I have travelled on domestic and international airlines, in much of the developed and developing world, but rarely have I seen an airline which is characterized by such gross incompetence and vindictive stance towards its passengers. I was to board SG219 from Kolkata to Pune which was to leave at 5:25 PM. Complying with the airline’s direction, I arrived promptly at 2:00 PM , travelling some 300 KMs from my home town to Kolkata Airport. At 16:00 hrs, there is still no sign of any security check perturbed, I check with the check in counter- they inform me (what has become a spice jet punch line) ‘The plane has developed a malfunction and another plane is being flown from Delhi for us instead’. ‘When will it reach here?’, I ask, foolishly hopeful…’At 6 PM sir.’, they reply, barely concealing their grin.
Imagine, you have been traveling on rickety road since 5 in the morning, so that you can board the flight to your destination, and when you see such simpering idiots at the check in counter, you rue the day when for saving a few hundred bucks, you decided to switch from indigo to this Pajama airlines. So, there we were watching our Indigo passengers, walking to their boarding buses, while at 17:00 PM, there was still no sign of our plane.
At the gate, from where we were supposed to board, I met my spice jet fellow passengers who seemed to be travelling to multiple destinations… then it hit me… since Spice Jet is increasingly, being suffering from low occupancy, the airline is currently clubbing flights together to save sending two planes, by tinkering with time tables, citing technical snags , when all passengers can be accommodated in one single flight…
So a flight which is to leave Kolkata at5:25 Pm would be deliberately delayed so that the Ahmadabad passengers can be taken to Delhi as well, from where they would be transited to a different aircraft. So they save money on the Kolkata Pune flight by accommodating passengers to a later flight.
This was proven at 5:25 PM when, I received a prompt message, that the 5:25 PM flight was to leave at 7:25 (!!) PM. It does not end here.. at 7, we received another SMS that the plane would now only take off at 8:25 PM …
All this while, you are sitting at the gate, looking at people boarding their punctual airlines and reaching their destination much earlier than you.
Anyway.. with god’s grace, we finally took off at something like 8:50 and landed (with a nice jerk) in Delhi near abouts 11 PM. Once we had landed, the airhostess requested all passengers travelling to Ahmadabad to disembark and board the adjoining aircraft on the tarmac ! Like it is a state transport bus or something.. .
Finally we reached Pune at 1: 30 AM (far from 22:40 PM as promised).
Funny thing is that while I was planning to write my review, a person sitting not two desks away from me is threatening to sue Spice Jet because the airline has once again delayed the flight his parents were supposed to travel in , by few hours , because of a certain ‘technical snag’.
After this incident, I have finally decided to give Spice Jet a miss for all my future personal travels.