Jet Airways is literally like a whiff of fresh air in the Indian skies which were, till a few years ago the sole territories of Indian Airlines. As was the case in most other industries where the public sector corporates were lackadaisical in shoring up their service standards even after the entry of private corporates, in the airlines industry too, IA certainly did not intend to be an exception and give its “sister conerns” a bad name.
I’ve flown by Jet air about 10-12 times in the last 1 year and by IA/Alliance air maybe about half a dozen times (not my fault really, Jet did not have services on this particular sector). My opinion/comments are not without their share of arguments and here’s where I feel Jet scores over IA and its flying partner, Alliance Air...
- Terminal and Check-in counter maintenance and (wo)manning
The security as well as the staff manning the security and check-in counters are fast and efficient in their work. While I have never found myself stranded even once at Jet’s Check-in counter because of the non-availability of the concerned staff, I have personally faced 3-4 situations (all the times where I had to catch an early morning flight) where the IA counters were unmanned even when they were supposed to be open. Its a totally different matter that there were, fortunately, only about 1-2 other passengers apart from me and we were ot kept waiting for more than 5 minutes on these occasions.
- Waiting Hall facilities
I don’t have any complaints against IA on this score, really not much of a difference between their facilities and those of Jet.
- Shuttle service between the terminal and aircraft
Jet always makes it a point to provide shuttling service whereas I have always had the privilege of walking from the aircraft to the terminal building when it comes to the Nagpur airport (roughly a distance of about 100-150 meters).
- In-flight decor and provisions of news papers/magazines
I have never faced any difficulty in getting the regular and/or business newspapers/mags on Jet at any time, be it the early morning flight or the late night flight. Again, IA came up a cropper here when I was “sweetly informed” by the concerned attendants on Alliance air on more than 2 occasions that the news papers were in short supply. Would I therefore be gracious enough to control my urge to read the same till somebody else was through with it? Man, I liked the way they put it!
The leg room and space for hand baggage are ample on Jet whereas I was once requested on an Alliance Air flight (Nagpur-Mumbai) to keep my bag under the passenger seat due to lack of space in the overhead lockers, period.
- Appearance of In-flight attendants and meal service
Only a blind person would find say that the IA staff were better off in this aspect, so I’ll not comment about that but save my words for the “Meals” section. A typical meal on Jet comprises fresh fruit juice/lime soda served in a plastic tumbler and 2 items in the main course section apart from fruits and one dessert. Jet has recently changed the design and items in its cutlery (the food was always great) which makes eating a more pleasant experience. In IA/Alliance air, the fruit juice comes in the form of a tetra pak (for Gods sake!) and inspite of the contents of the pak being seemingly fit for consumption (going by the expiry date printed on it), believe me, the taste of the juice is utterly revolting to say the least and that too inspite of heeding the advice on the face of the pak which says “Shake Contents Well Before Use”. I shudder to think how it would have tasted if I had devoured it as it was. Coming to the food, its mostly decent stuff. However, on 2 occasions, the passengers sitting next to me could not have their quota of preferred food (non-veg) because there were not enough non-veg food trays on board.
The flight attendants on Jet really go out of their way to make the passengers comfortable. There was this instance when I travelled from Mumbai-Ahmedabad in July last year and I had some difficulty in locating a spare copy of the Economic Times to read. On bringing it to the notice of the attendant, she promptly materialised one for me out of thin air. A month later, I was travelling Mumbai-Bangalore and I was pleasantly surprised when the same attendant, having recognised me, came up to ask if I had a copy of the ET! Thats some service, I must say, I for one would not have expected the same to happen aboard an IA flight.
As far as my experience goes, Jet’s record of being on-time too is better than that of IA/Alliance...(unless of course, IA considers me to be jinxed)
There are many more petty things which make or break a passengers impression of the concerned service provider but they don’t really matter here because IA does not get the big things right in the first place.
Frankly writing, the lofty service standards set by Jet Air leave IA and Alliance air somewhere on the ground below(or probably below that too). I have been told that their service standards are on par with and in some cases better than those of International carriers. Every employee of Jet strives to ensure that passengers do not face any kind of discomfort right from the time they step into the terminal till the time they get out of it at the other end. They really stick to their motto - ’’The joy of flying.’’
Given a choice, I would have given Jet a rating of 10 in place of the customary 5, unfortunately, I can’t.
Keep Jetting...Jet Air.