We decided to leave for Mumbai on the morning of the 24th
and looked at the airlines which had tickets available for
the same.Air Deccan offered the cheapest options and also
the most comfortable option in terms of Cost and Time.
My mum and I proceeded to the airport to book the tickets
as it was the nearest option available for us to book
tickets by cash.
At the Airport:
The only thing to Air Deccan’s credit at the airport
is that its counter catches the visitor’s eye as soon as
you near the Domestic terminal.And negatives are galore.
Air Deccan’s staff seem to be the lousiset at the airport
working on one computer only and dead slow in working.
It happened that we had actually planned to come back on the
28th of April but the staff at the airport whose name I
still can recall said that there were no tickets available.
My mother spurred by something made a call to the Air
Deccan call centre and they told us that tickets were indeed
available for 28th.Then we booked our return tickets thro the
call centre and when I approached the counter at the airport
for the ticket the shocking expression on the face of the
lady at the counter is one that I wouldn’t forget easily.
Mind You Air Deccan don’t give proper tickets like other
airlines but just a PRINTOUT for the tickets.
At the Flight:
Its most bizzare to travel by Air Deccan I believe
as there are no seat no.s allotted and anyone can sit anywhere
and seats are few and far between for a person/s who come last.
Imagine the plight of a sick person travelling if the
one who accompanies him/her can’t sit near him in Air Deccan.
As we enter a flight we are usually greeted by warm welcomes
and greetings from the Air Hostesses but in Air Deccan I thought
even for that we had to pay as the Air Hostesses were stiff as
a T for that matter and ofcourse the usual Hara Kiri followed
with the sales of food inside the airplane we had to pay even
for water and the prices were a touch exorbitant too.For the
3000 odd they took they could atleast have served water.
At the end of it all General Conception prevailed over the
Optimism that this No-Frills and Low-Fare would be good
after all but they just drew a blank.Air Deccan’s inflight
magazine Simplifly which passengers read even before flight
takes off ignites some hope in the passengers but the ignition
is easily doused by the way the cabin crew conducts itself.
On a scale of 10 it would be great if Air Deccan could muster
3 or 4 alongside airlines like Jet, Kingfisher, Paramount, Indian
etc inspite of having the third largest market share which is
solely for the low fare.Capt.Gopinath definitely has a lot of
work to do.