Friday late evening my X boss calls me up and asks me what am I doing on Saturday, as usual its an off and I will not be sleeping whole day otherwise I will have nothing to do in the night. I tell him the same, next thing he asks me is - will I mind being in Bangalore for about 1 hour, I was like - Shock Horror Why Not?? I have a couple of friends to touch base with and it’s been years since I really had drought beer in any of the bars. I agree to the proposal than and there.
Now the big question is - In such a short notice how can I go there by the morning and come back by the evening - that ways I shud not bother my wifey darling that I shall be out for the weekend and there would be no outing for her?? As I need to do this favor to my X Boss.
I literally tried almost all the airlines, First Choice Jet was full to the capacity, no way that they will let me stand in the flight, Kingfisher (I was drooling with the idea) but my luck was having a hard time, Indian is way too expensive, Spice jet doesn’t goes to B’lore from where I am, So I am left with the last option to Fly Deccan Air.
I am already afraid in flying with them since some of my close friends had real bad experiences, One’s he got a broken chair, the other one had a broken tray, third one got his ticket refunded due to the non availability of the plane.
I thought - WOW - it wud be a fun (Read Adventurous) experience atleast flying with Deccan if something of that sort happens with me too, as that ways I will get a reason to not to reccoo Deccan.
Finally - I logon to their website - https://airdeccan.net - check the availability - which is like surprising to see the available flight right after 7 hours from the booking time, select the return flight as well, pay for them from my credit card, a little more than 7K for return fair and I am ready to fly with that one page printout.
Next day morning - walk-in to the airport with that one page print out and nobody stops me on the gate as I expected - straight to check in counter and there that guy gives me a boarding pass which looks more like a lottery ticket than a boarding pass, he asks me about my luggage and surprisingly all I am carrying is a neatly folded pocket hand bag. He smiles and hands me over a sticker for the same.
There I am told to wait till they start the security check, the flight is scheduled at 7.55 AM from Hyderabad and there is no announcement till 7.40, I am a little surprised but finally they announce, we start crawling to the check in counter where I am made to drool yet again by the Kingfisher staff doing their security checking things. I would love to carry a bomb so that they can fiddle with me 10 times to get that out, Finally we are put on a bus which takes us to the aircraft and trust me when I say so - that the moment I saw the plane, Good Heavens, I said it loud to the guy next to me that ’’I am sure this plane will not take us to Bangalore’’ and he being a regular on Deccan (A sardar in late 30’s says - Sirji Udega to pahuncha bhi dega) - IF THIS THING TAKES OFF - IT WILL DEFINITELY TAKE US TO BANGALORE).
I am the first one in the queue to get inside the plane which is no bigger than a 2 by 2 mini bus. But the site was too good to explain, its an ATR Aircraft - quite smaller in size, It was quite Hilarious to see the Engines of both the sides opened up and engineers were doing something - vigorously trying to fix up something so that it flies, two guys were pumping some water kindda stuff on the back of the plane and in the process were spilling the same on the cemented floor too.
Irrespective of what was going outside - the Airhostess Wrapped in a Grey outfit from her neck to the toe (I am not comparing her with KF Air Hostesses) was giving a warm smile on humid summer morning with a typical Indian ’’Good Morning Sir’’ and We get in, I happily take the seat nearer to the wing so that I am the first to know when is the moment that I have to grab that Para shoot and jump out of the emergency exit.
5 Minutes and all the hussle bussle about taking seats and all is over as they announce the free seating, so you get to sit on the seat you choose till they last. Finally they announce that everybody is onboard and we are ready to fly, 49 passengers + 5 Crew members that makes it 54 and one Rat which I believe none other than me had seen, Sardarji couldn’t agree to it and hence I didn’t argue with him as well.
Finally after a lot of rattling and noising the engines get started and I can see the moving blades from the window. It starts moving on the run way and they announce a further delay of 5 minutes due to the huge traffic and I can see that they give way to a Jet Airways Boeing to take off first. We are second in the queue. The take off was quite smooth, far better than my expectations, but the noise inside the cabin is way too high than I expected.
Seats were pretty comfortable for me at least, Air Conditioning is good but at times I felt like the Guy flying plane was playing with the switch as if in the process was saving some fuel.
The best part is - as we stay quite near the Hyd Airport and West Side take offs go right above our apartment - I can literally see the roof of our apartment but do fail to see wifey darling waving at me as she claimed she did - I doubt that she was asleep while I was fighting for my life inside that mini plane - this being a small plane it doesn’t goes that high and the land is still clearly visible from up above, Although I being so poor in Geography cant make out as what area we were flying, till I see the HAL Airport of B’lore.
It flies for about an hour and suddenly starts shaking, and the sweet hostess announces the bad weather, I can’t see anything bad outside the window but plane does rocks that remind me of swings I used to sit in with my dad when I was a kid - its fun. Finally it lands safely in B’lore and I am off to the things I came in here for.
There is nothing like something in-flight menu, you’ve got to buy whatever you want to have. Everything is OK types, 10/- bucks for a half litre water bottle, 40/- bucks for a sandwich, 20/- bucks for a cold drink, and you can have some other goods too those are for sale - check out the catalogue and buy them while the plane flies.
Staff is very helpful and during their all the flights they do give the training of how to wear those emergency things while crashing and drowning - very well. They did announced that as per the new air policies of Govt of India - taking photographs Inside the airplane as well as in the airport is allowed until and unless its not a defense airport. Darn I forgot to pick my cam up hence no pics to post this time.
Customer care is also very helpful types as I called them up in the dead of the night in Hyderabad and asked them ’’How much cash can I carry during my return journey’’ and they in place connected me to B’lore airport and told me that they are not bothered as far as I take the responsibility of the thing myself and will not carry the same in Luggage - I will have to carry it in my hand bag.
Return flight was also good - we started on time and reached right on time, 5 minutes here and there - I don’t care as far as I am safe and sound.
I will not mind flying again with them, but will look forward to go Kingfisher way first (Drool drool drool).
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