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Jet Report: BLR - BOM 9W478; a non revenue journey

 
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avbuff
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 25, 2013 12:09 pm    Post subject: Jet Report: BLR - BOM 9W478; a non revenue journey Reply with quote

On the onset, I wish to thank Nimish for giving me directions and the most convenient way to travel from and back to airport. Also wish to thank jasepl for always giving me that certain percentage of inspiration to write one Jetreport, I mean trip report.

I didn't take any pictures, because it is a done to death route in terms of reviewing just quickly point out some observationa.



Jet Airways
9W 478
BLR - BOM
STD: 0700hrs ATD: 0845hrs
STA: 0835hrs ATA: 1035hrs
VT-JBU

1) Reservations and check-in:

Utterly useless my call got transferred 4 times before it reached to the person who knew how to do a staff listing. And after listing they tell me they cannot send me an itinerary. I was like why the fuck did I call you then? Which is why I created a dummy itinerary from our own system.

At this point wish to tell even other airline staff holding 9W, AI documents can do an OLCI on our website while flying EK. And here 9W doesn't allow OLCI for their own revenue passengers. Shame.

2) BLR airport:

While arrival was fine, immigration and customs was a breeze. The departure was a big zoo. I had a showdown with the CISF walahs and here is the story.

Now as many know staff tickets are just open coupons and has no date or time of flights; just airline and sector. All we need to do is list and take an itinerary copy and go in. Jet Airways is the only airline so far I have encountered who cannot send you an itinerary copy for a PNR created. So to be on the safe side, I created a PNR on our own EK system before leaving DXB and had it with me. So basically you create a dummy booking and show it at the entrance and throw that in the garbage.

However it seems the BLR CISF walahs are extra smart. Like a teacher correcting notebooks,

CISF: PNR kidhar hai
me: Ye dekhiye
CISF: ticket number kahaan hai?
me: ticket number print nahi hua hai
CISF: Emirates ka printout hai aur Jet ka flight kaise
me: Staff ticket hai, main Emirates airline ka staff hoon
CISF: woh kya hota hai

At this point I lost it and created a scene there. I did ot want to miss this flight as the other flights were critical and would not get a seat. Finally the GVK staff intervened and called the EK staff to let me in. I mean it was downright pathetic, all other airports just check itinerary and let you in.


3) Jet Check-in:

The check-in coutners were falling short for every airline which was a sad thing. Jet Check-in staff were doing an excellent job of checking - in passengers at the rate of 21 seconds per passenger. In fact even the duty manager was checking in at counter 19. I was asked to go there to check in. The lady while not that polite as she was busy with the queue told me

"no problem saar, I will put you on the flight let me close the check-in for BOM. Please wait here"

I quietly waited and as promised she did give me a boarding pass and tagged my bag with priority.

4) Security and Boarding:

Hassle free process, nothing to complain. The flight was delayed due to very poor visibility, even 6E, AI, BA flights were delayed.

5) Inflight:

Our plane was the new skyinterior plane. I never knew that till our resident authority on 9W, our very own me111993, informed me about that. I never got to see the mood lighting in the plane nor did I know what it was till I saw the same only activated on the business class. This plane did not have PTVs, just drop down screens which never fell down.

Crew were very professional. I got a service of the old Jet Airways. The flight was delayed due to fog and as a result the crew did the meal service on ground. The meal was decent, tea coffee offered. As a matter of fact we had 3 options : eggs, North Indian veg and South India veg, I was like WOW. And remembering my BOM - SIN trip where they shoved down oriental meals down our throat, I just shaking my head in disbelief.

We pushed back at 0845hrs and were #11 in queue. The captain kept us informed throughout. Saw BA 744 take off, EK A332 land.

Flight was uneventful and everyone just went off to sleep. We landed in BOM on RWY09, parked at some bay and were Jetbussed to the terminal.

My bags already had arrived, thanks to the priority tag and I was out at the rickshaw stand.


**************************

Verdict: It was a good flight overall, it's just the website that is crap.


Last edited by avbuff on Fri Jan 25, 2013 1:04 pm; edited 1 time in total
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jasepl
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 25, 2013 12:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hahaha! Nice JetReport.

Seems like a largely uneventful flight in the air. Which is a good thing.

The pre-flight Internet / ground experiences seem like an expected combination of JetIndifference and Indian institutional backwardness. So no surprises there.

Any idea why your flight was delayed for so long? Did they say anything? It is unusual for the early morning flights to be delayed so much.

As for the sky interiors - do they really make a difference?
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avbuff
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 25, 2013 1:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks jasepl,

My bad I forgot to add that line. The flight was delayed due to fog, very low visibility. Not Jet's fault there.
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jasepl
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 25, 2013 1:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks. I didn't think it was Jet's fault. Whether it's a delay or some technical glitch or whatever, I wouldn't blame the airline for it. It's not like they do it deliberately and they probably like delays even less than we do.

Regardless of airlines, it's the delay (mis) handling - information, arrangements etc - that I find to be the bigger issue.
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ameya
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 25, 2013 2:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nice TR !
Short and upto the mark. I have always had problems with CISF at BLR. Not a single instance that they did not create a ruckus.
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avbuff
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 25, 2013 3:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

thanks Ameya, didn't know the CISF are such a pain at BLR.

jasepl wrote:
As for the sky interiors - do they really make a difference?


Sky interiors seems some mood lighting, it hardly made any difference in the flight.
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jasepl
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 25, 2013 3:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

avbuff wrote:
Sky interiors seems some mood lighting, it hardly made any difference in the flight.

That's it? Then what's all the hoo-haa about?
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jbalonso777
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 25, 2013 4:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

jasepl wrote:

That's it? Then what's all the hoo-haa about?

Sir, here are a few which I have:

A. More space to store cabin baggage:


B. More roomier:

Compare that, with the one below:


C. Larger window. (Who would NOT like this?)



D. Mood lighting of course!


E. Maybe a bit irrelevant, but its the same as the 787.


On an average, one may notice only the mood lighting, but there is much more to it.
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Nimish
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 25, 2013 6:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nice TR - thanks for posting! I had at least 4 friends that morning stuck at the airport due to the fog, Facebook was full of postings. Of course I was up relatively early that morning to drop the bacchas to their school bus stop, and my first thought was that Ojas's flight is going to be held up due to fog!

I've never had an issue with CISF at BLR, I've never heard that from any of the other frequent travelers either. So it was probably a one off, and you've got to admit, he was basically asking the right questions and was not just being a "rubber stamp". Of course there should be a good way for non-ticketed airline staff to get in for stand-by travel, but the questions from the CISF guy don't seem too off the mark.
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ameya
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 25, 2013 6:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The only + point of a B737 is the large windows as compared to the A320. Else its a pain to be in the 737 in terms of seats, aisle and the cramped cabin, specially towards the forward section
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jasepl
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 25, 2013 7:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

jbalonso777 wrote:
Sir, here are a few which I have...

Thanks.

Doesn't look like anything too special to me. A couple of gimmicks and such that may be nice to have, but certainly nothing worth getting wood over.

And please don't call me "sir". Just "Jason" or "Oi you" will suffice Very Happy

ameya wrote:
The only + point of a B737 is the large windows as compared to the A320. Else its a pain to be in the 737 in terms of seats, aisle and the cramped cabin, specially towards the forward section

True. And who really cares about window size anyway?

Me personally, I avoid the 737s because my ears can't deal with their pressurisation. God knows why, but it becomes rather painful in flight and takes days afterwards to get back to normal.

I haven't flown a 737 since I did GOI-BOM last February. Come to think of it, that was the last time I flew Jet (in any avatar). My my, almost a year of being JetFree!

Now that's worth getting wood over! Razz
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ameya
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 25, 2013 10:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have had this presurization problem on B737s and my entire family blames it on my disliking for that type.

Well, I also have started believing, its prolly in the mind .. Shocked
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TKMCE
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 26, 2013 7:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nimish wrote:
I've never had an issue with CISF at BLR, I've never heard that from any of the other frequent travellers either. So it was probably a one off, and you've got to admit, he was basically asking the right questions and was not just being a "rubber stamp". Of course there should be a good way for non-ticketed airline staff to get in for stand-by travel, but the questions from the CISF guy don't seem too off the mark.


Even I felt the same. I hav also never faced a problem and actually I find BLR much more efficient in terms of properly checking documents and IDs compared to security at some other domestic airports.CISF is not expected to know EKs staff ticket policy so if they are not sure they have every right to check and like Nimish I also think they were just doing their job.
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sumantra
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 27, 2013 11:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ojas, it is very nice to hear from you again, on this section of AI.net! As usual, I enjoyed reading your report immensely. Sorry to hear about your experiences with the entry and check-in, but your vivid descriptions had us right behind with you, wanting to know what would happen next. Jet still look inconsistent in their offerings, the food description looks good! On a recent Mumbai trip (Dec'12) trip, The Wife and Junior took 9W 312, whereas I took AI 866, and 9W's `breakfast' from their description, was a notch above Air India's `snack', at around the same time of the day. Jishnu has described the new Sky Interiors in great detail - I too like the features (I have taken one Dream)liner trip in 5 attempts for the same). I too like the A32S as feeling a bit `roomier', though the Jet product is not too bad, with a decent seat pitch.
Thanks for sharing this with us!
Cheers, Sumantra.
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avbuff
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 29, 2013 1:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

@sumantara
thank you fro your kind words as always

TKMCE wrote:
Nimish wrote:
I've never had an issue with CISF at BLR, I've never heard that from any of the other frequent travellers either. So it was probably a one off, and you've got to admit, he was basically asking the right questions and was not just being a "rubber stamp". Of course there should be a good way for non-ticketed airline staff to get in for stand-by travel, but the questions from the CISF guy don't seem too off the mark.


Even I felt the same. I hav also never faced a problem and actually I find BLR much more efficient in terms of properly checking documents and IDs compared to security at some other domestic airports.CISF is not expected to know EKs staff ticket policy so if they are not sure they have every right to check and like Nimish I also think they were just doing their job.



Well if the CISF people at the gate are meant for security purposes, I refused to believe it then and refuse to believe it now. If I'm going to invest time and money to plot a terrorist conspiracy, I would might as well buy an INR20K international ticket and go in without much problem. Plus at the end of the day, the ticket is just a printout which can be tampered with. No big deal.

What the procedure ensures is only bonafide passengers get in and avoid unnecessary crowding at the check-in. I have managed to do that many years ago wherein I produced a fake itinerary and took my passport to get in to drop my parents. However the last time I tried it, the CISF caught me at BOM while exiting and asking the reason for the same. He did let me go, but from then I chose not do to it.

Secondly, even if I went to 9W counter they would have handed me the itinerary only as a result it would have not worked yet again. The only way I could have got in was having an airline staff escort me, which at that time was impossible due to heavy rush.

While I agree that there should be some procedures set for Non - revenue passengers however what the CISF did at BLR, I believe was nowhere near to efficient or doing his job.
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me111993
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 29, 2013 10:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hey Ojas, nice TR man!

Good to know your flight wasn't as delayed as flights can get due to fog, and even better to know that the flight was good!

It was like music to my ears when I read those updates coming from your end! Very Happy

btw, JBU doesnt have drop down screens!

Cheers!
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Spiderguy252
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 29, 2013 11:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

ameya wrote:
The only + point of a B737 is the large windows as compared to the A320. Else its a pain to be in the 737 in terms of seats, aisle and the cramped cabin, specially towards the forward section


This.

jasepl wrote:
Doesn't look like anything too special to me. A couple of gimmicks and such that may be nice to have, but certainly nothing worth getting wood over.


And this.

Plus, what's the deal with not having PTVs on-board? I know they don't switch them on for domestic runs, but what if it's scheduled and caught up on a Middle-East/South Asia run? No IFE for those international folks as well? Rolling Eyes

Thanks for the share, Ojas.
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