[malkers]

Ok, follow this carefully if you will!

I've flown with Air Deccan many times now and despite reading so many problems with other people's experience, I have never had much problem except the odd rescheduled flight which hasn't caused me any bother as you usually get the text message in plenty of time before you head to the airport, we had this last weekend when our Cochin to Bangalore flight was rescheduled from 7.05pm to 10.45pm, this was fine, an extra 3 hours in Cochin to catch the sunset over the Chinese nets which we'd missed the previous 2 nights, it also meant less traffic on the roads in Bang when we arrived back.

But today I have learnt painfully how it can go wrong!

We are booked to go to Andamans next week but from here we have to take 2 seperate flights, 1 from Bang to Chenn, then wait a few hours for the early morning flight to Port Blair.

I had a text message yesterday saying our flight from Chenn to PB was scheduled for 7.20am, I checked my ticket which said 5.50am so this meant an extra 90 minutes in Chennai, not a problem!

It was today that I got thinking and wondered if this was a one off reschedule or a permanent one and figured if it was permanent then my flight out of Port Blair to Chennai when I return would be later and narrow down my smaller window for my flight from Chennai to Bang!

I checked the website to find it is indeed a permanent change so my flight from Port Blair to Chennai is now scheduled to land at 11.55am, our flight from Chennai to Bang is booked for 12.40pm so not a hope in hell of getting baggage sorted and checking in for that flight, I could hope and pray that the flight might land a little earlier say at 11.30 but thats a very very small chance which I'm not confident to take.

This obviously narked me because the flights I'd booked from Chenn to Bang were at the incredible early booking rate of rs721 including all taxes and this late I wouldn't get anything like this rate but I checked anyway.  All the 6 flights from Chennai to Bang on that date are already full!!   

So off I go to Make My Trip website and the best rate I can get is with Kingfisher for Rs2500 each passenger so well over what I had already paid plus I lose 10% by cancelling the Deccan flights.  This is not so bad but on top of an already expensive few days in Andamans it somewhat kicks you.  

And there is another hitch too, the Kingfisher flight doesnt leave until 7pm so we have 7 hours to kill in Chennai airport where we will no doubt spend more money and my fiance will lose another day at work which she hadn't booked or planned for    

So, things aint always what they seem I guess by going budget especially if you are needing more than 1 flight to get to your destination!

Cheers
A Very Cheesed Off Malc  

[Sudheer Poppa]

Malc - if you chennai Bangalore is booked in air deccan, I would suggest you not to cancel it, and hope that it gets delayed beyond 12.40 !! Another option would be to send your fiance to Bangalore (hope you have a reliable driver to pick her up from airport) and you coming in later with the baggage cleared up.

Just loud thoughts as I would need all the details around cost to arrive at the best option, but if you ask me time is most expensive!

[Phantom]

malkers, on May 12 2006, 04:10 PM, said:

This obviously narked me because the flights I'd booked from Chenn to Bang were at the incredible early booking rate of rs721 including all taxes and this late I wouldn't get anything like this rate but I checked anyway.  All the 6 flights from Chennai to Bang on that date are already full!!   

How did you get that early bird fare ?? I could never even able to log on to the site till the price from Bangalore to delhi reach more than 2500/-
Anyways, Last time I went to delhi with Air Deccan, I reached the airport at 5 am for the scheduled flight of 6:05 am and on reaching the airport found out that the flight is delayed for 1 and a half hour. I cant tell you how much it ###### me off.. getting so early in the morning and then travelling all the way to airport and finding out that the flight is late   .. I am not gonna travel in this airlines unless or until I am getting a sub 1500/- ticket, it is not worth more than that

[malkers]

Phantom, on May 12 2006, 03:46 PM, said:

How did you get that early bird fare ?? I could never even able to log on to the site till the price from Bangalore to delhi reach more than 2500/-

I booked 20 all @ RS721 in one day....my secret .....well.... that would be telling!

[Phantom]

malkers, on May 12 2006, 09:27 PM, said:

I booked 20 all @ RS721 in one day....my secret .....well.... that would be telling!

Ok, I am not gonna ask it in this public forum.. will ask you on sunday
Or better still, I will route my bookings through you

Edited by Phantom, 12 May 2006 - 09:50 PM.

[malkers]

Phantom, on May 12 2006, 04:20 PM, said:

Ok, I am not gonna ask it in this public forum.. will ask you on sunday
Or better still, I will route my bookings through you

No problem, did I mention the extra RS500 booking charge, but i'll give you a discount to RS400 if you buy me a beer on Sunday!     

[crvlvr]

here's my experience.. similar, but not as complicated as Malks..

All flights on Air Deccan. Air Deccan required that you cancel tickets atleast 24hours in advance. If not the refund amount shrinks significantly.

Day 1: scheduled on a 8 pm flight from Delhi to Bangalore (1st flight)
Day 2: (Next Day) scheduled on a 8:00am flight from Bangalore to Hyderabad. (2nd flight)

2:00pm On Day 1: receieve an SMS from Air Deccan that the flight from Delhi to Bangalroe was canceled and I could call them for details. Tried the number for hours on end and got no answer.  Finally got through and told them that  my concern was the next day flight to Hyderabad.

My case: As their SMS regarding the first flight being canceled did not leave me 24 hours to cancel the 2nd flight.  (They had to get me into Bangalore on the first flight if I were to be in Bangalore to get in the 2nd flight). they flat out refused to accommodate my request saying their policy was 24 hour notice.  My argument that they did not give me 24 hour notice did not seem to make sense to them.

How I dealt with the problem:

Booked a direct flight from Delhi to Hyderabad. When I retuned to the  US, I disputed the transaction on my credit card and recieved a full refund.

Credit Cards rule!

[-m2-]

Bad enough if you've got a cell phone and can receive SMS -- most tourists, especially the ones booking well in advance, will probably just get the good news when they show up at the airport.  Ouch!

[crvlvr]

-M2- you are right.. In my case I was in Jaipur when I received the SMS about my Delhi-Bangalore flight being canceled. So that saved methe hassle of going from Jaipur back to Delhi. But the fact that domestic airlines are crippled when weather turns against them, while international airlines continue to ply,  is mind boggling. The recourse to airlines when they cancel flights appear to be minimal. So they do that without much consideration to the inconvenience caused to passengers.

[Phantom]

malkers, on May 12 2006, 10:04 PM, said:

No problem, did I mention the extra RS500 booking charge, but i'll give you a discount to RS400 if you buy me a beer on Sunday!     

Thats a deal
You anyways, deserve one beer for all this effort of putting this website up.
C ya tomorrow then !!

[malkers]

      Well what a great few days that wasn't and what a complete financial disaster our flights ended up being.

We got our flight to Chennai without fuss, got the next morning flight to Port Blair without fuss but then came Tuesday morning to get our flight back.

Just to add to the above chapter I did actually manage to book a later Deccan flight from Chennai to Bang at an extra cost of around rs3000!

Anyway, sat in the departure lounge awaiting the arrival of our flight to get us out. Just as the planes were about to arrive from Chennai and also Calcutta a massive storm hit the airport so both Air Deccan planes were circling overhead, I assume they fly there with enough fuel to get back with otherwise they would be stuck if they couldn't land as there is nowhere else to divert to obviously being in the middle of the ocean, anyway they must have got close to their limit as they announced the cancellation of both and so they both returned!

So you can imagine the pandomium of 300 odd people who are now stranded, there is one tiny little air deccan window and all this lot are crowded round shouting and screaming to the point that the police had to come in with their lathis and restore order, the internet connection was down in their office so this queue wasn't moving.

So we called the Air Deccan call centre to make sure we could get on the next day's flight, not a chance, Friday was the best they could reschedule us for (no offers of putting a special plane on for all their stranded customers or hotel accommodation of course), so we accepted this Friday booking as something to fall back if we couldn't get another way out of there (if you've been to Port Blair, the prospect of spending more time than you have to is not good), also of course we had to then cancel our Chennai to Bangalore flight, because it was the same day we only got 50% back      Thanks Deccan.

So, off to the Jet Airways office to see if we could get on their flight in the next couple of hours, all full but a possibility of Wednesday if we rushed to the Jet office in the town.  Off we went but that flight was full too so we booked a Thursday through flight to Bangalore at a whopping cost of rs33000 one way for the two of us which is way in excess of what we had paid.  So we called Air Deccan again to cancel the Friday flight they had rescheduled and of course they wouldn't refund the whole amount, just 80% as it was us that cancelled      

Booked another 2 nights in the cheapest shittiest hotel we could find, got ourselves yet another crap meal (you can't get good food in Port Blair!), and bedded down for the night again.  Got up this morning and had a wander round the old jail which we hadn't had time for previously, not exciting but something to kill the time, then we thought we'd call in the Jet office again just on the offchance there might be a cancellation today, they told us there was a 90% chance if we rush to the airport.

Got down there and got told there was a 50% chance but we'd have to come back after check in closed, did that and got told they were full so we'd have to stick with our Thursday flight, we hung around anyway on the offchance and luckily some engineer wasn't flying and there was one other seat free so we got on and in business class at that    Brilliant, they bought round the menu with a choice of grilled fish or Chicken Biryani, grilled fish twice please we said happily feeling sure this would be the best meal of our entire Andaman experience.  Then Jen said "you can bet when they get back to us they'll have run out of the fish and we'll get lumbered with the biryani"  , guess what?  Exactly that happened but even still our best meal in our whole break was that chicken biryani on the plane.

Anyway, got back to Bangalore safely and on time no thanks to Air Deccan.

Our total extra cost for the worst Indian holiday we have had was approx $700 US      

Apart from this weekend coming I will NEVER fly with Air Deccan again although I'm tempted to buy some shares this week to recoup our losses  

As for The Andaman Islands, well to say it was a huge dissappointment would be a massive understatement and I'll write about that elsewhere, our fantastic week in Maldives last year was much cheaper and 50 times better!

Cheers
Malc

[Sudheer Poppa]

Malc ... we missed your dear

[crvlvr]

Quote

Just as the planes were about to arrive from Chennai and also Calcutta a massive storm hit the airport so both Air Deccan planes were circling overhead,

Its a shame that the airlines have to suffer because the Indian airports lack sufficient technology to support traffic in zero visibility.

[captmahajan]

one first bad experience of my onward flight being cancelled and disrupting my programme (they refused to adjust my return trip with them)... and I am never flying with airdeccan again, or even buying their shares!!

you dont learn anything the second time you are kicked by a mule.

the problem is, in India budget airlines tend to believe they can shortchange their customers in other ways, which is being accepted so far because they are budget. but flying safely and on time are basics, not frills.