Airline stories...
This is not a compare and contrast post - but just two incidents relating to airlines.
1. Of late, Kingfisher has started operating KF-red flights in the Mumbai-Chennai sector. Not sure if the move is driven by politics. Mostly they do offer meals etc - that is service is of Kingfisher, and the aircraft is of KF-red [means, no music, no video, etc]. It also means no lounge access in Mumbai and Delhi, where the terminals are different for KF and KF-red. Last month, on the Holi-day, they made the flight into a pure KF-red flight without even meals [they gave snacks at dinner time!]
They also stopped providing cotton (for ear-plug) in the flight. A couple of times, when I asked the airhostess, she said "Sorry, not loaded". When the reply became common over 2-3 flights, I asked straight "not loaded, or stopped loading?". She said "yes, stopped loading".
Finally, I wrote a complaint at flykingfisher.com and left it at that. Two days later, I got a call from their office referring to my complaint mails. I was pleasantly surprised at the quick response to a web-complaint. She apologised for the problems, clarified the situation and details, and promised to correct the cotton problem, and also look into the Chennai sector problem. The discussion appeared genuine; even if it does not get implemented. It was nice to see your comments getting some attention.
2. Last week I was on a short trip to Brussels. Jet flies direct to Brussels (taking it as their European hub), and hence opted for that. The check-in process was a horror. I was standing in line for nearly 1.5 hours in the check-in queue, though I reached the airport nearly 3 hours before departure. They can't open 1-2 more counters? It was disgusting. The return was even worse. Jet had flights to Chennai/Mumbai/Delhi leaving Brussels at the same time. And it was not a lean season. They kept just 4 counters for all these, with 3 kept for gold/silver/premier class. The latter three were largely empty most of the time. The queue for economy class was about a kilometer long, and I had only 1.5 hours to departure. 70 minutes, I was in the queue, and just hoped that they wont close the counter close enough to departure. They decided to delay the flight by 25 minutes (of course, no announcement!) to cater to this, and I was at the gate just 5 minutes before the scheduled boarding time, not stopping anywhere.
The seating etc in the flight is comfortable. Their entertainment collection is good - it even had Slumdog Millionnaire in its movie list. But I never understood their logic for serving food. It was neither as per the departure-city timing nor the arrival timing. I think they are cost cutting even on flights which are doing well.
1. Of late, Kingfisher has started operating KF-red flights in the Mumbai-Chennai sector. Not sure if the move is driven by politics. Mostly they do offer meals etc - that is service is of Kingfisher, and the aircraft is of KF-red [means, no music, no video, etc]. It also means no lounge access in Mumbai and Delhi, where the terminals are different for KF and KF-red. Last month, on the Holi-day, they made the flight into a pure KF-red flight without even meals [they gave snacks at dinner time!]
They also stopped providing cotton (for ear-plug) in the flight. A couple of times, when I asked the airhostess, she said "Sorry, not loaded". When the reply became common over 2-3 flights, I asked straight "not loaded, or stopped loading?". She said "yes, stopped loading".
Finally, I wrote a complaint at flykingfisher.com and left it at that. Two days later, I got a call from their office referring to my complaint mails. I was pleasantly surprised at the quick response to a web-complaint. She apologised for the problems, clarified the situation and details, and promised to correct the cotton problem, and also look into the Chennai sector problem. The discussion appeared genuine; even if it does not get implemented. It was nice to see your comments getting some attention.
2. Last week I was on a short trip to Brussels. Jet flies direct to Brussels (taking it as their European hub), and hence opted for that. The check-in process was a horror. I was standing in line for nearly 1.5 hours in the check-in queue, though I reached the airport nearly 3 hours before departure. They can't open 1-2 more counters? It was disgusting. The return was even worse. Jet had flights to Chennai/Mumbai/Delhi leaving Brussels at the same time. And it was not a lean season. They kept just 4 counters for all these, with 3 kept for gold/silver/premier class. The latter three were largely empty most of the time. The queue for economy class was about a kilometer long, and I had only 1.5 hours to departure. 70 minutes, I was in the queue, and just hoped that they wont close the counter close enough to departure. They decided to delay the flight by 25 minutes (of course, no announcement!) to cater to this, and I was at the gate just 5 minutes before the scheduled boarding time, not stopping anywhere.
The seating etc in the flight is comfortable. Their entertainment collection is good - it even had Slumdog Millionnaire in its movie list. But I never understood their logic for serving food. It was neither as per the departure-city timing nor the arrival timing. I think they are cost cutting even on flights which are doing well.