Airliners-India.com

[Nimish]

Photo Trip report of my recent flights on Go Air on BLR-BOM-BLR sector.

http://picasaweb.google.com/nimishguptablr/GoAirDecember2006

Look at the slide show for the captions to show up properly.

I'll definitely look to adding my commentary in the next day or two.

Bottom line - I was very impressed with GoAir - excellent service both on the ground and on air.[/b]

[HAWK21M]

Nimish....You did not call.
BTW nice pics.
regds
MEL
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Think of the Brighter side !!!

[Aseem]

nice to know Go is Going Great! Please share what really impressed you about that airlines, and how it stood apart from other LCCs esp Spicejet who has also been praised a lot.
VT-ASJ

[the_380]

Great pictures nimish... why don't you upload the pictures on MyAviation.Net?
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A Walt Disney and 20th Century Fox Audio Producer!!!

[aarbee]

The Red/Orange Go-Air almost looks like the classic IC livery.

R

[JumboJet]

Itna detailing...........Maja aa gaya.

Liked the pics very much and yes the Bus was my fav
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I love the smell of Jet Fuel in the morning.

[the_380]

[JumboJet]

[Nimish]

[Nimish]

[the_380]

[G-BYGB]

Nimish,thats good news bcoz in 2 weeks time I'll be flying by Go Air to Mumbai.I heard its a good airline.Do they serve food?
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www.flickr.com/G-BYGB photos

[G-BYGB]

In LCCs it is the common thing where the pax has to get his own food ex SG or the airline serves small snacks even for a long flight like in the case of DN,G8.
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www.flickr.com/G-BYGB photos

[AKLDELNonstop]

I did a 4hr BLR-PNQ-DEL on SG last year. And they had absolutely nothing to sell, no food at all which is a pit as I had not eaten breakfast due to waking up late and not eaten lunch because BLR dint have any outlets on the airside. The only "food" I had was a biscuit packet that I bought outside the BLR airport in order to get some change to pay the autowallah.

Moral : Please sell food and coke on board.

Cheers
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Geniuses are always misunderstood in their lifetimes.

[Nimish]

[JumboJet]

How much for a coke or a soft drink
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I love the smell of Jet Fuel in the morning.

[Nimish]

[Nimish]

I was initially not planning to take the XMas/NY week off - but then at the last minute I decided that maybe it's time for a vacation. I wanted originally to go to Delhi during that weekend, but when I checked for fares, it was working out to almost Rs 40K for the return trip for the 4 of us (2 adults, 1 child and 1 inf). So then I looked for flights to BOM, and managed to find seats on GoAir for about Rs. 18.7K return for the full family. This was a decent deal, and I was quite happy to get seats at the last minute, so after a few hours debating/discussing with the family, I clicked on the "buy now" button on GoAir's neat website.

In less than a week, it was time to leave, and my dad dropped us to the airport. This time I was determined to travel light, so made sure that we had only 2 small suitcases and 1 ruck-sack (for carry-on) amongst all of us. This paid off as we were able to move around easily in BOM and at the airports.

BLR airport has a "left" and a "right" entrance gate and the one on the left is used by IC/IT and G8. We'd reached suitably early as I'd heard horror stories about the queues at the airport. There was a long snaking queue for the baggage XRay (the queue is outside the airport!), and once we were done with the Baggage XRay - we made our way to the check-in counters.

The one great thing about G8 is that they let their passengers choose their seats online (during the booking process). Sure enough, those seats were reserved for us, and we were soon checked in. The ground staff was extremely friendly and were quite surprised to see that we had only about 30Kgs of luggage for a family of 4.

After the check-in, we went upstairs to the "lounge" at BLR airport. Needless to say it was jam-packed and we had to wait about 10 minutes for a table to open up, and even then we had to share the 4 seater table with another person!

After some refreshments at the lounge, we made our way down to see a long queue for security check. We had plenty of creams/lotions/medicines etc. in the carry on rucksack (and a knife for cutting fruits as well!), but the CISF guys could not be bothered. In addition, I'd decided to carry my Air band radio with me on this trip, and I was uncertain on how the security would react, but they did not notice it, or did not care about it!

So we then reached the gate area where we were told the flight was delayed by about 30 minutes. Great - so additional waiting now on the ground Luckily the kids were fine and so I spent time listening to the ground movement, and the kids spent time running around. I took some pictures of the Departure gates area in BLR.

Note: Click on the pictures, if you'd like to view a larger version.


Boarding gate


A blurred picture of our a/c.


Random boarding gates


Cookie Man outlet and an ad talking about IT's network!


Deserted clothes shop!


All flights delayed


Relaxed CISF staff - not strictly enforcing any of the carry on rules.


One more empty shop - this one selling jewellery.


Sign that BLR airport is now a modern fancy airport - a kiosk selling Wireless internet access - quite reasonly priced.


Queue to board - probably our flight.


Final level of security checks - another meaningless Indian airport trait.


Picture of VT-WAA - taken while walking to board our plane - I like this shot.


Randon 9W 737 on the apron - parked on Bay 6.


GoAir ground staff tearing away the counterfoil. That's my son and wife (and the rucksack), daughter was in my arm while I took that pic. We chose to board the last, as we did not have much carry on luggage, and I'd also asked the ground staff and they'd told me the flight was quite light.

I got yelled at by the GoAir staff - stating that "We don't allow pictures of our aircraft to be taken". I did not want to argue, so said -"Oh OK" and put the camera away.


Random Apron shot while on board.

Once I boarded, I made sure to put on my ATC receiver, so I was able to hear the captain request pushback and the entire set of taxi instructions on ground.


Taken during pushback, before we turned east.

Soon we were taxi-ing towards Runway 09 - we were told to take taxi-track W1. There was a steady stream of landing a/c, and ATC seemed to be providing sufficient spacing. We had to wait for 1-2 arrivals, and then it was our turn to backtrack/turn around and head off to a rolling start. It was a very fast takeoff roll - less than 30 seconds.

Soon we had turned left on our way to BOM, but that's where I noticed something strange! My ATC receiver was now more or less unable to pick up the ground transmissions, and was picking up only our own pilot's transmissions. I was quite surprised, as I did not expect any difficulty in picking up the ATC transmissions while in the air (after all the a/c has no difficulty), but I soon put off the receiver and focussed on the family


Shot of the interiors. Once again one of the stewards told me they don't allow photography on board GoAir, and I was like "yeah? OK".

Soon they came around with the food/drinks trolleys, where water was free, and food was available to be bought at reasonable prices. We'd packed our food from home, so we did not buy anything on this sector.

In about an hour we could make out the plane had started it's descent, and we were soon on the ground making our way to a remote gate at BOM domestic airport.


Picture of our a/c after deplaning at BOM


GoAir bus to ferry us to the terminal


Shot of the nose gear of VT-WAA from our bus


Another pictures of our a/c


And another


Baggage claim area - quite decent (compared to BLR!).

Soon our bags were reclaimed and we were on our way to be scammed by a cabbie - but that's another story altogether!

All in all - a very nice flight.

I'll post the second half a little later.

[the_380]

Nice report nimish. Looks nice with the pics. Awaiting next part. by the way guess you need to be more sly in clicking images
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http://www.myspace.com/avsatsworld
A Walt Disney and 20th Century Fox Audio Producer!!!

[HAWK21M]

Nice Pics.Great report Nimish.Very welll illustrated.

regds
MEL
_________________
Think of the Brighter side !!!

[Nimish]

[Nimish]

After a hectic week in Bombay and Surat, it was time to return to Bangalore. We took the morning train (Karnavati express) from Surat to Bombay, and got down at the Borivali station. Took a rick from there to the airport (about Rs. 120 AFAIK) and reached the airport at about 1 pm for a 5 pm flight.

Since we had plenty of time (and checkin was going to start only at 3 pm), we decided to go to a lounge at BOM's 1A departure's terminal. However, it turned out that the lounge has stopped accepting Visa gold/platinum cards (for complementary lounge access), and accepts only Mastercard gold/plat cards. And both me and my wife had left our Mastercard gold cards at home (since we don't use that card on a regular basis)! So we then trooped out of the lounge (no point paying Rs 400 for a pint (330 ml) of beer or Rs 150 for a coke), and found some recliner sofas/beds to the far left of the terminal. We managed to find 3 empty seats next to each other, so parked ourselves there for the next 2-3 hours.

Here we noticed one of the problems with BOM's 1A terminal, there's no easy way to come from arrivals (ground floor) to the departures level (2nd floor). there's lift, but it's really tiny (can barely take one luggage trolley at a time) and quite slow. So we saw this steady stream of British tourists walk past us as they got out of the lift one at a time! They seemed to have arrived from a flight from the UK, and were flying IC/IT to sunny places like GOI/COK etc.

There was a decent snack bar in the area, and a "Lipton" tea stall (nice sugar-less Yellow label tea (teabag) for Rs. 4.5/-) as well - both of which were sufficient to keep us busy for a while. My son had bought a (football sized) ball and managed to find some co-passengers who were happy to play with him.

Soon it was 3 pm, and my daughter and I strolled up to the check-in counter to find if it had opened up for BLR (they have notices on each counter for the city being served, but no notices for BLR as yet). It turned out that check-in had started for BLR, so my kids and I then brought our bags over to checkin. We'd pre-reserved seats 7DEF, but I had a change of heart and wanted seats on the ABC side so I could see my apartment while landing in BLR. The check-in girl was friendly and issued seats 25ABC instead of our existing 7DEF. This time I was not asked for an ID proof, plus she checked all 4 of us in without my wife being there (and without actually seeing the kids - as they were running around).

After check-in it was back to waiting on the sofas, until we got bored and decided to move to the gate area post security check. Security check was quick and brief (once again a knife and various liquids made it through, of course my ATC receiver as well), and we wound our way to gate 7. Once I reached there I decided to switch on my ATC receiver as I wanted to check where our inbound a/c was. It turned out that my rechargeable batteries were discharged by this time & I was unable to turn the radio on. I then decided to try and buy 2 AA cells - so walked out of the security area and went back to the check-in area. The first book shop there luckily had a supply of AA cells, so I bought 2 and put one in each shoe, and sailed past the security check (the shopkeeper had told me that they will not allow me to take the batteries past security, hence I had to try and sneak them past). Just goes to show how lax and shoddy the Indian security really is (compared with the US system where it's far more strict and you're actually checked from head to toe).

Once back in, it turned out our a/c had landed but was now being sent to a remote gate (instead of the aerobridge we were waiting at). Soon they announced the gate change, and so everyone trooped over to the new gate (Gate 10?). We had a good view of the ground from that gate and here are some pictures.

Once again - click on the pictures if you want a larger view.


Random 9W 737 on the apron - taken from the area just past the security check.


Our bus once again!


Our new gate


VT-EYB after pushback


VT-EYB once again


And again

After a while, boarding for our flight was finally announced. I think this was about an hour after the scheduled time. As expected, there was a long/mad queue for the bus, and we decided to hold on until the queue had kind of wound up. Luckily with 3-4 buses deployed, that did not take long, and soon we were on our way to our a/c. My son had already asked the ground staff which color the a/c would be - so we knew that we were expecting to be on the Orange a/c.

Once we reached the a/c there was queue for boarding, and here I took out my camera to click a few pictures. After clicking one or two pictures, one of the GoAir Ground staff came to me and asked me not to use the cameras as "photography is not allowed in BOM". At this stage I asked him if he was aware that BOM is not a defence airport and that the DGCA has explicitly allowed photography at BOM 2 years ago. He was clearly aware of the rule, but acted surprised and then slunk away.


VT-WAB - Orange GoAir 320 - our ship for the return sector BOM-BLR


Another shot of VT-WAB


A close up of the nose landing gear.

Click here for the DGCA registration page for this aircraft (VT-WAB)

Click here for the DGCA registration page for the a/c on my outbound BLR-BOM sector (VT-WAA)

Soon we were boarded and in our seats. The a/c was not too full, and there were a couple of empty seats around (luckily a few in front of us, so the kids did not bother anyone when they banged on the seats in front).

The service routine was almost identical to our outbound sector, except that we bought a snack box this time. As mentioned earlier - it cost Rs. 60 and had 2 cheese sandwiches (kids ate them), 1 samosa (wife ate that), and 2 chocolate chip cookies (which I ate!). Water was available at no charge (very cute curvaceous 200 ml bottles - a brand called Aava), and service was with a smile. Of course a cranky guy sitting behind us wanted to know why the airline was not offering food for free given how expensive his ticket was! Unfortunately the stewardess tried to answer/convince the guy (never a winning battle), but she quickly realized it was pointless and asked the guy "Would you like to buy a snack box, we don't offer free snacks irrespective of the fare you paid. Please send a suggestion to GoAir if you'd like to suggest a change in that policy", and that was the end of it.

As always barely any ATC tranmissions received when in the air. Even almost about to land at BLR (where I'm 100% sure of the frequencies) and I did not hear any of the instructions to our a/c!.

Landing was smooth, though by now 1.5 hours late. We landed on runway 09, and were told to exit on E2, and proceed to Apron 2, Bay 2. On the way there I saw Apron 5 (new apron at BLR) and was surprised to find it was so huge (can take 6 a/c).

Baggage claim at BLR was a mess, and there was no one from GoAir to tell us which belt the bags would arrive at. But we eventually figured it out, collected our bags and made our way out the profusion of touts/taxi cabs and to our waiting car.

Felt good to be back home...

On the whole I was very impressed with GoAir - and have listed out the reasons in an earlier post on this thread. I will definitely give GoAir an edge over both DN and SG (I haven't tried Indigo yet - so no comments on that).

Comments/feedback is welcome - and a warm welcome to readers coming over from airliners.net!

[the_380]

Nice TR Nimish. Btw had i been in town then i could have easily met u. Next time maybe.
Nice pics. Upload the rest to MyAviation too (or have you?)

[malQ]

To add to this trip report, I too flew Go Air DEL-PNQ earlier on 9th late evening, and found it to be a pleasant surprise. Rate it way above DN, better than SpiceJet on seating space and below Indigo in quality of aircraft.

Also, something was very wrong with air quality before landing, and that is where Indigo scores again everytime. New A-320 with ozone filters, if you wish to research, and better carpet/upholstery cleaning.

Anyways, had the same "no photography" announcement, so presented the cabin crew with a copy of the DGCA circular and snapped the food. Placing on airliners-india flickr soon. Sorry, no shots of the plane, terrible mist at DEL and no can do at PNQ.

On ticket price, I bought the ticket at about3:50pm on 9th, when prices with departure times for the DEL/PNQ sector were:-

9W/1900/Rs 7110.oo
G8/1950/Rs 3500.oo
IT/2110/Rs 8000.oo

For my 3500.oo, I also managed 13-F which is the emergency window legspace recline, seems many people don't use the seat assignment option while buying. Flight was about 70% full.

In brief - GoAir needs to keep their airplanes cleaner inside. That it was on the last flight of the day is no excuse.

Food:- the snack box at 60/- works, it fills a hole, but the samosa was indeed venerable wizened and small with age. The can of Mirinda costs 30/- versus 20/- on Indigo.

Hope this adds value to the Trip Report.

[Nimish]