I had booked my flight for today bangalore to mumbai 9:40 PM flight which reaches there by 11:15 PM.
When I informed the person who I was suppposed to meet in bombay, who happens to fly very frequently, that I am coming by this flight his reaction was, "you will land only by 4 or 5 am in the morning, not before that and Air deccan will start informing you about the delay in the morning itself".
I thought he is exaggerating as I had travelled few times by Air Deccan a year back and found them to be more or less punctual.
Indeed, he was right I got a SMS at 11 am that my flight is delayed by 1 hour! by evening it went to 1 1/2 hours and God knows when will it fly ( it’s still 10:40 pm , flight is yet to take off and I am writing this review form home as I have cancelled the flight because I donot want to bother him in peak midnight and being tired I also donot want to wake up whole of night.).
Question is , If they knew 10 hours before the flight was to take off that its going to be delyed and this happens more or less every day , why dont they add more flights to thier fleet or atleast reschedule thier schedule to match the realist timelines.I think they are over optimising the flight turn around time and dont leave enough room for incidental delays.Thier prices are not THE cheapest in market nowadays and atleast one airline , Spicejet , is able to match Air deccans price with better punctuality and service.
Only go for AirDeccan if you dont mind spending few hours at the airport for the flight to arrive which you will never know when is ’supposed’ to arrive and have the patience to put up to rude staff.
For me it’s BIG no no..................
PS: Some tips for all those who are planning to travel by Air Deccan.
Carry whatever you will need, this includes water, food, magazines, newspapers etc and sometimes cotton while in the flight.They charge for water and sometime dont even have cotton.
Dont eat the food items they sell, especially if it’s a evening flights as the snacks are uploaded once in the first flight of the day which happens to be in morning and they keep selling the same stuff till midnight.I got this information from a AirDeccan employee itself.
They dont allocate seats.So if you want to sit together in a group, be in the front of the queue at airport.
All in all , I would say plan yourself like you plan while travelling by Indian Railways - never expecting that ’Service’ will be provided to you :-).