I only fly through King Fisher once...in two planes...I mean connection flight (Dubai-Bangalore-Cochin), that too, some two years back.
My priority on selection of flight is very clear. I will go by the cheapest unless the cheapest one is not the weakest one. Even when my company pays for the ticket, I don’t want to spend on luxury, say I will not pay amounts like Rs 10, 000/- to just avoid a wait of 3 hours in a transit port or say a Chicken Biryiyani in the plane or to supply drinks to others on my expense. Then yes, punctuality does matter. The type of flights and the treatment by the crew does matter.
I searched through an online website and found that time that King Fisher has the cheapest spot ticket and booked immediately. Few hours wait in Bangalore I can afford, no problem. All set, ready for the flight.
There had no hurdle in check in at Dubai. There had a supervisory staff in the King Fisher counter who was attending all the issues with fast decisions. I felt wow! I checked with them, whether we have to check out the luggage at Bangalore. She said no need; the luggage will be automatically transferred. I thought that is fine.
Welcome board. The flight was little cumbersome for an international flight. The passages were too small for people to pass. All the air hostess were wafer thin but even they were finding difficult to walk without giving shocks to seated passengers. Once seated there is not much of entertainment in the fight and I was just engaged in observing passengers and the crew. ’Attitude’ is written on the heads of most of the air hostess. Pleasantness is missing with most of them and I felt they must have had a cabin fight before the flight. There was one passenger sitting little sideways to the walkway giving some space to the lady passenger sitting in the other seat and I could see that the air hostess near to shouting request to seat ’properly’. I had great fun observing the poor guy sitting from there on. He cannot move to the other side where the fat lady was comfortably using some extra space to his seat and he cannot move to the sideways, fearing another humiliation. We cannot blame the air hostess as well where the space is just enough for one person’s passage and if one sit little sideways the way is half blocked. Then....the problem is that the same thing could have been told with a better ’attitude’ like in many other airlines. This was not a single incident but many miner incidents like this helped me to form an opinion about them. Definitely King fisher staff is not the best trained, at least for international flights.
Ok, the food was typical Karnataka food. Nothing special! I am not a foodie and any food is ok for me. So no extra bonuses on that account!
Once landed in Bangalore, we were requested to checkout our luggage. We complain, saying we were told that the luggage was promised to shift directly without checkout. We got the immediate reply; ’they must have told hundred things, but now you have to check out your luggage’. Since there is no other choice we checked out our luggage and waited with luggage to check in it with the domestic passengers later in the morning.
Waiting in the queue for check in, it took some long time to reach to the counter. Oh, the luggage weight is more than 20 KG as mentioned in the ticket, some stupid counter staff told. We said, we are transit passengers and while traveling from Dubai 40 KG is permitted. Some supervisor came and said ok. Then they started checking the luggage and found an electric stove. ’Sir, this is breakable on flight and we have to mark it as breakable seal in it.’ ’Ok. Go ahead’ ’Sir, you have to fill up a form to that affect.’ ’Why?’ ’Because if something happened to the luggage, we are not responsible.’ ’Then who is responsible?’ ’You are responsible sir.’ ’Why am I responsible? If the luggage can come all the way from Dubai to Bangalore without a breakable label and without signing any responsibility agreement, why not from Bangalore to Cochin?’ ’Sorry sir, there is no option for you, if you don’t sign the paper, the luggage will not be taken to Cochin from here.’ ’Is this the way you deal with all transit passengers?’ ’Yes sir, this is our standard policy.’ I felt that is pretty cool. ’Then, why you have ticked the damaged column where this is a new product and not damaged?’ ’That is to indemnify the airline sir and sir, lot of passengers are waiting and you have to fill the form or you will be sidelined.’ ’If you are dealing like this to everybody there will be naturally a long queue and that explains the wait we had to do.’ Some of the fellow passengers joint my sentiment but no use. Anyway the scene lasted some 15 minutes but at the end I had to heed but I did so with my special footnote that the product is not damaged and the goods are in good shape while giving the airline.
Since I am only used to fly by international airlines, naturally I was little scary when we were guided to walk to the big bus err...small plane parked in the corner. I am not comfortable with climbing upright ladders and when I was asked to climb I was little scary, that too with the hand luggage. I accumulated all the courage and managed to climb and once entered the plane, it was like...Oh yes, I did it! I did it!! Now I know why they were asking us to sign all those indemnity papers for the luggage. There is no surety that the luggage will reach safely to Cochin. For one moment I thought, then what about the breakable human bodies? I started calling all the Gods known and forgotten once the small plane started its flight. I tried to hold the plane body so that it will not fly away. If there was an insurance agent in the flight, I would have joined one policy immediately for a big amount.
Then, the scenes from outside simply overthrown me. We were flying very low and more than half of the way we were flying through thick white jungle of clouds...as if you are flying through heavenly jungles. That was the best consolation we could get and used best use of it. The flight attendants had better attitude and the masala dosa supplied was tasty.
Finally, when the flight landed to Cochin domestic terminal I was more relieved and ignored my lost chance to purchase from the duty free, If I had chosen a direct flight or other transit flights from Srilankan or Gulf Air. I thought of wait for another King fisher experience to find something positive but was determined I will only choose it if the fare is at least Rs.5, 000/- less than other flights. Thankfully whenever I needed, their ticket rates were much higher than other transit flights to Cochin. For international flights, if you don’t mind thin attitudes on board and if rates are cheaper and you don’t have to transit it may be ok. Flying King Fisher domestically was a single star experience, not five stars as advertised!!