Air Travel in India

Old Nov 8th, 2013, 07:12 PM
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Air Travel in India

I've had a lot of questions about India and I've gotten some great insight from this forum. I hope I'm not asking too many questions.

How's airtravel in India now? I've read the stories about pilots falling asleep at the wheel, general chaos. The reason I ask is I am looking at prices for flights around the country and they're dirt cheap! For an extra $30USD I can fly rather than be on a train, and arrive quicker. Is there a catch? Do the airlines' service leave much to be desired compared with the service one gets on the trains? Thanks!
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Old Nov 8th, 2013, 07:32 PM
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When we visited India for six weeks nearly two years ago, we primarily took trains. However, we did take one flight, and I remember thinking to myself afterwards Why didn't we fly more often because it certainly is a time saver. And, I remember thinking on the trains that these were the exact same cars I may have taken forty years earlier in Europe (and some of them seemed not to have had a really deep cleaning since then).

Trains are an experience you need to have, but on longer distances, I'd fly to save the time. When we were visiting the rule of thumb was not to take Kingfisher because they were likely to cancel their flights. I don't know what the current status of that airline is now. We took a Jet Airways flight, and it seemed the same to me as any other flight I've taken anywhere in the world.
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Old Nov 9th, 2013, 06:14 AM
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Took 7 flights within India and had no problems. They even served free food.
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Old Nov 9th, 2013, 07:31 AM
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As far as I know, kingfisher is defunct.

I do want to take trains as an experience but I have a lot of territory to cover and I'm wondering if I could just save myself a lot of time by flying. I'm already doing 3 flights from Goa-Kolkata, Varanasi-Khajuraho, Udaipur-Mumbai, but I'm wondering if I should do more.

What are some parts of the country I definitely see from the ground? And what are some that I could probably miss?
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Old Nov 9th, 2013, 09:37 AM
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Jet airways gets good reviews. We have flown them twice w/o any issues.
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Old Nov 9th, 2013, 11:50 AM
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Thanks, Jacket. What about spicejet or jetkonnect?
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Old Nov 9th, 2013, 12:59 PM
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We were in India this past summer for a month. We flew first class internationally and economy for the internal India flights. We took five internal flights. We flew on Air India, Jet Airways, and Spice Jet within India. All of the flights were safe and on time.

The Spice Jet flight from Udaipur to Mumbai was the only flight that was very crowded.

I was concerned about Air India based on all of the negative reviews I read, but the planes we flew on had a lot of leg room and were not over booked. The Air India flights were quite nice.

We drove from Delhi to Agra, Agra to Jaipur, and Jaipur to Udaipur. We also drove from Jabalpur to Bandhavgarh and Bandhavgarh to Khajuraho.

We did not take any trains.
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Old Nov 9th, 2013, 01:38 PM
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We were in India last winter and took 2 internal flights; both were absolutely fine. The first was a SpiceJet flight from Delhi to Varanasi-- comfortable, good service, on time departure and arrival. We flew JetKonnect from Jodhpur to Delhi, and that was good, too. Jodhpur Airport was tiny and the plane, I believe, was a smaller one, and there was some confusion in checking in, but there were no problems on the plane and on it was on schedule, too.

We did take an overnight train from Varanasi to Agra, which was very comfortable - and the only delay of our travels because of the fog. Interestingly, we saw many trains pass us as we sat on the tracks (and sat....), and we were told simply that the other trains were kept on schedule but because we were already late, the implication was, it didn't matter. I'm not sure of the accuracy of this, but in some strange way, it made sense.
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Old Nov 10th, 2013, 05:29 PM
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Don't know about those other two but check:
Www.airlineequality.com
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Old Nov 10th, 2013, 05:31 PM
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Oops!
Www.ailinequality.com
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Old Nov 10th, 2013, 05:32 PM
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Www.airliequality.com
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Old Nov 10th, 2013, 05:33 PM
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Grrrrr!

Www.airlinequality.com
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Old Nov 10th, 2013, 08:33 PM
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For long distance travel, its preferable to take an airline. Jet Airways is your best option, and Air India is not too bad either despite their bad rep. If you need to get somewhere on time but care about little else, take Indigo. SpiceJet is decent but extremely crowded because its a low cost airline. Same goes for JetKonnect. The only airlines serving free food are Jet Air and Air India.
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Old Nov 10th, 2013, 10:09 PM
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We took four internal flights: 1 Air India Mumbai-Udaipur, and 3 Jet flights, Udaipur - Delhi, Delhi-Varanasi and Varanasi-Khajuraho. Our trip planner told us that although Air India has a less than stellar reputation internationally, it is fine domestically, and we concur.

The flights were all on time with clean planes and a better level of service than you would find on short US flights, including hot meals and personal monitors (with cool Bollywood films).

We took one train just for the experience. But for long distances there is no contest...flying wins by a longshot.
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Old Nov 11th, 2013, 12:35 PM
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I recently flew on Jet Airways exclusively within India (Mumbai - Dehradun - Delhi - Bangalore). Great airline. Very friendly, on time, food served on all flights. Very impressed.
A local I was traveling with explained it like this:

If you want smiling flight attendants, go with any airline but Air India. If you don't care about that stuff, fly Air India. They have been around forever, get you from point A to point B, tend to be less expensive, but not necessarily known for being the friendliest airline in the country.

There is another new one called IndiGo. Didn't get a chance to fly it but from the fares I saw, seems to be modeled after Southwest.
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Old Nov 11th, 2013, 08:00 PM
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crosscheck, I am planning on doing the flight from Varanasi to Khajuraho myself... I am only going to do the Khajuraho-Agra-Delhi Train for the experience. Everywhere else I'm actually contemplating flying.

I see that the khajuraho airport is super tiny. How was it flying into that airstrip?
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Old Nov 11th, 2013, 10:12 PM
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Perfectly fine - It's a small airport, not an airstrip (which we've experienced in Africa and Central America). Here's a photo I found on Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/m_flory/406659102/

The flight from Varanasi was about 20 minutes, yet they somehow found the time to serve a sandwich.
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Old Nov 12th, 2013, 03:43 AM
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We just got back from India and flew JetAir, Jetkonnect, and Indigo. All flights were on time and the planes were new and clean. (Delhi-Kolkata JetAir, Patna-Kolkata Jetkonnect, Kolkata-Bubaneswar Jetkonnect and Bubaneswar-Delhi IndiGo
Flying can save time but depending on where you want to go traveling by train or car may be the only option.

We drove from Delhi to Haridwar. A 209 KM distance took us 7.30 hours because the road conditions and traffic were terrible. We did not want to go through that harrowing drive again so we decided it would be better to take a train back to Delhi.

They only offer second class compartments on this route but it is assigned seating. The seats were comfortable and even though we didn't buy any food, there were plenty of vendors offering food and drink throughout the 4 hour journey. Keep in mind that the trains are old and are not cleaned to our western standards.

Check http://www.seat61.com/ for train information.
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Old Nov 25th, 2013, 08:39 PM
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There is no problems with indian airlines and they are good for long distance travel .
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Old Jul 7th, 2016, 04:30 AM
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Hello everyone
I'm going for a teacher training course in India at Arhanta Yoga ashram in Madhya Pradesh(Khajuraho) in November 2016. The school has suggested either to take a flight from New delhi airport or a train.
I was wondering if anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance for your advice.
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