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ameya · Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2014 1:48 pm Post subject: Hum Indore hote hue Pune Jaenge

Hum Indore hote hue Pune Jaenge

After finishing off (literally) everything on the plate in Dilli, we were off to Jaipur in the wonderful Ajmer Shatabdi departing NDLS at 0605hrs being pulled by WDP4. It was a chilly morning with temperatures dipping to below 4 degrees.

Having seen the railway line right next to the airport on Dwarka side, this was the first time that I travelled from that line seeing a very foggy DEL airport and an aircraft taking off, which I could not identify thanks to the fog.

It was a fun ride, thru Rajasthan, the fields and the late sun rise and the shatabdi food which was decent but not as good as the Bhopal Shatabdi
Jaipur was crowded with this being the peak season for foreigners and resulted in long traffic jams across all the days we were there partly due to the swelling crowds and roads being single laned at many places and partly due to the way Jaipuri drivers drive. Could find a scratch or a dent on all the cars around.

Jaipur involved another food Safari – Lal Maas, Gatte ki subji, Sev Tamatar, Lassi, Kachori and sweet and the stay in not so good Ibis.
On 31st It was time to head back home for the new year and conclude the last trip of the year !

The booking had been made thru a travel agent who booked S2 3821 instead of 9W 2821 which meant that we could not web check in.
We reached the airport at 13:10 for a 15:00 departure in anticipation of early departure owing to the before time departures since morning on the rotation.

The options from JAI to PNQ were on SG 912 a direct flight, HYD AMD JAI PNQ and v.v rotation or on 9W 2821 which is a AMD IDR PNQ IDR JAI and v.v rotation which now gives double daily PNQ IDR options. Had opted for the later due to my dislike for SG these days.

Back to the airport, we quickly got into the terminal, which is way bigger than the older one which I saw while taking off but much smaller than what JAI deserves or needs. The terminal is a weird structure, you go in from the gate and there is another gate, which has two x ray machines on two sides. Once you are in from the second gate, you will have check in counters – again a fairly small area, followed by Security and SHA.

There was no mention of Jetairways on any of the x-ray machines and hence I went to the counter of 9W and asked about which x ray machine should we use to scan the luggage. The staff rudely told me to go to machine 1, which had a long line. After about 10 mins, we put in our bags only to be told by 9W staff there to get the bags scanned at Machine 2. I lost it by then, and told the 9W staff to get it done himself or keep the bags in Jaipur, I don’t want it. The staff panicked and decided to get it screened themselves and asked me to proceed to the counter which I did.

The counter was empty and after giving the ticket and identity, we placed the bags – 10 kgs below the max allowed weight for us and requested for A & C seats, and rows behind each other, since we were 4 of us flying back.
I was told that the flight is full and seats in the back are not available and we would have to do with row 2, I requested for row 2 and 3 which was nodded. Then the printer got stuck and our boarding passes were printed at the adjacent counter only to realize that JetChild has given 2 A,C,D,F !
None the less, no fuss, we moved to security which was quick and settled into the SHA. Lot of flights at this time, LB to BLR and VGA, AI to BOM, SG to CCU & GAU, 6E to BOM, G8 to BOM and once all this is done, 9W to IDR&PNQ.

We made ourselves comfortable near the window and took that opportunity to hear the discussion between the 9W APM at JAI and some senior official of 9W who was travelling to IDR from JAI. They talked about the lowering standards, equipment changes, lower salaries, greater control of Etihad and how things would shape up. They were expecting changes from 15th Jan till about March end, including a revamp of domestic schedule.
I was expecting our bird to land in at 1415 and it did land in at that time. Shortly we were at the gate 1A boarding the bus to ferry us to our aircraft for the day.

Boarding was quick with over sized baggage being taken away at the gate and we settled in our seats for the full flight to Indore.

Flight Details
Incoming STA 1430 / ATA 1415
STD 1500 / ATA 1450
Aircraft : ATR 72-212
VT-JCT
MSN 924
Delivered to 9W in Nov 2010

Ours was the last set of departures during that time and as we taxied out there was no other civil airliner on the ramp. We quickly taxied to runway 09 and made a very powerful and noise take off towards the east, banked right to join the Delhi Mumbai route and banked left overhead Pratapgarh to head straight to Indore.

The METAR at Jaipur indicated a 1500MTR visibility, which was evident at the airport.

Soon the FA announced – “ Kursi ki peti bandhne ka sanket ab band ho kiya gaya hai……….. hum thodi hi samay mein humari jal pan seva SkyCafe pesh karenge”

We quickly looked around for options and decided to try quite a bit of it, Nachos / Bhel / Banana Chips / Sandwich. As the service started the small trolley reached us in no time and we asked for all that we wanted only to be told that the sandwich in the menu and that which is uplifted are different. The sandwich which was shown was really pathetic. A meal was offered and we quickly opted for it, which was decent. Incidently, this was the only meal uplifted. I wonder why would 9W do that !
About an hour into the flight, Capt. Gaurav Sharma came on PA and announced that we would start our descend soon and IDR was reporting a 5000 MTR visibility with Clear Skies and 24 degree temp. We would use rwy 25 at IDR

Preparations for landing at Indore commenced in no time and we literally dived into Indore with a short 12-15 min descend from 16000 Feet where we were cruising. We touched down very late on rwy 25 with the ATR shaking all the while and not being steady at all. I quickly checked the METAR as we landed, it showed 6 KT winds from 250 degrees, so we landed with the wind, wonder why !

IDR ETA 1630, ATA 1610
IDR ETD 1700, ATD 1645
Bay 4
Pax Out : 33
Pax In : 28
Empty seats on IDR PNQ leg : 5
Transit Pax : 39
Surprised that it has more pax on JAI PNQ than it did on JAI IDR or IDR PNQ !

The transit check was completed swiftly, with boarding passes checked and baggage identified and boarding complete we were ready to head out again for PNQ, using runway 25 which was a short taxi away. We again made a powerful takeoff, this time towards the west and banked left to head towards BOM and overhead STV, banked left again to head towards PNQ. We cruised at 18000 feet this time. The service started again and this time we did not buy anything.

The First Officer came on line at 1755 hours informing that we were 110 kms away from Chennai and that Chennai was reporting 26 Degree temp. amidst laughter in the cabin. She quickly corrected herself to Pune and said that our ETA would be 1815 hours. That’s losing a lot of altitude in next 20 mins which was done and we touched down on rwy 28 and taxied to Bay 5 at PNQ. VT-JCD had arrived from HYD and VT-PPL had arrived from DEL.
The baggage took its own sweet time to come out and we were out

ameya · Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2014 1:58 pm Post subject:

Some bits of Jaipur

20131229_105337 by ameyajoshi, on Flickr

First time ever - Sattewalon ke liye dharamshala !

20131229_165821 by ameyajoshi, on Flickr

Ajmer

20131230_113705 by ameyajoshi, on Flickr

Jaipur Airport

20131231_134529 by ameyajoshi, on Flickr

20131231_135623 by ameyajoshi, on Flickr

This one belongs to Modern Road Makes Pvt Ltd. Any body knows who they are ?

20131231_144314 by ameyajoshi, on Flickr

JAI terminal

20131231_145413 by ameyajoshi, on Flickr

Holding short of active

20131231_145438 by ameyajoshi, on Flickr

Old terminal

20131231_145535 by ameyajoshi, on Flickr

Food !

20131231_152916 by ameyajoshi, on Flickr

Indore mein aapka hardik swagat hai

20131231_162638 by ameyajoshi, on Flickr

20131231_162834 by ameyajoshi, on Flickr

Thanks !

20131231_170320 by ameyajoshi, on Flickr

sumantra · Member Joined: 28 Oct 2007 Posts: 4685 Location: New Delhi

Highly entertaining, Sir! Quite a few points, and comments.
- Ajmer Shatabdi with good food? Or 02 Sep'12 experience was quite the opposite. The dinner was horrid, the old coach rickety and ill-maintained, and the overall ambiance was quite bad. It is nice to hear that the service has improved.
- Bhopal Shatabdi with good food? My last experience was quite bad. 11 Sep'13. Very bad dinner, Alstrom coaches but dirty and ill-maintained, and service hardly anything I used to rave about, in perhaps India's best Shatabdi, at one time. It is still the fastest, but I was quite shocked at the fallen standards.
- Jaipur: lovely city, with nice people. It is hard to believe that Delhi is a neighbouring city!
- Rajasthani food in Jaipur: superb, though a bit on the sinfully oily side. Did you go to Niroz for the lAl mAns? Interestingly, Jodhpur is quite different, being predominantly a vegetarian area, since the Bishnois come from the neighbouring region. Jodhpur and Bikaner are primarily vegetarian areas, and if I remember correctly, Alwar as well.
- S2 3821 instead of 9W 2821 - Ewww...oh, no. No web check-in possible.
- Interesting description of the new terminal building! I have only been to the older one. Question: are international flights still from the old terminal? That used to be the international terminal in 2010, when I last visited the place. the new terminal had just started operations some time back, though I did not get to see it since Air India used the old Terminal 1.
- You seem to have the bad luck of rude 9W staff at many places, this is unfortunate. I have been lucky of late, to have got some very nice people. I will write about that - I know you'll catch me here, but yes, soon.
- Revamp of the 9W domestic schedule: more AUH-centric, or will there be some surprises? Of course, this may be pure speculation, too.
- Lovely technical details, as always!
- Meals uplifted on the AT7s are typically crew meals, unless one opts for them explicitly at the time of booking, as I always try to do Razz

SpiceJet unfortunately does not allow a meal to be booked on a Q4 flight, though they usually upload a few crew meals on Q4 flights as well - usually, and if a crew member does not patronise this, a lucky and insistent passenger asking for a larger meal portion, snags it.
- The meal looks nice, with the usual 9W nicely contoured bowls, long-grained rice, the boiled sweet corn and tomato salad and the curd/yogurt - all looking appetising. The other part (curries) look a bit oily, which is something I have always been disappointed about when flying Jet: why can't they revamp the recipes a bit? The caterer will be only as good as the recipes handed out. I had a pleasant surprise on a recent 9W breakfast flight (9W-K's BoB breakfast), to get a rather nice non-greasy breakfast. So I guess, there are good days and bad days, and some menu items have nice recipes, and some, quite high on the grease and spice content. How was the parAnThA? What were the two curries?
- The Chennai announcement was hilarious!
- Baggage taking its own sweet time to come at PNQ: this sounds very familiar. I Really wonder why Pune - of all places - can have such inefficient staff at the airport. I have encountered very rude bus conductors and drivers in the city. It was a big shock to me, coming to Maharashtra's cultural capital for the first time, from Mumbai, a city which Punekars look down upon, as being `uncivilised'. Of course, the patronage for the liberal arts is much more at Pune, and Pune is the city of the Chitale bandhu sweets, and the Shrewberry biscuits, so I do not complain that much!
Thanks once again for sharing this with us!
Cheers, Sumantra.

ameya · Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2014 4:52 pm Post subject:

Ajmer shatabdi was decent, but Bhopal shatabdi was certainly good
Going by your dinner experiences, makes me think that you have taken these trains on the return with
catering from Ajmer and Bhopal respectively while I have taken it for onward journey with catering from Delhi.
May be that makes a difference.

Currently, Ajmer Shatabdi has the new LHB coaches, which are not safe to stand in the door, but otherwise really nice

I did go to Niros - not sure if Niroz is different or same and tried Lal maas at this as well as one other place
I loved the gatte ki subji !

As for JAI, the FIDS showed MCT flight at the same terminal and the older one looked neglected

As for food, the curries could not be figured out and paratha was tasteless !

Thanks for the wonderful reply !

sumantra · Member Joined: 28 Oct 2007 Posts: 4685 Location: New Delhi

shivendrashukla · Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2014 11:17 pm Post subject:

Great TR Ameya. I had been to Jaipur and stayed at Holiday Inn. Took the Duranto back to BOM from there good ol DQ to Lonavala.

I believe you do land with the wind and take off against the wind. Taking off against the wind gives you additional lift.

sumantra · Member Joined: 28 Oct 2007 Posts: 4685 Location: New Delhi

jbalonso777 · Posted: Fri Jan 03, 2014 5:56 pm Post subject:

Wonderful TR sir!
Travel agents book the cheapest flights obviously, and usually S2 is cheaper than 9W-k while booking, so I guess that is why you got S2 tickets
Meal looks decent too, but this was on a long flight, so portions looked decent to me.
I also like the pictures and details, some of which we readers have no access to!

Regards
Jish
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http://www.youtube.com/c/JishnuBasu777

Nimish · Posted: Sun Jan 05, 2014 10:36 pm Post subject:

Lovely TR an pictures - thanks for posting!

That last pic is amazing - the props looks like they are all bent Smile

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We miss you Nalini!

ameya · Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2014 10:21 am Post subject:

sumantra · Member Joined: 28 Oct 2007 Posts: 4685 Location: New Delhi

stealthpilot · Member Joined: 19 Dec 2006 Posts: 2325 Location: BLR, DXB

Nice TR, the train ride seemed a lot of fun.

You mentioned the ATR landed on Rnw 25 at IDR, and the winds were 250/6 .... seems correct?
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avbuff · Member Joined: 22 Dec 2006 Posts: 5031

nice TR, seemed fun ... for some reason a lot of people are going to and fro to IDR a lot.

time to study a DXB IDR flight Razz

ameya · Posted: Fri Jan 17, 2014 11:04 pm Post subject:

ameya · Posted: Fri Jan 17, 2014 11:06 pm Post subject: