Air Dhakkan Woes!. Review on Simplifly Deccan

Against my better judgement, I was compelled to book an Air Deccan flight from Bangalore to Goa. I'd been warned by fellow colleagues and well-wishers against opting for this particular carrier, as they have a tendency to cancel flights at the last moment (if underbooked), without assigning any reason whatsoever. But, as they say, nothing ventured, nothing won... I decided to try my luck. I've flown SpiceJet before umpteen times, and my experience has always been encouraging, considering that it's a low cost carrier. On one occasion they even flew an aircraft all the way from Jammu to Delhi, as the scheduled flight developed some technical snag (but, that's a story for another day...)

Coming back to Deccan, personal reasons compelled me to reshedule my flight by a day. First, I tried on their website. Slooooow! Even with a broadband connection. When eventually, it did load, the reschedule link went right up to the payment page, before throwing up a server error. Repeated the process thrice, same result. Calling up the helpline resulted in a disconnection 2 minutes into the call. What the heck, I decided to hotfoot it to the airport and book at the counter. Surprise... there's a queue longer than the one in Goa for the 3rd India England ODI. 3 booking counters, and only one occupied. And the one occupied had a disgrunted would-be passenger trading unprintable obscenities with the booking clerk. Apparently, he (the would-be passenger) had booked a 9:15 Bangalore - Chennai flight over their helpline, whereas the idiot attending the helpline issued a 7:40 Bangalore - Chennai ticket. The poor passenger realised the error only upon reaching the airport, moments after the 7:40 flight departed. And Deccan was not neither willing to issue a refund, nor accomodate the passenger on the next available flight, considering that the error occurred on their part. To make matters worse, the passenger was not allowing anyone else to conduct their business over the counter, until his case was settled.

Finally, I did manage to get through the helpline, did my rescheduling after confirming that seats were available, and that the flight was on time. I'm standing just outside the Bangalore terminus at the time of rescheduling. Moments later, when I walk inside, the crew at the check-in counter surlily informs me that the Bangalore-Goa flight's late.... no reason assigned. As usual, the senior management was not contactable for details. They didn't even know whether the flight would take off or not... status would be available only after a few hours. Alright, I decided to wait at the airport... 1 hour, 2 hours, and no status. Contrast this with the overhead display showing DN 305 GOA 14:10 ON TIME. I've never felt more frustrated... not knowing whether to cancel (a cancellation at this point would not refund me any money) or hold onto whatever little hope I had of getting to Goa (the last flight to Goa, i.e. Indian Airlines departs at 15:45)

Fortunately, hope came in the form of a Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court. He had a hearing to attend in Goa on the following day, and was flying Air Deccan. He too had waited patiently, and finally at 15:30, had run out of patience, threatened the Deccan ground crew, and then their senior management with dire consequences. That got things rolling... within minutes, they announced departure at 16:45, and an apology for the delay. Ultimately, the flight did take off at 17:30, with a rickety ATR that had seen better days, a pilot looking like he was just roused from a sound sleep, a grouchy airhostess (probably coerced into an extra flight), no food or water, no airconditioning (we were sweating throughout the duration of flight), and boarding inside the service hanger??? They actually drove us about 1km from the departure terminus into a semi-circular domed hanger, where we boarded the aircraft. Even better was the SMS received long after we arrived in Goa (around 20:00) that the flight had been delayed.

Well, to conclude a long story, I'm never flying Deccan again, even if offered a ride for free. I'd prefer taking a Bangalore-Mumbai-Goa roundabaout with SpiceJet rather than fly Deccan henceforth. And dear Capt. Gopinath, if you're reading this, I've one suggestion... rename yourselves to Air Dhakkan, 'cause that's all your airline boils down to.