Airliners-India.com

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

I don't know if I ever saw the whole movie or not, but one scene certainly stands out in my mind:

I Background

Our old driver Almeida's been with us since before I was born, until he finally managed to resolve the family drama about ancestral property, sold off his bit for an obscene amount of money and decided to go "home" to Goa to retire. He's never actually lived in Goa before, so how it's "home" still defeats me, but who am I to argue?

I suppose it's like with the Sindhis: no matter if they've lived in Tenerife or Santiago for generations, Bombay is "home" in some way.

Anyway, his daughter Chhaya – who I've basically known since her birth – was getting married!

She came over to tell me she had decided to have the wedding in Goa. Again, a concept that defeated me. She didn't move with her parents, so she still lived in Bombay. The guy she was marrying was Bombay born and raised. Now that they're married, they're going to continue living in Bombay, as they've done their whole lives. God only knows how they managed to fit Goa into the equation!

Chhaya tried to make sure I would be there by enticing me with spicy, slow-cooked, tender beef xacutti. She knows that's one of my biggest weaknesses and ensured me there would be lots and lots of it! Haha!

She needn't have bothered or worried though. She's one amongst a very small number of people, for whom I can honestly say I'll gladly give my life without even thinking, xacutti or no-cutti.

They had decided on a late February wedding date nearly a year in advance, so we had already booked our tickets in October. It was going to be Indian Airlines both ways.

And yes, I know Indian Airlines was merged into Air India and it’s all AI now, but there is so much history with IC, it’s difficult to just forget them totally. Besides, the two still seem to be different in several ways, though supposedly integrated.

The main reason to pick IC over the others, even though they weren't the cheapest, was for me to be able to avoid the 737s and because Terminal 1A at Santa Cruz is practically a ghost town, so there's no having to deal with the endless security queues and the mad traffic in the pick-up area. Besides, even if they turned out to be the worst of the worst (which they're not), it's only a 40-minute flight anyway.

Hell, I'll happily take an open ST bus to Goa, if it got me there in 40 minutes.

One should know better than to self-book online so far in advance, but clearly our brains were on holiday, and Nauzer (my friend who later became Delna's husband if anyone remembers – or cares!) and I decided to not bother with an agent.

It's one thing if it's just a couple of people doing a simple itinerary within a few weeks from making the reservation. It's another animal entirely when you factor in the time lag and the women of my "family".

Big mistake.

Right from the start, it was going to be three of us going: Nauzer, my mother and me. Delna was invited, of course, but being a rather more recent addition to our little family, she hadn't known Chhaya as long or as well, so she didn't really need to go. My cousins Ben and Mariette as well as his wife were invited too; there was no chance those two were going to come all the way from France and the now fully Chinese Mariette never knows with her schedule, so we let her worry about her own plans.

Of course, as I said, when you plan something so far in advance, all hell is bound to break loose as you approach the date of travel.

And it did.

First, a couple of weeks before our departure, Delna got a case of the me-toos: "Everyone's going so I want to go too!".

She had to work on the Monday, but it got to a point she didn't care. Bawa had made up her mind. Typical woman and typical Delna. Or maybe the Fat One rubbed off on her (wouldn't he like that?).

A lot of furious and surprisingly quick rescheduling later and instructions were given to the ever-compliant husband to "do whatever you have to… I'm coming too and that's that."

Nauzer booked her on the same flight as us to Goa. She had to go straight to Ahmedabad for work though, so she was going to be on the SpiceJet flight on the Monday. SG's GOI-AMD flight was at nearly the same time as ours, so no worries there.

In the meantime, Marriette managed to engineer some work in Bombay the week before, so she was coming along too; she got her assistant to book her on the same IC flights as the rest of us.

So far, just enough drama to keep it interesting, but not enough to make you pull your hair out.

And then, a week before departure, I got an email from Air India stating that the flight was cancelled so they had re-booked us on a 6pm flight the same day. Since we needed to get there latest by 4 pm, that would be too late, so I called them and the AI-walli said the afternoon flights to Goa were all cancelled (she didn't know why) and we had an option of 6 am-ish or 6 pm-ish. She was actually very pleasant to talk to and rather efficient. She offered to change to any flight on any I wanted subject to availability, no charge or fee of course..

Since neither of the options looked good (6 am too early and 6 pm too late), I said I would call her back.

After looking and asking around, I discovered that the BOM runway was being repaired, hence the cancellation. Turns out all airlines had to cancel all their afternoon flights. To Goa, Jet moved their morning flight to 4 am. Thanks, but no thanks. Indigo and Go cancelled all Goa flights that day. I wasn't about to risk Kingfisher. SpiceJet were still taking reservations for an 11 am flight, but it seemed certain it would get rescheduled or cancelled; they didn't seem to have five seats anyway.

The next mistake was to ask the ladies what they wanted from the now limited options we had.

"That's too early!"
"Not enough time to do my hair!"
"I have a nail appointment!"
"That's too late!"
"The waxing-walli will not reschedule!"

And by then, my mother had decided she needed to go straight to Baroda from Goa. She just had to pick a place IC no longer fly to (something to do with Goyal and suitcase and cash and Prafull, if rumours are to be believed) so we decided we'll all take the Jet flight back to Bombay with a convenient connection for her on to Baroda. I can suck it up and occasionally suffer the aftermath of flying a 737.

Nauzer and I decided to let the ladies whine all they wanted and we would just book what worked out best for us. So IC was back on. At 5.30 in the morning. Ugh.

Thankfully, Delna was late joining the party and didn't have too much of a choice.Else she'd have bitched and moaned about flying IC and not stopped until we changed it. She still bitched and moaned, but no change was made.

I decided to first make new bookings online for all of us, with IC on the outbound and 9W on the return (details coming below) and then called Air India and asked them to cancel all three original bookings. Of course, there was no charge or penalty because of the schedule change.

To make a very long, very irritating, very exhausting story short, we started out as:

3 pax, BOM-GOI-BOM on IC

Lots of scenarios and arguments and combinations and drama later that eventually became:

5 pax, BOM-GOI on IC
3 pax GOI-BOM on 9W
1 pax GOI-BOM-BDQ on 9W
1 pax GOI-AMD on SG

What a mess.

At least the final decisions were made and I could go ahead with the booking process. That is detailed below.

Whilst you wait for that, replace the characters with assorted friends and family members (and the greedy kid with Delna) and you get the 2012 version of :

That poster looks obscene, by the way.
_________________
four years free of jetya punti!

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

What a fantastic start to the tale - Jason, your trip reports completely stand out for their sheer originality, the fantastic humour, and of course, your eye for detail. In people, places, and miscellaneous things around you. The starter was out of the world. Now, hungrily waiting for the main course!
Admiringly Yours,
Sumantra.

abhigopal · Member Joined: 01 May 2008 Posts: 172

Ha ha, i can almost imagine the conversations. Waiting for the report.

Spiderguy252 · Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2012 8:49 pm Post subject:

Ha. Brilliant. Razz

_________________
Yeah.

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

[I've made a mess of the pictures here; I was trying to get them all to one size, but managed to mess up the quality as well. Aren't I talented?]

II Making the Reservations : ai.com and jet.com

Let me say this first : Air India's website isn't about to win a design award anytime soon. Probably not ever.

That said, ai.com is surprisingly functional and well-behaved.

I've used it before, so when I logged in, all my information was there, and with just a few clicks, I was done. All quite simple really:

Log in
Enter search criteria
Select desired flight
Confirm selection
Select seat
Review / make any changes
Enter CVV number
Et voilà, c'est fait!

Air India's rather unrefined-in-appearance website executed my transaction flawlessly and very quickly. It was one of the smoothest online flight reservation transactions I have dealt with. From beginning to end, there were no hiccups, no timeouts, no errors, no back talk, no irritating "if you are a student…" pop-op messages.

From a functionality perspective, it was a textbook experience.

And, within a few minutes, I had an SMS summary confirmation as well as an e-ticket email from Air India.

Click on the PNR in the email, and it takes you right to your booking on ai.com. Very convenient indeed.

In fact, ai.com is full of little features and conveniences.

What I like most is that once to open an account (you don't need to be a member of Flying Returns to have an account) you just need to enter some simple information and can choose to add information for other people you book for as well as credit card details and you're basically set. You can even have multiple cards saved and just need to select the one you want to use for a particular transaction.

Basically, your page at ai.com is a great little one-stop shop, from where you can make, change or cancel a reservation, choose and change seats, check-in online and see the status of your flight.

It also links your login to your travel, so you don't need to know your PNR. Just log in and your active reservations show up. If you made a booking off-line, you can add it here. You can also see the history of reservations on ai.com.

Every time you make a new reservation, you only need to re-enter the CVV number of the credit card and tick the "agree" box. That's it.

So, really, within a few hassle-free minutes, I was done with the outbound flights.

A few minutes after I finished with the booking, I got yet another email from Air India. Apparently I won some contest that I didn't know I had entered, and the prize was a free ticket to anywhere in India! I just needed to fly the flight I booked first and then, within six months, I was free to fly!

Next it was on to jet.com to book the returns (3 x GOI-BOM and 1 x GOI-BOM-BDQ).

Once you arrive at jet.com, the first thing you notice (especially after having just been on AI's site) is that it is by far a much nicer looking website. Everything looks professional and clean.

Then, once you start using it, uou realise there are far fewer conveniences than AI have.

I've been a JP member and have had an account for years. Yet, when I log in, it asks me for everything all over again. Active reservations aren't even displayed, let alone history. So even after logging in, you can't just find your own booking just like that. You must know the PNR. Even then, getting to do the very basics of checking flight status, changes or cancellations etc really not a straightforward process.

Jet have Flight Status / Manage My Booking / PNR Status / Change Booking / Check-In etc etc. And each one does something different and nothing more.

So, if you select PNR status, locate your PNR somewhere and enter it, you are shown only that: the status of the PNR. You can't do anything else with that information. If you want to make a change, you got to go back, find the "Change Booking" section, which won't necessarily be where you expect to find it, and re-enter the PNR. Then you may be in luck. Want to check-in? Great. Go back again, find the Check-In bit, re-enter the PNR and then it may let you check-in.

Anyway, I searched for the flights, picked the one I wanted, entered the details for the other three (my name and address were already there – that's the only thing Jet save in your account), did the whole credit card thing and the booking was done. Before I could hit "back", there was a text message from American Express confirming the charge.

Lather-rinse-repeat: To do my mother's ticket, I had to go through all the steps, including payment details, all over again. Ugh. Followed by another text message from American Express.

Still, it was all done fairly quickly and then I got two more text messages, this time from Jet. They had the oh-so-important PNR number and told me my e-ticket would be in the email soon.

Soon enough, the email showed up. Nothing clickable in the email, since the ticket is a pdf attachment, so you have to open it. Once you open it, the details are all there (all three pages of them!) but nothing clickable in there either, except for a link to their General Terms and Conditions (because, of course, that's the most useful thing, right?).

A pdf is nice (though three pages for a simple e-ticket is beyond excessive; and that's without their terms and conditions), but I don't know what purpose it serves, besides adding one more layer of inconvenience for the traveller.

Anyway, looked like we were (finally) all set.

Almost.

The next day, my mother decided she didn't want to go to Baroda after all. Since she is a compulsive flight-changer (just for the sake of it, I'm convinced) so I asked her to tell me again in a few hours. In the meantime, I went to jet.com, logged in, went to "Change Booking", entered the PNR, pulled up her reservation and hit cancel. Only to be told that I cannot cancel.

It's because Jet won't let you cancel a booking paid for using American Express. They have no problem letting you use American Express online, but for some reason only they know, cancellations not allowed. So you have to call them. Most bizarre.

Other airlines don't seem to have this problem.

I couldn't have been bothered to call Jet just as yet, so I waited. Good thing I did too, because the mother decided she wanted to go to Baroda after all. So that was that, for now anyway. She flip-flopped at least half a dozen times between then and the actual flight, but ended up going to Baroda anyway.

I never got around to asking my dad if she was the same way when he asked her to marry him. I wouldn't have been surprised if that answer had been "yes".

Next up: Bombay to Goa : An IC Delight !
_________________
four years free of jetya punti!

Spiderguy252 · Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2012 5:12 pm Post subject:

True that. AI's website in its current avatar is far from the worst. However the one circa 2006 was a nightmare.
_________________
Yeah.

abhijith16 · Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2012 7:45 pm Post subject:

My god! I have never laughed this much when reading a trip report! You're a good writer with great skills!

BTW, Jet's web-checkin is a nightmare... Especially when flying International! Get the frickkin' destination address right! And you're seat reservations magically disappear!

I checked in online today and my seats 27A and 22A were magically changed to 12A and 15A! I'm going to see if a Jet-Idiot will do it right or not!
_________________
<a><img></a>

Nimish · Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2012 8:29 pm Post subject:

This is a rather nice voyeuristic view of your friend's wedding - and the process to get there and back. I'm loving it so far, and wait for the further installments - including one (hopefully) of the feast laid out at the wedding itself Cool

Surprising to hear that AI's website is so much better now. I remember jobless AI.netters creating massive lists of things for AI to improve on the web front - hopefully most of those have been implemented by now!

9W on the other is no surprise. The megalomaniac that is Mr. Goyal thinks he's the best thing going around, but does not realize he's a bit like the emperor with new clothes Wink

.
_________________
We miss you Nalini!

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

Thanks all!

AI certainly seem to have made several improvements, at least in a few important areas of convenience. I was more shocked than surprised when everything went off flawlessly.

Now let's see how the flight turns out. At least we know one thing, with the mad bawa around, it's going to be an entertaining trip!
_________________
four years free of jetya punti!

avbuff · Member Joined: 22 Dec 2006 Posts: 5031

Superb!!! Just loving it ..... and just for the record, we all ARE actually interested in your rendezvous with Delnaz in all of your trip reports.

Bring more of it!!!!! Very Happy

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

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

III Indian Airlines : Bombay to Goa

A couple of days before departure, I got an email reminder from Air India. See how they referred to me as a customer (that I am) instead of a guest (that I am most certainly not!).

Then, exactly 24 hours before scheduled departure time, they sent an SMS. I was of course sleeping at that time, so I didn't see it until later. When I woke up and saw the message, I initially started checking-in on the phone.

Once the coffee kicked in and the fog in my brain started to lift, I realised I was being silly with my computer just there, so I switched to that.

OLCI was incredibly easy and convenient. Again, go to ai.com, log-in, select flight from list and click check-in. I had already selected seats at the time of reservation, and those hadn't been changed, so the check-in was completed in a matter of seconds. No one wanted to sit next to any creepy-crawlies, so I selected A-B-C seats, and the C and D aisle seats in the row just behind. Nauzer and I planned to sit in the latter seats and pretend we didn't know the three crazies. It would have been even better to sit far away, but that would have been very rude. So we compromised.

By the way AI's self-service boarding pass: looks rather nice and professional.

In hindsight, I should have done the mobile check-in to see if it was as practical as the website.

One thing I didn't pay attention to when I booked us on the early morning flight was that it was one of AI's extension flights, that does Dubai-Bombay-Goa, which meant we would have to go to Sahar. Ugh.

I have a very strict "Avoid Andheri" policy, which I enforce upon myself very diligently. The only exception is when flying international, because there really is no choice. The only thing worse would be the alternative: going through Dilly. No thanks.

It highlights the problems with this whole business, where it's not always clear if it's the domestic leg of an international flight or the domestic leg of a domestic flight, which terminal will it depart from, and where will it arrive etc. I'm certainly not the brightest crayon in the box, but if an experienced traveller like me, who's also interested in aviation and tries to keep up with developments, can get confused or misled, imagine all the Toms, Dicks and Champakbhais of the world.

Oh well, nothing I could do. Fortunately, there wasn't any other choice, so the inevitable moaning and groaning was minimal, relatively speaking.

The night before our flight, the ladies decided to have a girls' night out. I know there was going to be drinks somewhere and dinner somewhere else, followed by some more girlie stuff chez Bawa. Painting their nails and talking about boys or some such. I really didn't want to know.

There were two of us who wanted no part in the girlie show, so Nauzer came over. We ate dinner, watched the last few episodes of the final season of Entourage and generally burped and farted at will. It was great!

We barely slept and left for the airport at about 3.15 am. Since we wouldn't have all managed in one car anyway, we had decided to meet up at the airport at 4. We got there fairly quickly because the roads were empty at that time, with the only traffic on the Maratha / Hyatt stretch, but that too didn't take more than a couple of minutes to clear.

The drop-off area had only a few cars and people compared to midnight and for the first time there was zero queue to get in, again on account of the hour. We went in and walked towards the AI desks where we were joined in a few minutes by three giggly women.

Evidently the effects of the fruity cocktails still hadn't work off. Oh dear.

On to check-in. See how AI continue to occupy an entire section of the check-in area, with desk after empty desk just sitting there.

Jet really should get a big chunk of these reassigned. But then I don't know what the policy is? Does the airport charge according to desks allocated? If so, then I won't be surprised if they are Jet's for the taking, but Jet aren't taking because it would mean Naresh Lalaji would have to spend a few rupees to add to passenger convenience. That goes totally against Jet's twin wildly successful philosophies of Jetuna Matana and FlyEmirates.

Similarly, I wonder what's happened with the space Kingfisher occupied, now that they no longer operate out of Sahar. Ideally, those desks should have been re-assigned already. But, knowing how things work in our country, they will likely sit there unused by anyone and not earning any money for the airport operator. Just like half the widebody fleet of our country's airlines.

Anyway, even though only a handful of AI's desks were open, the whole section looked like Fukushima probably does: deserted. There was one pair in front of us (not to miss the jhatak pants), that's it:

By the way, what's up with AI still listing their flights as international converts? Don't these flights have an origin or destination? Or is that a secret new city that none of us have heard of? That's even dumber than the dumb concept of these converts.

Check-in literally took 20 seconds and we had hand baggage tags, re-printed boarding passes (why do they bother with the online BP if they're going to re-print anyway?) and (crap! I thought), a customs declaration form.

Check-in wallah must have seen my face and quickly told me not to worry. "Just write your name and sign, no one really cares". And we could just use the one form for all of us if we were related. We aren't all related, but what the heck. So I wrote "Jason + 4" as name and scribbled something for a signature. I was about to turn away when he asked me to return the form to him. It seems "We collect them and give them to the government every now and then".

Wow. Talk about waste. What another pointless exercise.

On the way to immigration, we passed a few other check-in desks. It was nearing time for the big Middle Eastern / Africa push, so several of the airlines had a bit of a queue. But none more so than Kenya Airways:

Poor KQ had a very delayed flight and were stuck with exactly three desks for what clearly is a very popular and very full daily 777 (soon going up to an impressive ten weekly. They really should give them some more space.

Compared to entry and check-in, immigration looked downright scary. It was that packed.

Fortunately, someone spotted a sigh that said "Domestic ->". We went up to the immigration line checking wallah. He asked "domestic"? We said "ya". So, without asking for any proof or evidence, he asked us to just walk over to the far right side to the last immigration desk. Said desk seemed to be occupied by a cleaner, not an official, who stamped our boarding passes without a word.

Security was nearly empty too and we were downstairs within 20 minutes of reaching the airport. Very quick indeed.

There was a lot of time for our flight, and our gate area looked to be full, so we found seats not too far away.

Turns out it was near the gate the KQ flight was departing from. That area was a Gujju-fest like you wouldn't believe. A handful of Africans, but huge gangs of Gujjus, hoping to carry-on everything under the sun to Jhaan-jhee-baar.

Holy dhokla khandvi! And thepla and oondhya too!

We were all sitting there for a good while, all tried, silent and barely awake. Then, suddenly, Delna got up from her seat.

And the four of us watched in surprise as she walked over to the snack stand. Then, we watched in amazement as she ordered something. Then we watched in absolute horror, as, at 4.30 in the morning, Delna ate two vada paos. From the airport snack stand.

Ewwwww. You can't be eating that nasty thing from the airport snack stand that's probably been sitting there so long it likely tastes of the cellophane it's been wrapped in. To make it worse, they re-heat it in a microwave. Vomit.

Delna looked at me staring at her. "What? I don't know if your Air India will even serve anything. And if any of you want any, get your own."

Apparently it's my Air India now. If only she had seen my AI-related posts on this forum! A right regular love-fest they're not.

Unable to watch any more, I got up to get me some coffee. During the slowest coffee delivery process ever, I saw a disgusting sight:

It was soon time to board and the gate area was an absolute zoo. Seemed like the flight was going to be chock-a-block. It was a scrimmage, but thankfully we had a boarding bridge, which meant no bus trip around Sahar that would last longer than the flight to Goa.

By the way, we boarded with only one ID check during the whole process: at the terminal entrance, checked by the CISF pandu.

As we're walking onto the plane, Delna suddenly turns around, and out pops: "Oh my God! Look at that! He really needs some support. Should I offer him my bra? He needs it more than I do!"

Turns out she had spotted one of the AI uncles. And Delna was right: definite B-Cups. And a uniform that must have fit well at one point, but now looked like the buttons were about to pop at any second. But she was rather loud too! Fortunately the only one who seemed to have heard her was the high school-ish boy behind me and he burst out laughing. As did I, once I recovered from the shock of Delna's declaration and the sight in front of me.

We got to our seats and sat down and settled in. I'm not a fan of the colours AI have selected to outfit their cabins; reminds me of mirchi and sambar. I won't be surprised if that was their inspiration. I also won't be surprised if the upholstery was originally white and now is the colour it is because of the amount of mirchi and sambar that was spilled on it and never really cleaned up properly.

Pic of the 321 cabin courtesy Google:

Just joking. Whilst the colours are perfectly fine on their own, I personally don't like them dominating the cabin. Just doesn't look nice to me. But besides the cabin looking old and tatty, everything did look to be perfectly clean. Just like their website, the whole ambience was one of uninspiring utility over attention-grabbing style.

Whilst boarding was still on, one young pilot came and started talking to a girlie in the seat behind me. Couldn't care that he totally stood in the path of people still trying to get to their seats. She was probably his wife or girlfriend or something. But the way they looked at each other and actually paid attention, I'm thinking girlfriend.

Anyway, he was telling her that something must be up in Goa, because he'd never seen this flight so full. And certainly the crowd was not typical of this flight, since it's usually Gulf labourer traffic. And today's load was all (mostly) hoity-toity Bombay crowd. Even J was full with paying passengers – which was a first for this flight – and that's why he couldn't move his poor suffering darling up to the front cabin.

Boarding soon finished and the captain and cabin crew made their quickie announcements. Again, we were referred to as passengers, and not guests. Thank you Air India. They also handed out earphones for the IFE whilst doing their pre-departure seat belt inspection.

And we were off.

Besides B-Cup, the rest of the crew was female. None had Naomi Campbell figures, but none were too large to fit through the aisles either. I think the large ladies were always an AI speciality, not IC's.

The cabin lights stayed dimmed throughout the flight and no announcements were made until we were ready for landing. Yes, that was a whole 25 minutes, but the silence was much appreciated.

Here's AI's magazine.

Here's the pages and pages of supposed IFE that is available on AI planes. From what I've read, it's never the case that even a quarter of the listing is actually available at any given time.

Speaking of, the IFE was on, with 8 channels of mystery programming that couldn't be identified in any way.

The crew did come around with snack packs: imitation Frooti and a packet of sing dana. Said pack also had a carnet of shopping discount coupons. All this was offered in silence; they didn't wake anyone or poke anyone or even say anything much unless asked. And when they were done distributing, they came around again with a big bag to collect the garbage.

We touched down and were told we may use our phones if we wished.

They repeated a couple of times that we mustn't take any photos of Dabolim airport from the air or whilst on the ground, so I didn't. Here's a photo I got off of Google.

Just like the Corsair plane in the pic, our plane was parked about 150 metres from the terminal, but we still had to use the bus.

It took a few minutes to get some wheelchair passengers off the plane (I thought they wait for them until the very end) and we were down the stairs and onto the bus. The bus started and what do you know, the two poor wheelchair passengers were being pushed to the terminal just ahead of us. As the bus neared them, the driver actually started honking. That was ridiculous enough. Then, instead of moving out of the way, the clowns started pushing the wheelchairs even faster.

Like a scene out of some retarded Will Farrell movie. Wow!

The bus brought us to the terminal, and the doors opened. There were two entryways next to each other, one said "Domestic Arrivals" and the other said "International Arrivals." In yet another testament to the lack of communication that permeates everything in India and the dumbness of the "international convert" concept, the first few people off the bus headed towards the "Domestic" entrance. And everyone else followed. Honestly, it didn't occur to me, and clearly not to anyone else either, that we were on an international flight. They found the door locked or were turned away, and I suppose that's when the light bulb came on. So everyone made a U-turn towards the international entrance.

There, once again, the absence of communication manifested itself.

They were checking boarding passes because it was a mixed flight (international flight with domestic passengers). No one had ever said that we needed to retain the boarding passes, let alone have them ready for inspection. So that led to the whole thing taking a lot more time than necessary, as folks were rummaging through their handbags and pockets for their boarding passes. That is if they had them. My mother, in typical auntie style, told me she had left hers in the plane. Aiy! I thought we might have to go back to fetch it. Then, again in typical auntie style, she argued with the checking-wallah and he just let her through.

Yet again, what's the point?

The reason for the check, turns out, was that they were separating the international passengers since they had to clear immigration. So, after the separation, we domestics were made to walk straight through, whilst the internationals had to go on the other side of a makeshift row of chairs to get their passports checked.

I am not joking: the only thing separating the international side from the domestic side was a "barrier" (and I use the term very loosely) made of a row of exactly four chairs. And the gap between each chair was wide enough to let B-Cup pass through without any difficulty at all.

What a joke.

So though the international passengers were split from the main queue to get their passports checked, they again joined the rest of us immediately afterwards. Turn a corner, pass a disgusting little display of bai and Bapu popping a squat (not a pretty sight), and you're in baggage claim.

There's one carousel on the international side and the monitors showed a bunch of other international arrivals, all from Britain, Germany and Russia.

Yet again, they barely check when you exit the terminal. There was a big sign saying "customs" and there was a customs officer all in white but we did what we saw others do: just say "domestic" and the silly customswallah waved us through, without bothering to even look up. Hell, I'm sure if you just walk around like you know what you're doing, they will let you through. Yet another apparatchik placed there to do very little and he doesn't even do that.

Why even bother?

We found our hotelwallah with his placard amongst the sea of other men all holding placards and were on our way to the hotel.
_________________
four years free of jetya punti!

PAL@YWG · Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2012 8:43 am Post subject: Re: Appa Pakoda !

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

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

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

IV Goa

The wedding was in a nice little church in Vasco (or, as they pronounced it, Bashco), so fortunately we didn't have to travel too far from the airport. Our hotel was kind of close by too, so that was nice.

One of the first things that stood out was the amount of rubbish on either side of the road. I don't remember Goa being near as garbage-infested on any of my previous trips. The number of plastic bags was astounding.

On the other hand, I love the bougainvillea that's abundant all over the place:

Also, this was just before the elections, so the anti-Congress campaign was in full swing.

Given the time and the hotel's proximity, we got to our hotel fairly quickly. We had called ahead and warned them that we would be arriving much earlier than expected because of the flight situation. They were aware of it and had no problem. We learnt later lots of hotels had done the same thing, seeing as so many people were going to land up in the morning now instead of the typical afternoon hour.

Even at that early hour, there were several people waiting at the reception to be checked-in, we even recognised a few from our flight.

Clearly something was going on in Goa.

We later learnt that it was a BIG wedding week-end in Goa. Many hotels were hosting weddings during that period and half of Bombay had apparently descended in Goa. There was a wedding on in our hotel too; fortunately they either weren't too loud and boisterous or the band-baja-drama happened at some other end of the property.

Anyway, it was our turn to be checked in so Nauzer and I went up to the desk. We had two rooms and he specifically asked for them to be far apart from each other. The ladies were going to be in one, he had decided, and the two of us in the other. "The only way to get some peace". I agreed.

Delna, upon learning what her husband had orchestrated, declared loudly for all to hear: "Fine. Who wants to sleep with you anyway?!"

Bawa clearly has no filter!

We got to our room and crashed. By the time I woke up, it was early afternoon. The ladies had gone off to some girlie pre-wedding thing chez Almeida and had all sorts of painting and polishing and brushing to do upon their return before we all headed back for a little cocktails thing, so we were safe for the rest of the day.

Which meant we got something to eat and then lazed around the pool. Then to the beach. Then back to the pool. It was great!

The following day, it was more of the same. Sleep and laze by the pool and on the beach. And talk about att the retarded things we used to do back in the day. Out in the sun just enough to get a little bit of colour in our cheeks (which we needed) but not to tan (which we didn't).

Not quite Baywatch, but very attentive guard who watched out for the currents and ensured people stayed within the "safe zone" between the flags.

The ladies of course had more painting and filing and polishing to do, though Mariette did manage to spend most of the day with us working on her tan ("I want to go back looking like you").

It was an early evening wedding, followed by drinks, dancing and dinner. And at about 125 people, rather modest compared to the full-on circuses that some of the hotels were hosting!

Thankfully, they had decided to have the wedding mass in English. It goes on too long for my liking anyway, and it's torturous enough to sit through that so it would have been just unbearable being preached at in Konkani. Hindu wedding ceremonies usually last longer, but at least you're not forced to sit still and in silence for the entire duration.

The ceremony was followed by the reception, just outside in the church grounds. I must say, no matter the kind of ceremony, its venue or the number of people, at some point the Chicken Dance is played and eventually it all degenerates into Sheila ki Jawani.

At some point they cut the cake and everyone raised a toast. Sheila gave way to some other Bollywood damsel.

And then, of course, there was the food. Thankfully they stayed honest and stuck largely with one cuisine. I'm not a fan of the large wedding spreads that include everything from butter chicken to spaghetti to mutton biryani to undhiya to falafel to appam to khao soi.

Instead, we could look forward to fried fish, pork chops, sorpotel, mussels… Nice as those things are, I was only interested in one thing: xacutti. And it was outstanding! All spicy and coconutty and the meat was slightly undercooked… almost perfect! I prefer eating my cows whilst they're still mooing, so overcooking is a definite no for me. I enough to risk getting sick but managed to control myself and not overdo it so even if I got sick, it wouldn't be complete torture.

(And speaking of food, wow, there are some seriously fat bloody people in out country. There were always obese people everywhere, but it's just ballooning out of control. It used to be more women than men who were carrying 30 kilos of excess flesh, but now it looks like the men are catching up. At the reception, one could see the greed in peoples' eyes as they were furiously shovelling food down their gullets at speeds that didn't leave time to chew or even taste the food. Seriously, wow.)

The drinking and dancing (and eating) continued rather late into the night until finally, exhausted, we went back to the hotel. And the peace and quiet of our room.

We (well, technically my mother) were hosting a little informal breakfast thing at the hotel in the morning for the newlyweds and their immediate families before our flights back home. So we set the alarm and promptly fell asleep.

I must have thanked Nauzer a thousand times for keeping the three crazies far away from us!
_________________
four years free of jetya punti!

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

V Jet Airways Konnect : Goa to Bombay

The day before our flight, before leaving for the church, I tried to mobile check-in for our flights on my phone.

First it asked me to log in. Evidently mobile check-in is for JP members only; no clue why.

So I logged in.

Then it asked me for my PNR. Still no idea why, after I had just logged in.

Anyway, I logged in, then entered the PNR.

Then it said something in gibberish.

It was probably my phone rather than Jet's site, but the end result was that I couldn't check in.

Next stop: business centre. There, I went to jet.com. Where I logged in. Of course, that doesn't mean anything, because you need the PNR. So I fed it the PNR. But I had to make sure to click on "Check In", because clicking on PNR Status or Manage Booking or anything else would pull up the same exact information, but it wouldn't have let me check-in.

Anyway, the reservation came up without a problem. But, it wouldn't check us in. Yet again, I have no idea why. It was the most straightforward of itineraries: simple one-way domestic economy flight, no connections, no changes, no senior citizens, no points redemptions, no upgrade vouchers, no credit card holder not travelling, no children, no wheelchairs, no nothing.

Yet, the familiar to many message popped up: "Your reservation is in order. However, we are unable to check you in so go to the airport."

Jet do seem to have all kinds of listed situations where they won't allow OLCI, but our itinerary met none of them. It couldn't have been more uncomplicated, but oh well. It's Jet.

On the other hand, I was able to check my mother in without a problem. Hers was nearly as straightforward as ours, except she was connecting on to Baroda. She was on a separate itinerary, so I entered her PNR and the reservation was displayed. Clicked check-in, selected a seat, and then I was asked one of the most bizarre questions ever: Male or Female?

What on earth? It says "Mrs" right there. Idiots.

Anyway, here's her boarding pass, which isn't formatted to fit on one page. So if you're not careful, you will waste more paper than necessary.

*******************

Back to the day of departure.

At 6.08 in the morning, on the day of departure, I got an email from Jet.

Several days after booking the ticket, Jet's email started by thanking me for booking with Jet Airways. Wow.

Eight hours and 54 minutes before scheduled time, Jet's email said we were eligible for online check-in.

Wow.

So many things wrong with that email… Facts, timing, spelling, grammar, syntax, “Guest:… Where to start?

Idiots.

I got the same exact email for my mother’s flight. A good 12-ish hours after I had already checked her in.

Idiots.

Anyway, Nauzer and I got to breakfast and everyone else was got there around the same time. Mari showed up a few minutes later; turns out she had a call from work. Apparently there was some emergency with a client in Japan and she had to get to Tokyo the next day. I was about to suggest the ANA flight, but was told her assistant had already taken care of it. The Cathay back to Hong Kong had been cancelled and Mariette was booked on the BOM-NRT flight instead.

I was trying to pay more attention to what Mari she was saying, but between eating mounds of eggs and more bacon that I thought humanly possible, Delna was talking her usual non-stop nonsense. I swear, she is the personification of Guitry's observation that "Women talk and talk and talk and talk and talk. Until they have something to say."

Breakfast was fun though. Nice and casual with just about 15 of us. Then we went and packed – I remembered to retrieve my xacutti from the fridge – and left rather early for the airport.

It's a good thing we did, because Dabolim was a right royal zoo, with nearly all flights crammed in at around the same time. The X-ray line snaked around and around and outside the entry doors. Wow. What a mela.

And it seemed like half of Bombay was headed back today. Everyone seemed to be bumping into people they knew, and all the aunties were getting very excited seeing familiar faces. Nauzer and I, being anti-social, knew no one. Mother and Delna, on the other hand, joined in the auntieness of "O what you doing here? Going back? Which flight are you on? Who's wedding did you come for? Which hotel was it in? How was it? The bride looked spectacular. But her mother looked like a hag. She really must do something about those wrinkles…. " And so forth.

So what was already a slow and painful queue, was made even slower and more painful because of the auntie brigade exchanging the same questions and comments with all of the other aunties they met.

Oy vey.

X-ray done and we went over to the Jet check-in desks, which thankfully were empty. I suppose everyone was stuck in the X-ray queue.

Delna went off to Spice, whilst we were checked-in. Mariette's incredibly efficient assistant had done the OLCI for her ANA flight already, and the super friendly and helpful Jet girlie checked two of us in to Bombay, one through to Baroda and also managed to tag Mari's bag all the way to Narita.

Good job Jet girlie!

We still had a lot of time and the security line looked scary. Plus there were zero seats available to sit, so we texted Delna to meet us in the airport restaurant.

There, we ordered some chilled beer, plus Chicken Hong Kong and Chicken Shanghai. They looked somewhat different but tasted exactly the same. And we ordered chili-cheese-garlic toast. Oh. My. God. It was sinful, and so delicious it would make you cry. Thick moist toast, with a thicker layer of spicy-garlicy cheese with instant death oozing out of it. Divine.

Mariette was on the phone with work most of the time and her battery was almost drained. Remembering there was a mobile charging booth nearby, off she went. She was back in two minutes, because, in true desi fashion, the charging station exists, but all the plugpoints were broken. Every single one of them. Seriously. Yet they had someone manning the kiosk. Seriously.

Oy vey.

Delna was sent off to SG security which was in a different section of the airport from ours, which was still packed. At one point, the queue split, with a sign saying "Ladies ->". Our two ladies tried to just stay with us, but they wouldn't allow it. Though our queue didn't say "<- Gents"!

By the way, I carried on a big vat of Xacutti. No one batted an eyelid. Not security (liquids not allowed) nor Jet (meat not allowed). Ha.

The plane was parked literally 10 metres away from the terminal door. But we still had to take the stupid bus. And what a JetBus it was.

It was a simple ordinary bus, like a school bus or a BEST bus (albeit smaller) with rows of seats, a narrow aisle and no usable floor space. Which JetIdiot decided to buy these for transporting passengers between plane and terminal? So besides being incredibly dumb, it took longer to fill up and took more trips to take a full complement of passengers to the plane.

We got onto the plane – which said Jet Airways, but it was a Jet Airways Konnect flight. Though today, that same flight will be a Jet Konnect flight. See, what a massive difference?

We found our seats in an incredibly advert-filled cabin, in which the music was playing rather loudly. Whilst I was eternally grateful that is was instrumental and there was no banshee-in-Celine-clothing wailing, there's only so many times one can listen to "You were my strength when I was weak" and "Can you feel the love tonight."

And yes, the ads were everywhere. Bulkhead. Baggage tag. Traytable. Magazine. Shopping catalogue. Name it.

The plane was IFE-equipped, but the screens said "Thanks for flying Jet' for the duration of the flight. And it was not clean.

I've seen JetMiserly and JetWhorey. Now we have JetNasty:

The pilot came on: "Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. I am captain Juarez (I think that's what he said). I am from Brazil..." Then he went on for a couple of minutes, but no one understood a word he said, bless his soul and his heavy accent.

Whilst Senhor Suarez was speaking double Dutch, the Inflight Executive (I am still at a loss as to what exactly that is) came on to welcome us guests (again that word). So there was no understanding either of them.

A couple more announcements about safety and blah blah and we pushed back a few minutes earlier than scheduled.

The music was on the whole time. Did not stop for one second. Not one.

We levelled off. There was another announcement. Then the seatbelt signs went off. Followed by another announcement.

After a couple of minutes of "Because you loved me", everything kind of just exploded into a cacophony all at once.

One JetChild started squaking about the buy-on-board JetCafe.

Two other JetChildren were going up and down the aisle, loudly peddling their JetSnacks. "Shendweech? Kold Dreenk? Koffee?"

Mari didn't get a chance to eat earlier, so she looked at the JetMenu, which is of no help. WTF is a veg sandwich? And a non-veg meal? At least say what it contains? Idiots.

So she asked one of the JetChildren what sandwiches they had.

"Veg or non-veg m'aam".

But what's in them?

"They're vegetarian or non-veg m'aam".

Wow.

Mariette decided to skip the sandwiches.

Clueless Chopra may not have been working this flight, but her bachhas Mindless Meena, Brainless Beena, Senseless Sheena and Hopeless Heena certainly were.

The loud hawking continued. "Shendweech? Kold Dreenk? Koffee?"

Someone asked for water, which they were not charging for. So long as it was poured from a jug into a paper cup and restricted to one cupful per person. Bottled water had to be paid for.

Then the Inflight Executive came back on the tannoy. And went off on a long speech about JetPunishment. And their seven new partners (the JetWhore's a bigget slut than I thought). I could only make out Mint and Bombay Stores - the rest were drowned out by the peddling of veg and non-veg. apparently. Followed by a whole spiel about how wonderful JetPunishment is. And on and on and on.

Whilst she was still squaking, poor Senhor Suarez came on to tell us (I presume) about the flight. Of course, he couldn't be understood. What with his heavy accent, the squawking Inflight Executive and the two JetChildren who were still hawking "Shendweech? Kold Dreenk? Koffee?"

Someone else asked for a newspaper. "Sorry sir, this is a Konnect flight, so no newspapers."

Still the horribly long lecture about JetPunishment continued and continued.

And the hawking continued. "Shendweech? Kold Dreenk? Koffee?"

So did Because you loved me and Can you feel the love tonight. Shut up!!!

Inflight Executive had barely finished the lecture about JetPunishment when she started hawking JetMall.

So now we had two sets of hawkers yelling over the cabin simultaneously. Because the "Shendweech? Kold Dreenk? Koffee?" continued unabated.

We were told all about how wonderful JetMall is. How we can earn JetPunishment points by shopping the JetMall. Right on cue, a JetChild emerged and started handing out JetMall catalogue (which had an extremely scary looking woman on the cover; reminded me of Evilyn from He Man). But instead of just handing them out, she was going "Shopping? JetMall? Shopping?".

So now, we had a third hawker adding to the din.

Each voice was getting louder and louder, clamouring for attention, jostling to be heard above the others. As if they were being made to work on commission.

It was like when your train pulls onto the Dadar platform late in the evening, and for those frenzied five minutes, all hell breaks loose: Simultaneously, the hawker chokras are hawking "Shendweech? Kold Dreenk? Chai? Thanda? Vada pao?" at the top of their voices. The station master is going "Pudheel train…" on the station tannoy. The conductor is going on about something on the train's tannoy….

Close your eyes and that's exactly what it was: 8 pm at TT in a 737.

Oy vey.

We finally landed in Bombay, with the music still blaring non-stop, even after we reached the parking stand. The flight touched down right on time, which meant we had spent a full hour getting to Bombay. Half of that time probably went in holding, because Goa's not that far.

Of course, Jet parked the plane at Sahar. So it took us more time to get from the plane to the terminal in the bus than it took to fly from Goa to Bombay.

My mother went off to catch her Baroda flight. Nauzer and I waited for our bags and saw an interesting item that someone had felt the need to check-in:

Mari's bags were tagged to Narita, so we put her in a cab to Sahar, instead of trying to figure out the airport's shuttle.

Nauzer and I were soon on our way back home. Our heads pounding from that awful flight and my ears ringing from the 737 pressurisation.

No surprises that the first person to reach their destination was my mother. Before we even got to Colaba, she texted to say that she had landed in Baroda. Then Mari texted to say she had reached Sahar. Then we got home.

I was still in shock and pain from that flight. But them I remembered the one thing that made it all better: the xacutti !
_________________
four years free of jetya punti!

The_Goat · Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 4:59 pm Post subject:

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

Yawn.
But loved the exaggeration!!

Nimish · Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 6:07 pm Post subject:

abhijith16 · Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 6:13 pm Post subject:

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

abhijith16 · Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2012 10:46 pm Post subject:

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

VI After the flight and conclusion

ANA
Mariette called me later in the evening, once she had boarded her Narita flight (paraphrasing here):
* Sahar a delight at this time; wish more flights were in the daytime
* Business class chock-a-block and she was the only non-Indian person in the J cabin
* Her ticket cost just over 4,000 euros (which is tragicomic, because the reason for client, who was paying the bill, asking her to make the emergency mission to Tokyo was that the board had to meet to vote on declaring bankruptcy)

Jet
Turns out, it wasn't just Bombay weddings all over Goa. Apparently there was at least one big Gujju-filled Baroda wedding too, because a whole bunch of people from our GOI-BOM flight were on my mother's BOM-BDQ flight.

Oh, and she claimed it was the same exact plane that brought us from Goa, with the same exact interior.

But then this is a woman who sat in a CRV the other day and then after a few minutes said "I didn't know you bought an Innova".

I highly doubt it anyway, because Jet parked us at Sahar, so it's rather unlikely the plane was going to Baroda next.

Our BOM-GOI flight was a Konnect service, with the pre-packaged JetSandwiches being hawked for Rs 150 as I said above. My mother's connecting BOM-BDQ flight was supposedly a full-service flight. On that flight, instead of hawking, they were offering the same exact sandwiches for "free". That, together with a beverage run, was the difference in service. Add newspapers and you have the full extent of the difference between Jet and Konnect.

Which JetFool still claims this is a winner of a business plan?

On the flip side, she was surprised to discover they had non-veg sandwiches too. In the past, the Gujju flights have been veggie only. Of course, said sandwiches were apparently hidden in the galley, so, when asked, the JetChild would go to the galley and bring one out for whoever asked. And, bien sûr, when questioned what was in the sandwiches, well, different JetChild same JetResponse: "It's non-veg ma'am."

Aiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiy!

On the return from Baroda, she was on a Konnect flight. Again they hawked the same sandwiches.

*****************

Here's a screenshot from my mother's JetPunishment account with earnings details from the three flights (it's also the last of the Citibank points; we both cancelled our JetCitibank cards recently). So many things wrong with that, I don't even know where to begin.

Most glaring: the Konnect flights earned more points than the full service flight and actually flying all three flights combined earned less than just one online reservation or one web check-in.

Mais quel espèce d'idiot...

I got the same points for GOI-BOM, except for the web check-in bonus, because the entirely useless jet.com wouldn't let me check-in online.

...et quel putain de con !

*****************

Oh, and here's a picture Delna sent me from some mall in Ahmedabad. She knew I'd had have something hilariously nasty to say about it:

*****************

In Conclusion

Reservations & website (5 points)
We all (rightly) pointed and laughed when Air India proclaimed they had a new, integrated website, because we all saw they had just slapped some lipstick on the same nasty old pig. Since then, AI haven't reapplied any more lipstick since then, but they have replaced the smelly grey dukkar with Babe.

Jet, on the other hand, had a nasty pig with lipstick and lip gloss right from the start. Today, the same pig remains, as does the lipstick. The gloss has worn off though, and never been reapplied. Jet.com remains a dukkar in Roberto Capucci clothing.

Using one's website is like going to bed with someone rather good looking superficially. Lots of excitement at the start, but jet.com will just lie there like a cold, dead, wet fish. And make you do all the work.

The other one, not so pretty. But more than happy to get all freaky-deaky with you. It will remember what you liked from the last time and do it too. Hell, comparatively speaking, you can just lie there and ai.com will get on top and do all the work, and leave you satisfied.

Pre-flight (2 points)
AI/IC sent out several emails and text messages, confirming the reservation, reminding me of the flight and also exactly when OLCI opened. All the communication was concise and to the point, and with one click you were where you needed to be.

Besides a 3-page pdf that one has to download and open only to discover it isn't even clickable, there was absolutely nothing from Jet. And no, that random email 7.something hours before the flight does not count.

Check-in & airport (6 points)
Airport check-in was incredibly efficient on both IC and Jet. Security and such are beyond the airline's control, so I won't factor those. If it were Jet instead of AI at Sahar though, the queue would have been a zoo. Again, it's a comment and not something that I'm going to factor.

OLCI, on the other hand, was IC all the way. Everything worked flawlessly. Jet, well, didn't.

Boarding & disembarkation (5 points)
IC had a boarding bridge on departure from Sahar (if it were Jet, they wouldn't have had one).

On the return, Jet parked at Sahar. Then stuffed every bus like a sardine can before it made its long journey to Santa Cruz arrivals. Which meant it took us more time to get from seat to baggage claim than it took to fly from Goa to Bombay.

Cabin ambience and condition (4 points)
IC's cabin, even if redone last week, will always look like it was installed in the 70s. Both in terms of maintenance and the choice of colour. I am not a fan of either. It's all tatty, dishevelled and worn out, and screams Bharat Sarkar from every pore.

Jet's cabins, on the other hand, are bright, airy and rather pleasant. I have found them to almost always be well-maintained, clean and smart (the stained seat covering on my flight is a rare exception). If you ask me, the kit is now Jet's sole saving grace.

On the other hand, some points need to be taken away for the sheer force of the advertising assault. On this flight we had the bulkheads, the traytables and the magazine being pimped out to anyone willing to pay, as well as in the non-stop announcements from Lobotomy Leena (our Inflight Executive) and by the other crew who were peddling the JetShopping catalogues. Also pimped out were the baggage tags, the website....

Ekdum JetAttack.

There's the IFE and the fuselage too, but we didn't encounter those on this trip.

Am I forgetting anything?

Meal (2 points)
I've said it two million times: there is no need for a meal service on short domestic hops.

However, IC claim to be full service, albeit with an abbreviated meal offering on short flights. Still, I don't know if an imitation Frooti and a small package of sing dana qualifies as a meal. Then again, it was 5 am after all.

Jet's was a Konnect flight, which meant buy on board. It seemed like there was a decent offering, but what on earth is a "Non-Veg Sandwich" or a "Veg Biryani". They need to print some information on the menu about what's in those things. At least inform the crew, who were as clueless about what they were hawking as they are about all other aspects of being a flight attendant.

IFE (1 point)
I've said it two million times: there is no need for IFE on domestic flights.

That said, IC had PTVs in every seat. PTVs were working too. With a selection of 8 functioning channels, plus a map. And they handed out headsets to everyone.

Jet's plane was PTV-equipped. But the only thing each screen did was to declare "Thanks for flying Jet".

Perhaps they figured Celine's music (minus her banshee's voice, thank God) blaring from the speakers and the belief-defying performance from the crew was entertainment enough.

No thanks. I'd rather get three teeth pulled without anaesthesia.

Crew (5 points)
Whilst B-Cup was spotted only at boarding and upon disembarkation, the IC ladies did a perfectly good job. Granted they didn't have much to do, but it takes proper training to even do nothing the right way. They did their bit quickly and in silence, without disturbing the cabin.

Bravo IC crew.

As for the JetChildren, I really am at a loss for words. Just thinking about them and their performance results in horrifying, painful flashbacks. So I'll leave it at that.

*****************

The Numbers

These numbers say it all, really. And I have a hard time accepting them too, but there you have it.

Indian Airlines remained true to historical form: they got me from point A to point B with minimal fuss; efficient, but nothing to write home about (except the efficiency, of course).

Still, they have Gobermint of India screaming from every pore.

As for Jet, until now, for all the noise I have made about their strategy and freefalling quality standards, I have still happily flown them whenever needed. All the while reserving the right to point and laugh and bitch and moan, of course.

However, whilst Indian Airlines / Air India outperformed Jet by a considerable margin, one must remember this was on a short domestic hop. When it comes to long haul, I remain one of those whose first reaction will be "over my dead body" if someone were to suggest I fly AI long-haul again.

That said, never before have I felt "I don't want to fly this airline". Jet have now reached that point.

Jetuna Matata!
_________________
four years free of jetya punti!

abhijith16 · Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2012 7:49 pm Post subject:

avbuff · Member Joined: 22 Dec 2006 Posts: 5031

Priceless TR!!! just superb ....

As for JP, it is a f**king nightmare to try to redeem those miles. I had to use some contacts to get things done and gave him a reminder how pathetic JP is altogether.

Nimish · Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2012 11:36 am Post subject:

Ah, a super summary section! Of course 70% vs. 20% seemed like a bit too much, if this were true, we should see AI's LF and yields skyrocket, which ain't the case really. Still the point was taken, a little bit of class goes a long way, and peace and quiet is the least one can ask for when having to endure these flights.

I do hope someone at 9W reads this report and gets a drift of what (some) passengers want vs. what they actually get on board.
_________________
We miss you Nalini!

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

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

What a fantastic, hilarious trip report.

I like the way you started it off "Appa Pakoda" who can ever forget that classic comedy movie "Bombay to Goa". Although the movie itself was a slapstick it still far ahead of all the crap that we get to see nowadays on screen in the name of comedy.

My previous comments on your trip report if you recollect was that since you write so well I suggested that you try your hands in writing a book. I tihnk I am going to suggest more than that may be you should now try writing movie scripts for Indian cinema. I am sure the movie will do well.

Sri_Bom