I had the opportunity to fly Kingfisher in Chennai->Hyderabad sector in Oct 2006.With the Hype and advertisements about Kingfisher being the best airlines and with their caption "King of good times", I was very much attracted and preferred this airline.This was my second domestic flight, the only previous domestic flight I had taken was Jet in the same sector. I had flown on most international sectors though.
The first big disappointment that I faced was the fact that the flight was an ATR flight, I really hated ATR because of the previous experience I had with Jet on a similar flight, I feel very uncomfortable in an ATR because if its turbulence even in small patches of clouds and the not so smooth landing. I didnt expect Kingfisher to operate ATRs though I should have known this at the time of booking itself, It was my fault, so I cursed myself and boarded the flight.
When I was searching for my seat, an elderly gentleman was trying to arrange his handbag in the cabin above the seats, by mistake the bag fell down, the airhostess there just shrugged and gave a rude glance and put bag up again, I was shocked at the rudeness although she was neatly dressed and beautiful. There was another senior airhostess whose behaviour was decent but she was at the rear of the flight most of the time without doing much.
Then came the time to serve dinner, she served the dinner quickly and just vanished into the pilots cabin . She was going in and out of the pilot’s cabin most of the time without even listening to requests of some water or any other help from passengers. That was another shock, she cared the least about passengers or "Guests" so to say.
After an hour, the flight was hovering around hyderabad and there were thick clouds all around, all my worst fears came true, the flight was shaking violently, and the air hostess was fascinated to see all the clouds outside, and never seemed to care about any passenger requirements, she was giving big exclamations of "Wow" . I guess this was her first flight after training, and I also presume the pilots have just passed out of their training observing the way they were maneuvering the aircraft, as a passenger who travelled frequently on international sectors on most airlines like singapore, emirates, thai, delta etc in almost all the weather conditions, I really felt pathetic seeing the unprofessional way the things were being handled, there was not even an announcement from the pilot that we were going to land in a turbulent weather and this airhostess was excited and frequently going and coming out of the pilot’s cabin.
Somehow the flight landed after hovering for 10-15 min and at the end, the most relived persons were myself and the airhosetss, myself because the turbulence was over, the airhostess because the passengers have left !!!
Note: I recently flew kingfisher on Hyderabad->Bangalore sector in Dec 2007, and it was just okay, but definitely not "King of good times"