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

Trip route:
Bombay – Dubai - Bombay
Airline – Jet Airways
Flight no. 9W
Departure Bombay: January 7th 2012 9:00 AM
Departure Dubai: January 9th 2012 7:00 PM
Aircraft type – Boeing 737-800
Flight duration – 2 hours and 45 minutes

My trip report to Dubai on Jet Airways on which I had travelled early January this year. As I was posting this on the forum I could see that a lot of you have echoed a similar sentiment as mine that Jet Airways has slipped in terms of quality as compared to a few years ago on the thread below:

http://airlinersindia.s4.bizhat.com/airlinersindia-ftopic12273.html

Background Info:
I was on a vacation in India in December/January period having fun and enjoying the cool chilly weather, but than out of the blue came a client meeting that I had to attend and could not postpone or request my colleagues to attend on my behalf as most of them were on leave as well. So the scramble started for getting the visas and air tickets and with five airlines now flying to Dubai – Emirates, Jet Airways, Kingfisher, Indigo and Air India - the choice was plenty.

I eliminated Kingfisher because of all the trouble surrounding them. With Air India, you never know when their crew might go on strike. As IndiGo was a low cost carrier I did not want to take any risk of the flight getting cancelled and the hassle of paying everything extra. So I eventually narrowed it down to Emirates and Jet Airways. As I had never flown Emirates before I had asked my travel company to book me on them, but I was amazed to know that with five daily flights on a wide body aircraft not a single seat was available. This could probably because I was booking too close to travel as well as the Dubai Shopping Festival having started, but not getting seats on any of the five flights was an eye opener as to how much money Emirates must be making on this route. It is a pity that our Indian government’s aviation policy does not support local carriers. With Jet Airways being the only airline left I opted for it.

As this flight was departing at 9:00 AM I arrived at BOM airport at 6:30AM and found it very empty. No long queue, no car jams and jostling for space to get into the airport. All went smooth and easy.

Empty porch at BOM airport

The check in gate was fairly empty as well and I could check in my luggage very quickly, with some queue forming after I left.

Emirates Airlines counter getting ready for the check in process

After checking in, I cleared security which was very fast and I started wandering around the airport right across the various terminals. There were a few flights that were leaving around that time – Saudi Arabian to Saudi Arabia

I found that Air India has a special counter to assist physically challenged people and unaccompanied minor with a small waiting area which I thought was unique as I had not seen this before at other international airports.

The duty free shopping was open and hardly anyone around to shop but I found an interesting marketing/advertising initiative to sell Indian tea probably to foreigners as
gifts.

Most of the restaurants were closed including a famous coffee beverage outlet and this does not bode well for an airport which is aiming to be world class. In most of the global airports that I have transited 80% of the restaurants are open 24 hours.

After a few minutes of my stroll I headed towards the gate and waited for the boarding announcement. Boarding was commenced and we were to be bused to a remote stand to board the aircraft. The buses that were used were both Jet Airways owned as well as those outsourced from BEST, the public sector bus undertaking responsible for running the fleet in Bombay.

Although getting bused to board an aircraft can be a hassle for many frequent travelers I enjoy every bit of it as I consider it a free tour of the airport with great opportunities to take photographs of the various airlines.

Some shots of airside action on route to our aircraft.

Queen of Skies and my favorite aircraft type the 747.

Can anyone guess what is so unique about this photograph?

Saudi Arabian

Air India 777

IndiGo

My aircraft to Dubai:

Leather Seats in all cabins including business class:

Luckily I managed to get an emergency row exit window seat so the leg room was plenty hence this mandatory leg room shot does not do much justice.

What was disappointing was that this was an international flight and the aircraft did not have any personal IFE but only drop down screens for watching general programming. We were given headphone to listen to the programs or to tune into the audio channels. This is where Jet Airways needs to improve with regard to consistency of product offering as not having IFE in international flights is not what you expect.

We were queued up for takeoff quickly but had to wait for the landing of an Indigo flight and Kingfisher flight. Looking through my window at a Kingfisher flight landing, I could not help but think how a promising airline has landed in a mess that seems to be getting worse by the day.

After a fairly long roll we took off towards the westerly direction over the Arabian Sea and continued flying straight till we leveled out to cruising altitude. The first officer came online and explained our routing and timing for the flight.

Skyline of Bombay on a misty/hazy morning during our takeoff over Arabian Sea.

During all my visits I have never seen a clear blue sky over Bombay for the past few years. A brownish haze always covers the city. I think too much pollution because of construction and automobiles have ruined the air quality as well as the ability to view clear blue skies.

The famous Worli sea link bridge can be seen which I understand took ages to build thanks government red tape.

Unfortunately at this point my camera’s battery died hence could not take any photos. We were offered the menu and food followed soon. I do remember the food was very lousy and I did not finish it. Typically I don’t waste food, even if it is airline food but this I could not take it. I think I was served rubbery and tasteless parathas. The only thing edible was the rice with lentils. Just as well I couldn’t take any pictures.

Soon we were approaching the Arabian Peninsula and I could see the coast of Oman which we overflew and we turned left to align ourselves towards Dubai. After this it was a routine flight and we were soon preparing for landing in Dubai and even after descending one could only see long stretches of desert for a fairly long time.

Dubai-Bombay:

My return flight was far better in terms of attitude of the crew.

Quality of food:

The paneer kofta was melt in your mouth, the Indian bread soft and the Rice/Lentils were perfectly cooked.

The dessert was a lemon cake which was delicious.

Aircraft equipped with IFE.

I was a bit disappointed with the Dubai duty free offering. Having heard that Dubai airport was a shoppers’ paradise I found it a very pale comparison to what Singapore and Hong Kong has to offer. There were not many shops and the choice was limited. I am not sure if this has something to do with the terminal that I was in.

The crew on this flight was very considerate and attentive. We had a wailing baby all through the flight which the parents for some reason were unable to calm down but once a crew member walked around with baby in the aisle, she was all smiles and peace returned reigned once more.

Some Airport/Tarmac action at Dubai

Verdict: Jet Airways has all the right ingredients to be a world class airline and they have been rightly delivering world class service in the past which I have experienced as well. However, I think over the last few years they seem to have lost their mojo and have been fumbling to get on track either because of complacency or lack of funds. We all know that being complacent in the airline industry is like writing your own obituary and the sooner they pull up their socks, the better for Jet and Indian aviation.

Thanks for viewing and welcome all comments.

Sri_Bom

Nimish · Posted: Tue May 01, 2012 7:12 pm Post subject:

Amazing that EK can fill up 5 wide-bodies ex-BOM - just shows the potential of the market!!!

Nice report, thanks for posting. Seems like the outbound was a mundane domestic flight - no IFE, lousy food etc, but the return was a better experience. If 9W want to make a mark on this sector, product consistency is pretty important, so they'd do well to stick to the better product on this routing.
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abhijith16 · Posted: Tue May 01, 2012 7:46 pm Post subject:

Nimish · Posted: Tue May 01, 2012 7:50 pm Post subject:

abhijith16 · Posted: Tue May 01, 2012 7:58 pm Post subject:

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

Nice report; thanks for sharing.

You know, I personally would say a flight of the duration that BOM-DXB is without all the bells and whistles is perfectly fine; the stage length should determine amenities, rather than whether the flight is domestic or international.

Of course, then one's got to factor in the competition, and Jet falls (predictably) flat. Yet again.

It's amazing. One the one hand, they wail about Emirates taking away their passengers (whilst handing over said customers on a silver platter with a neat bow).

On the other, they counter said competition with what you described above.

What's that saying about missing the obvious?

theflyingsikh · Posted: Tue May 01, 2012 9:53 pm Post subject:

Nice report.

Shame about the food.

I've heard some similar stories about that notorious, rubbery, chewy paratha ex Bom. Why not place a dinner roll.

What were the loads on these flights?
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sumantra · Member Joined: 28 Oct 2007 Posts: 4685 Location: New Delhi

Superb report, Srinivas! You have gone into the details beautifully. Thanks for taking the time out, and posting this for us!
Cheers, Sumantra.

Spiderguy252

Hey, nice TR! Good shots as well, it's a pity your camera battery died enroute to DXB.

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

Hi, sri_bom, nice TR, thanks a lot for posting.

Your 737 on the outbound run would have been one of VT-JGE/GF/GG, these were the first 3 ETOPS Certified 737-800's for 9W, which operated the initial BOM-SIN runs, now they're moles, if I may say so, in the entire 9W fleet of 737 with 16 Business Class seats, they're the only ones which don't have IFE/AVOD, and getting one of these planes on a sector like BOM-DXB is extremely unlucky.

Completely agree with how they must maintain product consistency, its pretty important, particularly on sectors like BOM-DXB/AUH/DOH where-in you already have very good airlines to compete against. As a matter of fact, till W'11, their fleet management actually made surem to whatever extent possible, to have either these 3 737's doing Gulf runs out of TRV/COK only, unfortunately, thats not the case now.

Their Gulf operations are getting pretty inconsistent now a days, with the Konnect Configured ETOPS certified 737's coming into the picture, planes that have an 8/162 config but no IFE, so on DEL-DMM/DOH, BOM-BAH/CMB/DAC, MAA-CMB/DXB you'll find these planes a lot.

Once again, thanks for sharing.
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sri_bom · Member Joined: 22 Dec 2006 Posts: 2365 Location: Singapore

Thank you for the response and feedback appreciate it.

Nimish
Spot on. Jet really needs to get its product consistency in place.

Abhijit
I am surprised the crap food that you got on Jet Airways. I am sure even our premier trains “Rajdhani Express” must be serving a better meal than what you got.

Jason
I agree that for approximately a 2.5 hour flight which is like flying long distance in India one does not need all the bells and whistles. But rightly said if competition is offering something at similar price point than better shape up or lose out to competition.
FlyingSikh
Load was 100% both ways. Not a single seat was empty including business class. I guess filling up a 737 during peak season is not that difficult.

Sumantara
As always thanks for your feedback.

Varun
My meeting was very important which I could not miss out hence avoided the LCC. Besides in our organization we don’t have very strict rules to fly LCC especially if we are client facing.

Agree that bulk of operation gets over at BOM by 4:00AM but not a single coffee shop open is a bit weird.

I think they fly the 747 to Riyadh and Dammam. All I know is Air India randomly deploys them at their whims and fancy if the aircraft is not serving our PM.

Nice catch it was a crow on the tail of the Air India Express.

I forgot to take note of the aircraft registration in my excitement of clicking photos Very Happy

I don’t think the haze has anything to do with tropical climate. Singapore is also a tropical country but the sky is always clear blue. China’s problem is pollution and they managed to get some clear blue sky during the Olympic by banning personal cars for a month. I suspect it is pollution in all cities in India as well. The only way to stop it is to rapidly build more public transport infrastructure and at the same time start taxing personal vehicles so that it deters people to use the same.

The staff in Dubai at the check in counters were not Indian but they had a Indian supervisor so I guess it is all outsourced.

Thanks Aeroblogger.

Sri_Bom