The numerous reviews on MS have captured the essence of Air Deccan pretty well. In the review below, I have tried to present some feedback that may help you travel better and perhaps shake Air Deccan (AD) out of its complacency.
Overall, I agree that the airline is a great concept and a much needed respite to the Indian traveller. There are negatives too at this growing stage, that must not scare you away. In a word, we can compare their service to the corner grocer-shop—you go there for basic daily needs, not for a mall kind of shopping experience! On the other hand, today we have malls even for buying vegetables that offer great ambience and royal treatment.
With their zero jhik jhik service at same cost , they ring the death-knell for nukkad grocer shops.
After all, one cannot rule on the ’’low cost’’ card forever!
This is something that may apply to AD as well. Despite a host of pluses, like being the first-mover in mass-flying in India and pioneering e-ticketing, it suffers from a babu attitude that ’’low’’ is ’’lowly’’.
Here’s my experience at the “Air Dukan”:
Throwing your weight around -- The pricing of AD must be well understood. While the upfront ticket fare is low, they make up the difference in virtually everything else. Baggage limits are lower and Extra baggage is Rs.40 per KG. Count on AD to extract every penny from you, down to the last gram. So anyone planning a shopping binge beware of AD on the return journey!! Since Jet etc allow more weight, the fare difference evens out if you carry about 25Kg extra.
The backdoor price war -- This one’s an example from my recent travails to Mumbai. Since the Airline is growing, flight times and frequency keep changing. Few weeks after booking the ticket, they changed Blr-Mum flight time to later. At the same time they added a morning flight. Since the new time was not convenient for me, I asked a change to the morning flight. Being a new flight, that day’s Internet fares were substantially lower than what I had paid earlier. However, their rules don’t allow us to benefit from the difference. Moreover, we have to pay cancel and rebooking charges as well. So they earn thrice on something that is actually their mistake. What irked me was their attitude towards disruption caused to passenger due to flight-delay-- made me feel like a general compartment traveller...
A nick in time -- The flight timings are very uncertain. Since AD flights are usually full and they take a long time to check-in (extra baggage charges, photo verification, underpaid employees...), the queue goes on and on. Also the same plane makes about 6-8 trips per day-- a delay in one sector has a domino effect on the rest. Lately they seem to have rescheduled some flights to give more ground time. But overall, punctuality is not a priority for them. My suggestion-- don’t trust AD for a critical or connecting journey.
Knock knock, anybody home?!! -- The customer response cell is dead. A feedback posted on their website returns an SQL error. An email sent to their helpdesk will bounce. They have no system of acknowledging your feedback or even taking it seriously. The attitude seems to be: ’’itney paise mein itna hi aata hai--- take it or off’’
However, not all is black with the airline.
There are notable positives that will bring me back whether I like it or not. It may take a younger player (read Spice, Kingfisher, et al…) to show Captain Gopinath that you cannot fly if you rest on your laurels.
Until then, folks, when that homesickness creeps in you don’t need to hit the country road. Hop on for a ride on our desi flying saucer-- Air Dhakkan ;-)