Hello !If you look at other reviews here about JetLite, you might don’t want to fly on it. Most reviews here state that JetLite is bad. But I have had nice experience with it, its not that bad.I took Delhi-Pune JetLite S2-131 on 19th December 2010.
I had no other choice while booking because IndiGo, Kingfisher and others were way too much costly. I paid 3200 INR per person on JetLite, which was lowest one at time time, around 4th November, the booking date. It was my return flight to home from a trip with my Grandparents.
Even I was concerned about JetLite after reading all reviews here. I asked few frequent travelers. I agree, JetLite is not as well performing as IndiGo or Kingfisher, but its not bad. Good thing is JetLite has privilege of checking at new Terminal 3 at Indira Gandhi Airport, Delhi.
Because its India’s premier airline. I really enjoyed experience at T3. T3 is well designed to avoid crowds and let passenger enjoy world class services. Check In counters were not crowded at all. Scheduled departure of flight was 16:15. I managed to reach T3 by 13:00 so that I can explore it.
Check In took no more than 5 minutes. T3 is really enormous. We had plenty of time to explore shops and food court. Around 15:30, we reached Gate 39B from where we were supposed to get in plane. It is easy to get to the gates by escalators.
They started boarding at 13:55, good thing is we directly got into plane through gates. No buses or walking ! As JetLite is connecting for some international travelers, it waited a little bit at gate. We were supposed to leave gate at scheduled 14:15 but there was 20 minutes delay.
I wonder why many people had cabin baggae only that day, crew had some issues to pack all bags in overhead compartments, but they managed it.We pushed back at gate at 14:35, took another 2 minutes to reach on Taxi Way where they started engines. Another 5 minutes to get on runway and clearance. We were in the air at 14:45. It was Boeing 737, from Jet Airways fleet.
May be JetLite fleet was not available at that time. I don’t remember the version of 737, but it was having capacity of around 149 passengers. Plane was clean and fresh. Not much new, little bit older and well used. At times, we were hearing strange grinding noise, may be of fuel pump or something.
Weather was not so good. It was cloudy at some places, and we experienced turbulence for about 10 minutes. Rest part was smooth. On board food was okay. We just had Coffee. It was something Do Your Self Coffee by mixing cream milk, and other sachets.
Cookies with coffee were nicely baked. They also provided free mineral water in glass upon request. Crew was quite qualified and well working. Captain made nice announcement and provided few details about weather. He also apologized about the delay.In the end part, tale wind helped to cut the time.
We landed in Pune at sharp 18:40, scheduled arrival. Took 10 minutes more to get in Terminal and next 5 minutes to get bags on belt. I would say go for JetLite if it is providing you less fare than others on specific date you want to fly.
Do not wonder if there is delay of 10-20 minutes.