Airliners-India.com

jbalonso777

FLIGHT #3: I51217 BENGALURU-CHENNAI 25TH OCTOBER 2014
Dad and I had to head to Bengaluru for a couple of days because I had a psychometric test to take part in. We took perhaps the most unorthodox routing into BLR - on a SriLankan Airlines A340-300 into Chennai, followed by a Jet Airways Boeing 737-800 operated by JetKonnect into Bengaluru.

THE AIRASIA BOOKING
Its always exciting to try a rather newbie airline, isn’t it? Up until perhaps 2012, it was only an air of AI, 9W/S2, 6E, G8. But now, we have new entrants in the name of Air Costa (LB), AirAsia India (I5) and of course, a potential star in the industry: Vistara (UK). Enough with this.
So on the BLR-MAA route, there were plenty of choices. Again, similar reasons to the MAA-BLR route, but both 6E and I5 had exactly the same prices. at INR1650. I went for I5 of course, I’ve had enough of flights to judge 6E and their pretty average service. Obviously, booking was done through I5’s website, which is connected to the AK/D7 and other AirAsia company sites. Thankfully, this experience was just what I needed, although even AirAsia had its flaws. For example, an unknown charge of INR25 popped up, insignificant really but these should be reflected right from the beginning. Furthermore, the manage my booking feature works only for the AirAsia Big Shot customers, which involves a relatively easy process of using the email ID and password. Guess what? It never worked, and apparently the email ID is off the records too! So no manage my booking then, (Varun had a similar problem, IIRC) but then again, I had selected the seats (18D and 18F) and a chicken chettinad meal for myself. (Sumantra sir, this one's for you Smile

)

WEB AND MOBILE CHECK IN
A few days before the trip, I decided to head over to all airlines' web sites and see how long before I could do web check ins. UL, 9W and SG were 24 hours before departure time, I5 was 14 days before departure time! Shocked

14 days! I wonder why so long in advance!
Anyways, I decided to do the online check in anyways: 3rd flight on the itinerary, first in line for check in!
AirAsia's web check in section is on the home page itself, just by hovering over the web check in tab. Put in my details, and I was quickly directed to the flights and guests page, I selected only Dad for the web check in. This then directed me to the add ons page, sadly you can't pre-order a meal here, that's only for manage my booking, which sadly doesn't work. I used the chance seat option just to see how full the flight was, turns out that it wasn't very full. 18D and 18F were our seats, there was a good chance of 18E being free....
Once that was done, I got directed to the confirmations page, followed by an Important Notice page, where there was pretty interesting warning. Rolling Eyes

All this done, a boarding pass was generated. Good stuff Smile

Next up was the mobile check in, because everyone on the WhatsApp group were talking about mobile phone applications, especially the newly launched Air India application. So as usual, after entering the details, we confirm who has to be checked in, while they ask for some contact details to send the barcode. Strangely, no option to change seats, I directly got a confirmation of check in being completed. Decent experience, both on the inter web and mobile phone. Kudos to I5, AK, D7, whatever, but the manage my booking thing remains a flaw.

FAST FORWARD TO: 25TH OCTOBER 2014
It was a pretty exciting day for me: a flight on AirAsia! After nearly making a mess of my face almost planting it in mutton biriyani the previous night, I had what was the best sleep of my life: soft bed and cold weather is BLISS! I woke up the next morning into a cloudy and overcast morning, while it remained quite cold. After a nice breakfast, it was time to head for the Banjara Academy for the aptitude test. It was pretty interesting over there, as there were plenty of questions which have different answers, and all of them had the potential to be correct! After about 4 hours (yes, 4) in the cold, I finished the test and went out for lunch at the Chung's Restaurant in Malleshwaram. It was pretty okay, I cannot complain.

Inside the TATA Institute

There's something about dogs.... Smile

It started to get really dark by around 1600 hours. No, it wasn't the sunset, the clouds started getting thicker and thicker! As soon as we got in to the Toyota Etios MERU Airport Taxi, the heavens had opened up. And it was a spectacular thunder-shower! The streets were flooded as we drove by - and the moving flood meant that all the litter floated with that, it was pretty disgusting to see that happen! And unsurprisingly, this would clog the drains. I really hope the Swacch Bharat Campaign works out for the better! It was up to Yelahanka that being in the slipstream of any other car would be beneficial, or else the rain water would just crash on the windshield! Once we passed Yelahanka, believe it or not, it was absolutely bone dry! However though, the clouds around said otherwise, and soon after about an hour's drive, we were close close the airport. And yes, the surrounding clouds looked quite angry:

ATC

We stopped at the drop off air and get off the cab. The once-haunting looking terminal extension looked beautiful in the fading light.

Maini!

There was a sense of pride as I saw the Indian flag fly in the wind! Very Happy

Anyone else see the cockpit? Very Happy

CHECK IN, SECURITY, SOME SPOTTING
The guards at the door checked the tickets...and I do mean check: he did some tick tick thing close to the details on the ticket. We found the AirAsia India counters right in front of us. The cheerful lady at the check in confirmed our seats (an aisle and a window..) while printing the boarding passes and all. Bags weighed in at 18kgs, it was good to go Smile

The lady at the counter reminded me of the type of Kingfisher Airlines once gave on the ground, I wouldn't be surprised if she indeed worked with IT once upon a time! However though, it was a pleasant check in experience. Gate 1 was our gate, the very gate I get off of JFK from!

I was hoping for a delay due to the weather Sad

But its okay I guess!

Heading for security..

Security was a quick affair, nothing to write about.
We found our gate...I settled down and got the camera out while Dad headed for the fast food and bar close to Gate 6. Boarding was underway for 9W816 to New Delhi (operated by VT-JGT) in Gate 2 and 9W442 to Mumbai (operated by VT-JFW).

That Kingfisher bird Sad

The gate area

There were some announcements going on - one of them in some not-so-good english in which the agent would say: 'IndiGo announces a 25 minute delay of its flight 6E*** to *** due to late arrival of flight....' Um, flight?
Dad called me over to the restaurant. There were two businessmen sitting there - one American, one French. Both of them had J class boarding passes for 9W448 to BOM. It soon getting closer to the boarding time of 1655 hours, and the rain had just hit the airport.
As I walked towards Gate 1, I was getting more and more excited! I would spot an AirAsia India bird, only because I will be on that for that reason! The excitement surely built up as I saw around 20 odd people stand close to the huge glass because, the plane arrived! Abhijeeth mentioned to me in the morning that VT-ATB, the ex-AK registered bird would take me to MAA. ATB had just flown in from COK. 1755 was the boarding time, and by 1757 the aerobridge was attached to the plane. Uh, well. Rolling Eyes

Finally I've spotted an AirAsia India bird! Wait a minute - I will be on the plane! Very Happy

And it has sharklets, too!

Now everyone can fly Smile

BOARDING
As soon as the doors were disarmed, I saw the LCC practices get to work: passengers started to get off the plane in their own pace, heading down for their bags and all, but on the departure side, boarding was announced for all elderly people and families with children: this was the cue for all passengers to line up Smile

I counted: a healthy 145 people got off the plane from COK, and as soon as the last person exited the aerobridge, the boarding gate door opened and people rushed through. But this 'rush' was stopped by no less than four security frisks along the way! Wait a minute: start boarding as soon as passengers get off? Who cleans the plane then?! But anyways, it looked like there would be 135 passengers going to Chennai.
They say Indians are the worst when it comes to maintaining basic etiquette - the irony was that the Australian family in front of us...weren't in front of us but they conveniently cut the line. Well done Smile

The same cheerful lady at the check in counter was doing the boarding pass scan thing, and she was as chirpy as ever! She had a smile which would perhaps never erase, good show I5! Very Happy

The line moved relatively slowly as more and more people stopped along the way. However for Dad and I, when we reached row 18, it was just a case of dumping the bags into the overhead bin, and sitting down, rather than taking 15 or 20 seconds, ugh. Evil or Very Mad

The crew were nice and helpful, but none of them were at the front door greeting passengers onboard. 3 crew members would serve us that evening, 2 gentlemen and 1 lady, all rather young.
So on this new generation of Indian airlines, the songs playing onboard were pretty modern too! The first one that was playing was Eminem and Rihanna's 'The Monster' song....to which, in fact, one of the crew members were humming to!

Premium seats..

Seatbelt kept as is after the passenger left the seat....

.....so Dad and I made sure its in the classy Jet Airways way Razz

Well, damn the weather then Sad

Cabin of VT-ATB

Uhm...interesting?

That's a magazine in ruins! This was the magazine in Dad's seat pocket, mine was in a better and more crisp condition, so I handed that over to Dad. It was the actual AirAsia Malaysia magazine. It contained good articles though, including the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway. The route maps were something to go through, a clear sign of what a success story AirAsia is....but will that be the case in India? Time will tell.

LCC type legroom..

Not-so-nice quality of printed...it clearly has been printed out by a mid-range printer on to an A4 sheet and then laminated....

Oh boy. This does not look good AT ALL!

Nope nope nope nope.

The first good impressions of I5 I had were slowly disappearing as I saw the seat back contents out of shape. There also were many Mentos wrappers in the seat pockets. Hopefully they rectify these things soon!
2 more pretty modern day songs played, including OneRepublic's Counting Stars and Avicii's Hey Brother....an Air Costa plane VT-LVR from MAA came in...

Chief FA Bharat introduced himself and the rest of the crew to us while stammering while reading the welcome announcement off the paper. Understandably too, he messed up in the Hindi part...exactly what I'd do, hehe.

Arming doors!

Captain Vijay Jose came over the PA to introduce himself and First Officer Harish Lamba. He did an IndiGo 'Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls...' welcome! He mentioned of a low cruising altitude of 21000 feet, flying time of 35 minutes and 'looking at the weather around, as well as the radar, turbulence at times...' With this done, it was now time for departure...

DEPARTURE
At 1831 hours, 4 minutes before departure time, pushback commenced. While this happened, all three of the crew members took their positions on the aisle to do the safety briefing thing. So of course, no one was reading anything out as the safety announcements were pre-recorded on the system and played, so the crew did their thing simultaneously. The creepy A320-esque sounds came up as the more annoying of the two CFM56 engine sounds played as they were brought into life. Soon, we were taxiing into the darkness towards runway 9 for departure as the rain came down even more. A long taxi followed as the lights were turned off up until we docked at the gate in Chennai!

JFW to BOM as 9W448

VT-SCQ to HYD as AI516

In the darkness: VT-JBD operating 9W504 to AUH

A cabin view till arrival in Chennai.

We had to hold short of Runway 09 as a SG B738 was on short finals. Talk about annoying, the whiny sound of the A320-CFM56 engines was really starting to get on my nerves. Rolling Eyes

Soon though, we lined up with Runway 09 and took off into the dark starry yet cloudy skies of BLR, and scarily 'fell down' a bit, something which is very A320-esque, scares the crap out of me. Embarassed

INFLIGHT HEARTBREAK AGAIN!
The fact that we took off in the direction heading for Chennai meant that flight time would be a few minutes lesser as opposed to the Jet flight because that flight involved a whole 180 degree turn. The flight was...weird. Seatbelt signs were on throughout, but believe me, not one major turbulent bump I felt. A smooth flight. Despite the seat belt signs being on, the Australian teenager decided to get up and head for the washroom.....well.

Winglets > Sharklets. Razz

There was absolutely zero movement from the crew. Zero. Nothing. I peeped my head up a bit here and there to see what was going on - where is my hot Chicken Chettinad? I also gather that loads were around 120 passengers....
But never mind that! I took a few low light pictures while convincing myself that not much of the flying time had elapsed and service would begin rather soon....how wrong I was!

No doubts which airline I'm on Smile

Smelt like leather, smelt so new!

The engine Smile

Is that city confirming my fear...?

And indeed, it did. The fact I saw a bunch of lights below me meant that we were somewhere close to Vellore: closer to Chennai than Bengaluru. Captain Jose came over the PA to tell us that descent would start in the next couple of minutes and apologized that service could not take place on the flight. WHAT! No service?! What about the INR200 I spent on the hot meal?! And it was about now that the FAs moved around a little, one of them with a sheet of paper...none of them stopped by to heed the individual calls of the passengers. The one with the sheet of paper kept going forwards and backwards, he never stopped at my row!

DESCENT & ARRIVAL DISASTER
The plane's nose dipped a bit. Chances of me getting my hot meal got smaller and smaller. I tried my luck by calling the FAs - it worked! I asked him what would happen next, he said he was aware of the situation, and would pack my hot meal for me. Oh, that's sorted then, and honestly a huge relief!

Barely a few seconds later another FA comes and confirms if I had ordered a chicken chettinad meal. I affirmed that, to which he said 'We're about to land..so uhm, do you want it to be packed...? With a smile I said 'Yes please..', but really this highlights the miscommunication between the cabin crew members, since one of them had told me just a few seconds ago that the meal would be packed. Well anyways.

As the cabin was prepared for landing, I got a hot AirAsia polytene bag with a piping hot meal inside! 'Chicken Chettinad for you sir..' came a voice. I was asked not to tilt it since the container was 'sensitive' or something like that. I gladly accepted it, and kept it on the middle seat.

Hello elusive hot meal! Very Happy

Relieved, I started experimenting with some long exposure photography. That involved live view. This is where I messed up so bad. There are 2 separate live view settings on the Nikon D7100 you see: one for photographs, another for videos. So I had left it in the photograph live view mode. And I hit the record button.

ATB slowly glided down towards runway 7 of Chennai Airport. The usual whiny sounds of the A320 followed as some fire works came quite close and exploded mid air - it was a beautiful site! Captain Jose and FO Lamba made a smooth landing on runway 7 at 1931 hours and quickly taxied out. It was now when I realized: why isn't the green light on the camera on? Where is the countdown of time.....? AM I EVEN RECORDING?!
Straight answer: no. The video was not recording at all. A pretty cool video, gone. Why am I saying gone? Nothing went: there was no video in the first place to begin with. Saddened by my own idiocy, Dad gave me a consolidatory pat on my back. The taxi continued as we docked at a gate. VT-IEL was parked there operating 6E286 on the triangular DEL-CJB-MAA-DEL route. On time is a wonderful thing, isn't it? Not for IEL on this occasion - 1936 we docked and still 6E286 hadn't departed, with a departure time of 1905. Well well. An off day, eh?

Embarrassed, I take a picture of us taxiing....

....and of VT-SUP. Sup, VT-SUP? My head ain't working Crying or Very sad

...and IEL never reached Delhi within its 15 minute acceptable delay window...

The engines cut out, the weird sounds of the A320 meant that it felt like someone was doing a brilliant job by using the saw to cut wood Wink

All passengers were quick to disembark. Captain Vijay Jose planted himself outside the cockpit with the cabin crew and thanked all the passengers as they disembarked. I took a few photos of the cabin. Desperate to redeem myself, I tried to get a picture of the cockpit. Taylor Swift's ( Shocked

) 'Trouble When You Walked In' song was playing. I5 are clearly quite savvy with their song choices, yet Taylor Swift is only a fan favourite. Metallica one day please, I5? Very Happy

I approached Captain Jose and asked him if I could have a look at the cockpit.
'Sure!' he said, 'But no photographs please..'
Trying not to sound disappointed I said 'Alright no problem Smile

'
'Come on right in - Harish, we have a visitor..', as they both shook hands with me..
So I awkwardly started a conversation: 'I was on the Boeing 737 yesterday, surely the A320 cockpits feel more spacious than that!' Capt. Jose then affirmed that by saying 'Yes, that's because the 737 is controlled by a yoke which itself takes up a lot of space, while the A320's more curved design also allows for more space.' (I didn't think about it that way!)
Capt. Jose seemed very accommodating and he I asked him a few more questions.. 'So how long have you been flying..?' He said, 'Around...' when I interrupted by saying 'Sorry, I meant, how long have you been flying today...' to which he gave me a quick reply saying 'We are on a 3 sector rotation this evening, so that's six flights in total - we flew to Goa and came back to base In Bengaluru, now to Chennai and back to Bengaluru, after that there'll be another two sectors to and from Cochin...' (Amazing! BLR-GOI departs at 1510, COK-MAA arrives at 0010!)
'And how long will your turnaround in Chennai be?' I asked my final question..
'25 minutes, we hope to be in the air by 08:10 pm!'
'That's a mighty short turnaround!' I said, 'I shall leave you to it then!'
To which Capt. Jose and F/O Lamba had a smile on their faces, as the Capt. said: 'Haha! Absolutely no problem, its a pleasure to have you enthusiasts over!'
I will say it again: pilots are awesome people! Very Happy

I thanked the crew as I walked out of ATB on to the aero bridge. I saw that as soon as I walked out of the plane (I wasn't the last one! Very Happy

) the security opened the glass door to let the passengers board the plane. There obviously wasn't anything to clean because there was now service!

Diwali decor

Our bags arrived at Belt 3 - and it took a while, really. But we couldn't care less since we had a grueling 6 hours wait at the Chennai International Airport! We collected our bags and found the few chairs were people can sit - it was time to have an inflight meal on the ground! That's a first Wink

Ingredients!

To my horror, I found out that the crew hadn't given me a fork and spoon! So I went up to the snack bar and bought a Thums' Up...and asked for a fork and spoon. Yep, I got the customary weird look!

Believe me when I tell you - it tasted much better than it looked!
The meal was still quite hot! The chicken pieces were nice and delicious, soft an d full of flavor. The gravy was nice to go along with it. The rice was just like the usual South Indian style! So was the green beans based vegetables with its coconut garnishing. Brilliant! Very Happy

We hung around there for a bit before finally making our way towards the International Terminal.....

So that's it for this part Smile

In the next part - new aircraft type! Very Happy

The Q400 of SpiceJet.

Till then!

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

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

Once again, a delightful TR!
It started the usual soft and sweet way, building a background with text links to parts in case a reader wants to refresh his/her memory.
cheTTinAD(u): Mmm.... Smile

No `own food on board'? And I5 also calls passengers `guests'? t least Kingfisher, in Dr. Mallya's introductory video, has Dr. Mallya's statement tht he had instructed that passengers on Kingfisher Airlines should be treated as guests in his own home.
The Maini group: did they not sell the battery-powered vehicle division to Mahindra, or did they just sell their Reva?
Nice pictures from the KIA, Bengaluru: I look forward to seeing the renovated terminal in December. Along with meeting three prominent AI.netters!
Seat belts kept `the classy Jet Airways way': I have seen this on SpiceJet as well, and in what shocked me out of my wits, occassionally on Air India as well. I guess Jet would have started this trend in India, when it started operations in the 1990s. It is a nice sight for a passenger.
`Saw to cut wood' sounds: indeed, very apt, just like the Mooo...sounds on the GE90s you have so aptly described! Why did this analogy not occur to me? I have been flying on the A32S for quite some time! Well done, Sir.
No inflight meal as no time to clean the plane? Hmm...
Good that you got to have a dekko in the front office!
Ha ha! Thums Up asked for, with a fork and a spoon: nice of you to describe it in your own trademark way. I5's food packaging looks fabulous, with all details also described...if only they would supplement the ingredients with their recipe! Razz

That would be real bliss for me, you know! The poriyAl looks great as well. The chicken cheTTinAD(u) looks a bit oily, but when you affirm the taste coefficient, I have no complaints.
Lovely...thank you for sharing this with us!
Cheers, Sumantra.

ameya · Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2014 12:24 pm Post subject:

Nice TR Jishnu

I have always found CISF at BLR to be slow. At the entry point as well as the security

3 crew members ? What happend to 1 crew per 50pax rule ? or I5 reduces crew based on loads !

Sad to see the inflight magazine, safety card and the menu card. Wonder how I5 intends to survive

Capt. Vijay Jose is ex-KF, ex-G8 to the best of my knowledge (Like me Very Happy

, just that I do not work for I5)

I actually enjoy the "Fell-down" you mentioned. In numerous flights from BOM for work, all in A32x,
it used to be a great feeling, T/O from Runway 27 and get this feeling over the sea, with the BWSL view and turn right towards Delhi

I5 should not sell food if they dont intend to have service !
On short sectors, if food sales do not happen, the crew is not going to get additional money and neither is the airline going to get ancillary revenue
_________________
www.networkthoughts.com

shivendrashukla · Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2014 5:55 pm Post subject:

Great TR there. Looks like I5 had a good impression on you. Nice pics.

Cheers
Shivendra

Spiderguy252 · Posted: Fri Nov 07, 2014 2:51 pm Post subject:

Nice TR. As mentioned on the group, the crew had time to do 3 runs on my flight this past Monday - a pre-ordered meal run (mine), a regular and coffee/tea run, and a garbage run.

The IndiGo flight I came in on however announced that 'due to the short nature of the flight', hot beverages were not on (TR coming up).
_________________
Yeah.

jbalonso777 · Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2014 7:34 am Post subject:

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

avbuff · Member Joined: 22 Dec 2006 Posts: 5031

Nice TR and lovely pics

BLR CISF are not only slow but oversmart buffoons .....

jbalonso777 · Posted: Sun Nov 09, 2014 11:08 am Post subject:

ameya · Posted: Sun Nov 09, 2014 8:31 pm Post subject:

Nimish · Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2014 1:26 am Post subject:

Great TR Jishnu - even the "best" *cough*6E*cough* have issues with service on relatively longer flights like BLR-HYD - so I5 can be forgiven. I'm glad you got a nice cheerful/ chirpy check-in/gate agent...

Yesterday I used my mobile to show the ticket on the LH app, and the CISF at BLR was quite happy to let me through without any questions asked.
_________________
We miss you Nalini!

jbalonso777 · Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2014 7:59 pm Post subject:

Ameya - that required 'stability' might not be there if there is turbulence, perhaps leaving some pax red-faced! Wink

Nimish, thanks! Yes, LCCs should really think about what their strategies are on these super-short routes. Makes sense not to offer food on sale anyways, since processing the change and all will take a lot of time!

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

jbalonso777 · Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2014 11:28 am Post subject:

Hey all,

Uploaded the videos from the AirAsia India flight:
Start up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gm_ik23ztdE
Take off: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exBbYQQEAns
Landing: Rolling Eyes

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