Wow, awesome.
I mean, they serve Baskin Robbins ice-cream on the flight – it’s really cool.
And that box of assorted toffees that they gave us when we were checking-in was too good.
That meal was the best I have had in a million zillion years.
And all those smart looking uncles and aunties kept asking if we needed anything else – that was too cool.
I had my own set of headphones and could listen to music on the plane – I have never been able to do that before.
If all of that sounded like I have suddenly regressed into childhood again, that’s because I was merely putting on record our “addicted to Nickolodeon” 9-year-old son’s comments on an Air Sahara flight experience. An experienced air-traveller – he has flown atleast 9 flights (and that includes Indian Airlines, Jet Airways and Jagson [didn’t know that one existed ? – read my review on the same]). If he had written the review on this site, that is what it would have looked like. And for once, I will take “You write like a 9 year old” as a compliment. :-)
We took a Air Sahara (AS) flight to return to Bangalore from Delhi. On this trip, we had also flown Jet Airways (JA) from Bangalore to Delhi, Indian Airlines (IA) from Delhi to Chandigarh and Jagson Airlines from Kulu to Delhi. So I am actually in a position to compare and contrast the 3 major domestic airlines operating in India.
Check-in :
Was smooth and quick; the lady at the counter knew her business. I noticed other AS staff quickly opening up another counter as soon as the queue length increased. The boarding passes were quickly dispensed, and the above-mentioned boxes of toffees handed out, with a pleasant greeting to enjoy the flight. Families with young children, I am sure, would be extremely grateful to AS for that small gesture of the toffees – these can keep children occupied while we wait to board.
On the other hand, the Indian Airlines flight was delayed by more than 2 hours, a fact that was cursorily told to us by the attendant at the IA check-in counter with no apologies whatsoever. The lady manning (wrong choice of word ?) the Jet Airlines check-in counter was happy to inform us that the flight was on time and wished us with a “Have a nice flight”.
One thing that caught my attention was the creatively designed hand baggage tag issued by Air Sahara – these are such a contrast from the standard issues of IA and JA.
Boarding :
Air Sahara is treated like a poor cousin at the Airports in India with IA and JA hogging the better facilities. But with all that, the boarding was hassle-free. The Sahara staff was extremely well trained and courteous. So was the JA Ground Crew. Cannot say the same for IA.
In flight experience
Air Sahara has an extremely young in-flight services crew – both men and women are smartly turned out and pleasant. From the welcome drink (and this was a pleasant surprise – we got raw mango juice [panna] which tasted refreshingly good after the exposure to the summer Delhi sun), to the send-off greeting and smile, they left very little to be desired.
The JA crew seemed to enjoy their jobs and went all-out to try and please their clientele. They too distributed feedback forms to be filled in, asking for customer opinions on all aspects of their flight experience and suggestions for improvement. The grouchy looking IA staff couldn’t care less.
The seats were as comfortable as they can get on domestic airlines, in the Economy section. The temperature inside the aircraft was a welcome relief from the summer Delhi heat.
The meal
The crew handed out menu cards before the actual meals were served. Although this is a fruitless exercise in the economy section (Sahara Special), I believe the Business Class, creatively referred to as Sahara Royale, have a choice of 5 cuisines – Thai, Italian, French, Chinese and Indian. Jain meals and diabetic meals are also served on request.
The food looked appetizing and tasted good too. Moreover, it was filling. JA food was nothing to write home about. The food served by IA was insipid.
In-flight entertainment
Now, this is where AS scores quite a few points over JA and of course, IA. Air Sahara runs an in-flight auction called “Bid & Win” that gives the passengers a chance to bid for some premium quality products in different categories. Catalogues and bid tickets are distributed as the flight taxies for take-off. You can choose a product that you may be interested in purchasing, fill in the bid ticket, and submit the same to the crew. Bidding starts at Rs. 50 for one category of products and Rs. 150 for another category. Midway through the journey, they announce the top 6 bidders in each category who are declared winners. The winners can collect their items at the destination airport from the Sahara counter, but need to pay in cash for the same. One nice thing about this exercise is that all the proceeds apparently go to charity.
The in-flight magazine “Xpressions” is a good time-pass magazine. Some interesting travel articles kept me engrossed during the flight. But the best in-flight magazine amongst the three airlines is the one brought out by JA – Jetwings. This has a wealth of information, good ads, a crossword, some contests and great photographs.
Air Sahara scores in another respect – they are the only domestic airline to provide several music channels on-board all of their new generation aircraft. Passengers have a choice of 4 channels – English, Hindi Pop, Instrumental and Ghazals to listen to – headphone sets are distributed after the flight has taken off.
My take
Air Sahara provides a comfortable and pleasant travel experience. Our flight took off a few minutes late but arrived on time. Just before landing at Bangalore Airport, I got chatting with one of the in-flight crew who also happened to be an Instructor at their Training School. What he told me about their training initiatives and commitment to quality left me with no doubts regarding their desire to be the best domestic airline in India. The only area where I felt that they could improve was to have the in-flight crew be a little more spontaneous – the JA crew definitely seemed to being having more fun doing their job.
Breaking news
Last month, Air Sahara won the Pacific Asia Travel Association award for their innovative schemes called Sixer and Super Sixer, enabling frequent travelers to avail of a substantial discount on fares.
Air Sahara – Emotionally yours.