to post this report. I recently flew on Jet Airways to Dubai from Bombay and will post that report soon. One thing is for sure that I did not get the feeling that I was flying a world class airlne.

Sri_Bom

Spiderguy252 · Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2012 9:33 am Post subject:

justbala · Member Joined: 11 Jan 2007 Posts: 1898 Location: Bangalore

jasepl · Member Joined: 26 Jul 2008 Posts: 4257 Location: bund-bay

sumantra · Member Joined: 28 Oct 2007 Posts: 4685 Location: New Delhi

jasepl · Member Joined: 26 Jul 2008 Posts: 4257 Location: bund-bay

[quote="sumantra"As an aside...[/quote]
Oh it happens everywhere; and that was never my point.

What I had said (and still say) is that what is not important to one person may be important to another. Also, what won't affect you when done occasionally, may cause you to re-think when it's something you have to do over and over again. Especially when there is a perfectly good alternative.

For example, there are people who started picking IC or IT over the others when flying domestic out of BOM only because the security queues in the IC terminal were usually much shorter. Not Indigo's fault, or Jet's, but it is what it is.

For me, the catering or the alliance or the hemline have zero impact on my decision to choose one airline over another. I prioritise convenience of schedules and ground facilities over everything else. Different folk have different priorities.

So, by itself, the lack of a boarding bridge may not affect anyone's decision, but couple that with some other factors and it can help weigh the decision in a particular direction.
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justbala · Member Joined: 11 Jan 2007 Posts: 1898 Location: Bangalore

iah87 · Member Joined: 17 Apr 2007 Posts: 2566

One thing about the trip report: 100% loads. So Jet is doing something right, inspite of 1 stop competition from EK, EY, QR....

abhijith16

Spiderguy252

abhijith16