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ABN397 Member
Joined: 27 Dec 2006 Posts: 113 Location: India
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Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 5:52 pm Post subject: Trip Report: BLR-JAI by DN-606 on Jan 28 |
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This is a recently introduced A320 flight of Air Deccan which goes from Bangalore to Jaipur with a stop at Mumbai 5 times a week. The ticket cost just under 3 K when booked 3 months in advance.
Unusually for Air Deccan, it took off on time and reached its destination on time, more or less.
The flight was over 90% full-which led to the usual mad rush while boarding. Is it so difficult for Air Deccan to allot seats at the counter? This was being done at their Delhi counter some time ago.
A nice collection of aircraft was seen at BLR, including the little-known IT ATR-72s.
Roughly half the pax got off at BOM and a similar number boarded there for JAI-which is interesting as off-hand you would not think that there was that much potential between BLR and JAI.
Air Sahara in its heyday tried to follow the US model by having a "national hub" at HYD where you could get connections from anywhere to anywhere-eg from Bangalore to Srinagar, or Ahmedabad to Gauhati with a change at Hyderabad. This seems to have largely disintegrated now. In the US, the hub concept was enthusiastically adopted by all the major airlines since the 80s; it used to be jokingly said that you could not be sure if you would go to heaven or hell, but it was sure that you would have to change at Atlanta.
Back to my flight by DN 606. They used to have a sky shop where you could order various things in the past. This has now given way to a bidding system where you could bid for some items of doubtful utility and collect them at the end of the flight. This did not seem to attract much interest from the passengers.
The in-flight magazine did list a wide variety of food and drink available on the plane, but most items did not seem to be available on this flight. The magazine did not seem to be any worse than its counterparts on "better" airlines and at least gave the full timetable.
There were some points of interest when we landed at Jaipur. First, there was an unknown small jet of perhaps 60 seats parked there. No airline or corporate logo was visible and even the aircraft type was not clear. It did have a registration number starting with N implying that it was from the US.
Next to an IT A-320 was another larger airliner (type unclear, possibly a 737-800) with no airline markings but an Air-India ladder attached. I was to see that this was a charter bringing Haj pilgrims home. Most of the passengers on this flight were clearly new flyers from a rural background and the airport staff had a tough time controlling them. There was such a mess at the terminal with people going in all directions that I initially thought they were leaving rather than arriving.
Fought through the milling crowds to get an auto on the road outside. A look at the outside counters revealed the disappearance of the Jagson counter which had been there in the past. It must have been taken over by the newcomers like Go Air. |
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Nimish Member
Joined: 16 Dec 2006 Posts: 9757 Location: Bangalore, India
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Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2007 4:34 am Post subject: |
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Great - thanks for the TR.
You'd be surprised at the amount of traffic from all parts of India to Rajasthan. The "marwadis" are always present in all cities in India and quite a few of them are doing well for themselves. They often have roots back in Rajasthan (though most belong to south Rajasthan), and hence flights from all parts of India to Jaipur or Bikaner or Udaipur should do quite well. There's enough Business and VFR type traffic. |
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malQ Member
Joined: 20 Dec 2006 Posts: 713 Location: Delhi, India
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Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2007 7:54 am Post subject: |
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Jaipur Airport sounds like fun, I've never been there, though overfly very often and if you sit on the left side while going DEL-BOM/PNQ side, then you can see it very clearly, usually. Seems like they have a lot of bays at one end off the main runway.
Hajj flights, tell me about them, if you read the Hajj manual the instructions given are very precise and strict on how much baggage and what sort of behaviour. What happens in actual fact is exactly the opposite I guess. |
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ABN397 Member
Joined: 27 Dec 2006 Posts: 113 Location: India
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Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 12:55 pm Post subject: |
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Jaipur airport was quite unutilized until a year back. Now most of the newcomers like Kingfisher, Spice, Go and Indigo are there. Connectivity to far off places like MAA, BLR and CCU has improved a lot now. There are even a few direct international flights by IC to Dubai and SE Asia.
It also gets a number of diverted flights from Delhi whenever fog becomes too much. |
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avbuff Member
Joined: 22 Dec 2006 Posts: 5031
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Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 1:19 pm Post subject: |
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yes even Air Arabia operates flights from Sharjah to Jaipur |
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