I flew Air Deccan from Hyderabad to Kolkata. On the whole the experience was bad.
I had my ticket booked about 20 days in advance. The day before I had to travel, I got a call from air deccan saying that my ticket has been cancelled. Cancelled? How is that possible? The ticket was with me. The original ticket!!! They told me that a person first cancelled the ticket on phone using my name and PNR. Ok, thats understandable. Maybe he hacked the computers and got that. Or maybe an official was careless with guarding the information. Now read this. They then told me that the person came and collected the refund!!!!!!!!! Now, how would you pay refund to a person not having the ticket????? Does this not mean that the staff of air deccan generated a duplicate ticket? Or would they give refund to anybody who walks in? Beats me!!!
Ok, after many phone calls, both local and STD (real loud ones), they agreed that they were careless and said they would fly me. I thanked god, because reaching Kolkata was very important to me. But now came the next shock. They told me that the flight was rescheduled. The flight (scheduled to leave at 7:30 in the morning) would leave at 9 in the night!!!! We told them that it wouldnt serve my purpose. Then they said that I could fly the previous night. (The flight scheduled for 7:30 am the previous day was rescheduled to 9 pm on that day!!!!!). Now since that was the best option I had, I said ok.
I went to the airport at around 8. My luggage was checked in and my boarding pass issued. Now I was feeling relaxed.
This feeling of relaxation lasted till I got into the security hold. The scene there was ugly. The irate passengers who were supposed to leave that morning were just informed of a further delay. They were ready to beat the officials up!!! Believe me, the fury was something I could never imagine. The staff were lucky that their bones were intact that day. The cops there told me that this scene took place all the time and they that they were used to it. Finally there was an announcement that the flight would leave at around 9.
We were taken to the aircraft in a bus as there was no aerobridge for this plane. No problems. That was nothing to complain about. The aircraft (an A320) looked good. It was very young and looking bright. Even the interiors were quite nice. For about an hour and a half it felt good. The air hostesses were nice to the passengers. Though it was quite awkward that we were paying cash to get stuff, I was still quite happy with the service.
When we started to descend, the cabin pressure was unusually high. I dont know if thats common, because I had flown only twice before (on Indian Airlines), but I had never experienced anything like that. My ears are still hurting because of that. The pressure was so high that the Aquafina water bottle I had in my hand started to deform. A few of my friends who flew deccan also told me about this.
Finally I spent the night in the airport in Kolkata, as I did not consider it safe to go out into the city at midnight.
Thats how my story goes. If anyone working for air deccan is reading this, please do not get offended. Passengers are human beings, not boxes of cargo.
A suggestion for those who plan ahead and have their plans confirmed. You can get some real cheap fares on makemytrip.com. I booked a ticket on sahara through this site and believe me, it was cheaper than deccan. But.... YOU SHOULD BE CERTAIN ABOUT TRAVELLING. Unfortunately I had to cancel this sahara ticket and it cost me something like Rs.750.