Mar 05, 2007 02:11 PM
3834 Views
I have been a frequent flier of Air Deccan but not someone enrolled in their Superflier program as that is not a scheme worth enrolling for.! I flew Air Deccan every month up and down on a business trip to Coimbatore. To summarize my experiences, I have never hand one single uneventful flight.!
Well, you only get what you pay for. But you get that after a lot of trouble.! You pay for a good flight from your source to destination but you get that only after long hours of waiting, losing sleep and patience. They claim 97% to 99.5% on time flying and I wonder why I am always a passenger in their 0.5% to 3% which is missing their on-time. I really wonder what they call on-time - the scheduled time or the re-scheduled time or the re-re-scheduled time and missing even taking off rightly by that time.!
There was an incident worth recalling here. I was flying back to Bangalore from Coimbatore. My flight was scheduled at 8:40 PM. All passengers of the flight cleared security check and were waiting for the boarding call by 8:20 PM. There was an announcement that the flight from Chennai which flies back to Bangalore has arrived.! Well, after that we kept waiting and waiting until 9:20 PM and there were no signs of departure nor any announcement made when it would take off.! Someone from Air Deccan walked into the security area and one of the passengers caught hold of him and questioned when the flight is scheduled to take off. His reply was "Please wait sir, there is a technical snag. A spanner is missing and has to come from Chennai.! " Finally at around 9:45 PM, an announcement was made that the flight was cancelled. Passengers can either collect their refund or reschedule to any other Air Deccan flight the next day. There was a lot of discomfort caused to the passengers but there was no obvious regret felt when you look at the Air Deccan staff. No arrangements for dinner, stay or at least travel back to the city. I had to make my own arrangements to go back to the city, find a hotel, settle down(it was well past midnight by then) and wake up again at 4:30 a.m. in the morning to make myself available at the airport for their flight at 7:00 AM.!
Another incident of damaged baggage.! I had checked in my trolley suitcase. I asked the airline staff if it was okay to put my laptop inside with its leather bag inside the suitcase. They said it is safe and they would put in a'fragile' tag to handle it carefully. I took extra care to see that my laptop was packed around tightly with my clothes so that it would not feel any impact. This was done in Bangalore. When I alighted at Coimbatore, to my horror I found that the bag was damaged. The Coimbatore staff did not seem to take notice of any of my requests. They asked me to carry the damaged luggage in and out of the airport a couple of times and shuttle between counters as they did not know who should attend to this and how. Finally, I was given an acknowledgement and was told that someone would call me. Well, it is another story that I had to make a number of calls to find out if anything is being done to replace the suitcase. I had to purchase another suitcase in Coimbatore to carry all my luggage. I also had to carry the damaged one to give a proof to the Bangalore staff who would attend to this. It took close to 3 months before I got a nominal refund of Rs. 700/- which I claimed.
Yet another time, we boarded on time and landed on time to my surprise. But this time, the horror story started after we landed in Bangalore airport. There were no buses to take us to the terminus from where the plane was parked.! It was 10 PM and we were locked inside the aeroplane - no lights - no AC - but plenty of mosquitoes - God knows from where they came into the aeroplane.! Kids and infants started screaming. This went on for up to 30 minutes until we realized how it would feel to be captivated for a life term in a prison.! This was much better and you paid a price for this experience.!
Long Live Air Deccan.! Let its dream of flying every Indian come true - I only wish by that time Indians don't get averse to flying and prefer Railways as the experience is more or less similar.!
