First of all, on Air Deccan’s website, I only see one daily EVENING flight to Mumbai in the winter months, departing at 19:45 (7:45 pm). Are you sure you have the right schedule? See http://www.airdeccan.net/air/CurrentSchedule.asp

Air Deccan has a little bit of a spotty reputation, what they tend to do from what I have heard is to shift flight times at short notice, or cancel flights if there aren’t enough people on them. (Like several of the newer independent operators, they are losing a lot of money and try to cut costs.) This is only what I have heard, I have not flown them, so I don’t know how to advise you. As both flights are on the same airline, I would hope that they can (i) check your bags all the way through, and (ii) issue you a boarding pass in Aug for the flight to Mumbai. If this is not possible, then yes you will have to collect your bags, and re-check in for the next flight. IF your flight from Aug is on time, you should have no trouble doing this, although security lines at Mumbai domestic airport can be long. I would strongly suggest that you consider flying business class on Air Deccan because lines for check-in will be shorter (esp in Mumbai if you do have to check-in again), and you will be treated better if you have to make a fast connection, i.e. they will take you through security.

Personally, if this were my trip I would do the routing I had suggested on my other post, which is to take Air India the night before to Mumbai, and overnight at the airport, then take the early morning flight on Jet to Jaipur. (It appears you could also take the later Air Deccan flight from Aug to Mumbai at 7:45 pm giving you more time in Aug if you wanted it.) This will give almost a whole day more in Jaipur to begin with which is preferable, without cutting into time in Aug, IMO. Air India has old planes and service is bad, but their evening flight avoids having to make that connecting flight, which is preferable, IMO. The worse that will happen to you on that evening flight is that you will arrive later at night that you expected, but as your only plan would be to sleep a the airport and get up for the early Jet flight, that does not really matter. Jet is a far preferable airline to Deccan, IMO. .

Mumbai domestic airport is tiny, quite new and probably the nicest in India, but no real shops or restaurants at all. It’s like a small regional airport in the US, where people just come in for flights.

Thanks, Cicerone, for the suggestion about staying overnight near Mumbai airport and taking an early flight out to Jaipur. I'm looking into this.

The latest flight out of Aurangabad to Mumbai is around 6:45 p.m. How early would I need to go to the airport, considering that Aurangabad aiport is probably smaller than most? Since we probably won't ever come back to Aur again, we might as well "finish" it on this trip.

Does anyone know of a decent budget hotel close to the Mumbai domestic airport?

I've read about Hotel Columbus and Hotel Airport International. Anyone had experience with these?

Thanks!

In general for other than Mumbai domestic airport, you only need to be there about an hour before a domestic flight. If you are flying business class, you can get away with a bit less as you won’t have any lines at check-in.

Mumbai domestic airport tends to be very, very busy and it is the security lines that are long and can slow you down, I would be there at least 1.5 hours before any flight, and a bit earlier if you have an early morning flight when the airport seems to be busiest, as a lot of people take day trips to Delhi, Pune, Hyderabad and Bangalore and take early morning flights out. There are separate security lines for women and men, women are on the right and the line is usually shorter, so you will probably get through first. (In most other airports, there are usually no separate lines, but men and women are always screened separately and women have female security personnel. FYI, security at Indian airports has always been very tight and is now more so, you cannot bring any liquids or sprays on board at all currently.)

I don’t know either of those hotels at the Mumbai domestic airport, have you tried tripadvisor.com for ratings? For one night, how bad could it be anyway….

Thanks, Cicerone, for the good info, as usual!

Anyone know of a clean budget hotel near the Delhi domestic airport?

I just found out that most monuments and museums in Delhi will be closed on Mon, so I might as well fly out of Delhi on the 2nd day to Hyderabad and see Delhi at the end.

There's a flight out at 8:10 a.m., so a hotel close to the domestic airport would be great. Thanks!