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me111993 · Member Joined: 04 Sep 2009 Posts: 3225 Location: MAA/AMD

Hi all. Happy New Year. One final stretch in Chennai before graduating as an Engineer in May.
In 9Ws AGM in August-September, in response to Vistara announcing operations, they went on to announce their commitment to a single master brand, ending the whole JetKonnect -JetLite puzzle, w.e.f the 1st of December 2014.
Here, i'm covering my first set of flights on the single master-brand - Jet Airways.
BACKGROUND
I booked 9W as they were (relatively) the cheapest, at Rs6200/-, around 2 months in advance is very high for AMD-MAA, but everyone else was higher than this fare, owing to this being the weekend immediately after the New Year.

This is what my booking looked like.

PRE-DEPARTURE
Around 6 odd months ago, 9W had fully rectified their Web-Check-in and App Check-in, for all 9W and S2 flights alike, everything on a single platform, so 24 hours before my scheduled departure, while doing a check in for S2-432 via the APP, I expected a seamless experience, but it wasn't to be, neither the APP or a direct Web-Check in could "retrieve" my booking. Strike ONE, master-brand.
I got busy with other things after this, a shade disappointed. I had been tracking the rotation of the planes that normally operate S2-4322, and they normally follow

BOM UDR BOM HYD BOM AMD BOM RPR BHO BOM

Just before calling it a night, I went ahead and did the usual geeky stuff before the flight, and this struck me like a bolt of lightning.

!!
This on flight radar. Upon digging in further, I discovered that FR was showing the whole rotation as cancelled, and being aware of the fact that one mainline 9W 737 (VT-JBH) was grounded in KTM, and recently, there was talk of them shifting an S2 registered 737 to the mainline fleet to cover for VT-JBH, so a full rotation cancellation plus non-retrieval of my booking, did fit the theory, but didn't really make that much sense.
What made my suspicion clearer was this

No mention of my flight at all on the 9W website.

This would have been Strike-TWO, but instead it got me all excited, as it meant I could manipulate the Call Centre waalas, into getting me a favorable routing, like I did with a rescheduled SG flight around 2 years ago, when I had my AMD MAA flight rebooked via BLR to log the Q400 on BLR-MAA.
I slept off; cooking up a story about being a part of a student tour group who are going to the Thermal Power Plant in Mettur, 2 batches of students, one on 9W 487 (my original flight) the other on 9W 835 (DEL-MAA, and hence catch the 9W A330-200). So "having missed one batch, please rebook me with the other one, on 9W 835, as we have chartered busses carrying us". Twisted Evil

I'd planned to make this call the next morning after ensuring that the BOM-UDR leg was indeed cancelled.

Jump to 0730, the day of the journey, alas, I spotted VT-SJI operating the early morning BOM-UDR. Sad

So, now that reality had hit me again, I quickly realized that this would be a full flight and if I didn't make another attempt at checking in I might as well kiss good bye to a window seat. Another failed attempt at a web-check in, I called their call centre and went on to the tele check in option, no waiting time, I directly got a representative, who after taking my details and FFP number apologized saying that tele-Check in is for Silver / Gold / Plat only, and asked me to check in via the web-check in option. I went on to tell him the error that the web check in was throwing up. He then apologized for the inconvenience again, he than acknowledged that over the past 2 days check in for codeshared flights had been hit and miss due to some technical glitch, he offered to check me into both my flights, which took about 15 mins. All in all, job well done, to the call centre guy.
Got myself 16F and 19A respectively, for flights 1 and 2.
Fast Forward to 80 mins before departure, the pretty agent at the 9W counter looked at me and said, "sir your bag is 4 kgs over weight".
Now, to be fair, I had almost nothing in my hand, my laptop + my camera, together weighed under 3 kgs, so I was hoping if a mix and match scenario would have worked out, which she said she's not allowed to do, she asked me to take a big polythene and stuff some of my baggage inside and carry it as hand baggage, I asked her for 5 mins, and pulled out of the queue.
Stuffed all my chargers into my laptop bag till it started looking like a balloon about to burst, and went in again. I had wiped off 800 gms from my suitcase. I had that crooked smile + nervous gesture on my face, after seeing the weight. She, looked at her screen again, and handed me my boarding passes while wishing me a good flight.
Phew.

AMD was all beautified for the Vibrant Gujarat Summit of 2015.

DEPARTURE
SJI departed to UDR from BOM around an hour late, but had surprisingly made up time on its subsequent legs, and was expected into AMD on schedule.

IEP to BOM as 6E 172.

SJI Pulled in bang on schedule.

Sequence wise boarding was called around 10 mins after arrival.

There was another 9W employee, right at the edge of the aerobridge, who was asking for everyone's boarding passes, handing them back and wishing people a nice flight using their name. Nice touch. Everyone was cheerful.

VT-SJI is around 8 years old, showing its age a little bit. Old 9W interiors, cloth seats, dirty windows, creaky seats and all, just that the plane was clean, very little "dust" was seen. There are older planes in 9W's mainline fleet such as VT-JNX / JNN which are actually better than SJI was.

Flight was 100% chock a block full.

We Pushed back on schedule, usual demonstrations were carried out, we were holding at RWY 27, when out of nowhere,

I heard a couple of people at the back yell out "oh, Vistara". Nice!

MEAL
The crew sprung into action the second the seat belt sign was turned off.
Only one meal option - Vegetarian.

A Paneer Roll, a Kit-Kat and those delightful tamarind toffees.
Presentation was average, as you can see.
The Roll was boiling hot, almost impossible to hold it, and atleast the roll in my hand started dis-integrating, probably the first time in my life that I considered leaving a meal on an airline purely because of the mess it was starting to create, thankfully the lower end of the roll held on firmly.
Taste wise, it was okay, one time eat. But this is where the immediate problem is, these rolls are becoming far too common on short haul 9W flights, specially for people who do routes like AMD/BDQ/RAJ-BOM-NAG/IXU/IDR/RPR , etc, you may end up getting the same thing twice, and no one is going to eat that roll twice in a row.
I'll give this meal a generous 5/10.

ARRIVAL

We started our decent somewhere over the Arabian sea, banked left into BOM, U-Turn and landed onto RWY 27.

Caught a glimpse of this beauty departing!

Landed 5 mins ahead of time, docked onto one of the T-1C Aerobridges, the plane carries onto RPR.

VT-SJI

I walked out, of the terminal, and met up with a few friends at the Airport Starbucks.

9W 487 FLIGHT

Now this was the 3rd time I was taking this flight, and both times earlier, the flight departed from Gate A1 in T-1C, both times earlier, I met up with friends, before this 2040 departure and both times, I walked into the airport at 1950, went straight to security where I see the line for departure for 9W 487 on A1, walk straight into the airplane.

100% the same story this time too, Starbucks to VT-JFD in under 7-8 mins, straight. No halts.

12J with the old J seats. VT-JFD is a non-HGW 737, so exclusively for domestic operations only.
I settled into my emergency exit window seat.

VT-JGC pushing back to operate out to DEL, the (AF-KL-KQ) 74F taxing in.

VT-JFD was spotless clean, and shiny.

from IDR.

The ground staff had finished boarding over 10 mins ahead of departure time, just that we were waiting for a group of 15 passengers from a connecting international flight. This lead to a 10 min delay in our departure time.

Snapped up this picture quickly.

I was worried that we would have missed our departure slot and at the least there would a queue of 5-6 planes waiting for takeoff or landing, but something happened that I'd personally never experienced at BOM before.

We just taxied straight onto RWY 27, LDG and STR lights ON, onto 27, and thundered down, nothing in between at all!

Once again, crew was onto the meal service the second the seat belt sign was switched off.
2 meal options, I chose the non-veg option.

And I don't want to push it, but this is perhaps one of the best meals I can remember on an airplane, the chicken was immaculately cooked in the white gravy, and was well complemented with the capsicum-potato vegetable. Everything was heated to precision. The kheer for desert was superb! There was the tamarind toffee here too. Decent serving size for a dinner flight.

Our trays were collected almost immediately afterwards, beyond which I really don't remember much, as they turned down the mood lighting to the softest possible purple hue, and I dozed off.

The Captain was making his pre landing announcement when I woke up, so we were already hovering over MAA, we landed around 10 mins later, 5 mins behind our scheduled arrival time and docked into an aerobridge that had just been vacated by an S2 737-700. Perfect flight!

CONCLUSION
I'm going to take the Web-Check in glitch as a one off issue, so there are 2 primary things that 9W has to work on, IMO.
-> Upgrade the cabins on the S2 fleet. Makes a huge difference from a passenger perspective.
-> Work on the short sector meals and presentation. Nothing ruins a good flight experience more than a sub standard meal .

Beyond these 2 issues, ground staff and cabin crew were cheerful and helpful, the call centre dude was equally resourceful, both flights were bang on schedule despite being 100% full, both planes were clean, JFD was just beautiful!

Thanks for reading!
_________________
Causal Determinism : We are hardwired to need answers. The Caveman who heard a rustle in the bushes and checked out to see what it was, lived longer than the guy, who assumed it was just a breeze.

- Greg House

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

When a master TR-writer writes about experiences on the the Master-brand, we know we are in for a treat. I really enjoy reading about the background of a particular flight, the routing, the history, and the background, and the thoughts in the mind of an avgeek when one goes in for a particular booking, nor a particular routing. Wow, what a roller-coaster experience!
I have never been to Amdavad by air, and it was a real treat to see the terminal inside through your lens. The advertisements were interesting, with the state of Gujarat looking a bit like a smiling Tyrannosaurus Rex.
The `meal': a bit disappointing (however, quantity-wise, it looks perfectly decent for a short flight like AMD-BOM), though the appearance of the tamarind toffees makes my taste-buds go ooomph...Rishul, like you, I also love these 9W offerings, which had gone out some time in the past!
It is great to see you in a BSI plane once more! I seem to miss them always, whenever I fly on 9W or SG. Your BOM-MAA meals looks very nice and inviting: no oily mess, from what I can see. It is good to see 9W present a nice experience to you.
Rishul ,it is great to see you on this part of the forum after a long time, and thank you once again for an enthralling read!
Cheers, Sumantra.

ameya · Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2015 11:29 am Post subject:

Nice Read Rishul. Thanks !

Interesting story you had in mind for the resched. . too bad !

I have seen these RED dot decorations at old IDR airport too. . any idea what decoration this is?
I have no clue

Nice shot of Ghatkopar- Vikroli area pre landing

The meal on BOM-MAA indeed looks amazing. . and the fact that you did not have to wait for traffic at BOM ..
indeed very very very RARE !
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sri_bom · Member Joined: 22 Dec 2006 Posts: 2365 Location: Singapore

Thank you for taking time out to post the report. The pictures of AMD airport terminal was well captured and so was the approach to Bombay.

The Vistara airplane that you saw could be the test flight that was done with DGCA prior to getting the AOC. The test flight routing was Delhi-Bombay-Ahemdabad- Delhi. (http://www.livemint.com/Companies/Zt3vFrbaJyi2z3U9uCp2MM/TataSIAs-Vistara-clears-last-hurdle-to-launch-flights.html)

I liked the description of the roll that was given to you on the AMD-BOM leg. I got a similar roll when I recently flew Jet Airways between Mangalore and Bombay and although it was hot but was not tasty. The food on the Bombay Chennai sector looks quite appetizing and great to know your plane was queued up for immediate departure.

Sri_Bom

jbalonso777 · Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2015 1:57 pm Post subject:

Hey Rishul, thanks for sharing this TR with us! And we all knew it would be coming anyways. Wink

I'm glad you didn't get it cancelled and a full refund, as I suggested. Rolling Eyes

Those fares look super expensive!
S2 OLCI...hmm, never tried it so far, its always been 9W for a long time, and I've never had issues with that, same goes for the call center, never encountered a clueless representative, but the same cannot be said about the hold time..

Seat 16F, I'm guessing 17F had no window? How did the CFM56s sound? Very Happy

Nice capture of the Vistara bird, and the rest of the pics as a whole! Good stuff.
I see a picture of the Mumbai Metro too! Awesome! Very Happy

Disappointed to see that meal...

Rishul, what are the non-HGW BSI birds in 9W's fleet? Sorry I keep forgetting Sad

Hmm, JFD doesn't have the seatback ads removed, as I saw in my flight on JFK, and the folks' flight on JFR.

For some reason, I'm still in two thoughts about that BOM-MAA meal, but if you say it was awesome, then theres no reason for me to argue Smile

Good stuff Rishul, I look forward to more from you!

Regards
Jish
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5Patel · Member Joined: 02 Oct 2014 Posts: 117

Very good TR sir.

I'm looking forward for the 9W meals on my first masterbrand 9W flights soon - AMD-PNQ and BOM-RAJ. I just hope someone from 9W reads your TR and changes the menu.

@Ameya sir - the red dots are caution stickers for glass. Even after putting such stickers, I've seen 2 gentlemen bang their noses on such stickered gates at RAJ.

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

Great TR .... and great pics Rish !!!!

avbuff · Member Joined: 22 Dec 2006 Posts: 5031

Rishul,

excellent TR and a good collection of pics at all three stations. I believe you even caught the Mumbai metro upon landing in BOM.

Food looked delicious and good to know it was an overall good Jetexperience Wink

All the best for your final lap of engineering!

Karan69 · Member Joined: 22 Dec 2006 Posts: 1334

great report RiS,

Its good to geta non wingleted bird as these will be history in the near future

Also did you venture to see what the "online upgrade ". Offer memtioned on your ticket was

Nice pics, good luck with your final leg

Karan

Nimish · Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2015 11:00 am Post subject:

Hi Rishul - lovely detailed TR - thanks for sharing. This pic stood out the most for me:

Glad that 9W have got their act together - right from full flights, to courteous staff and good food. Good luck to 9W and hope they rock the Indian skies!
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We miss you Nalini!

Spiderguy252 · Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2015 4:02 am Post subject:

Hey Rishul, thanks for the share. Been busy with work of late but I'm finally back to TR reading and writing!

Love the glee regarding the proposed call to the call centre, and the capture of the Vistara bird:

I know you've shared several TRs from and to AMD now, and we have to conclude that the terminal isn't too flash, and can definitely do with a touch of class a la some other domestic airports in the country.

Looking forward to the final run between MAA and AMD later in the year then!
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Yeah.

me111993 · Member Joined: 04 Sep 2009 Posts: 3225 Location: MAA/AMD

Sumantra, Ameya, Sri, Jishnu, Nikhil, Ojas, Karan, Varun and 5Patel, thanks alot for your comments.
_________________
Causal Determinism : We are hardwired to need answers. The Caveman who heard a rustle in the bushes and checked out to see what it was, lived longer than the guy, who assumed it was just a breeze.

- Greg House