Flying Air Deccan

I've got some more posts backlogged. Will catch up in due course. Meanwhile, here's a howto on flying sans frills.

Check on their website and/or call-centre to verify that flight is on time, just before going to the airport. Go to the airport to arrive an hour before the flight. Check-in begins upto 2 hours before the flight, but since we're talking of a 70 seater ATR 72, the crowd is not much, and one can afford to be casual.

Walk into the departures lounge. The security guard may want to see your ticket since visitors are not allowed inside. Then he'll wave you through. If the check-in time has begun - can be seen from the flight status notice boards too - you can go to the Air Deccan counter and show your ticket to be issued the boarding pass. You'll need to check in extra luggage for baggage handling now. "Photo identification" is required now, but just a formality - xerox of PAN card etc should be fine. Probably won't even ask you. Even the CISF people for the security check were quite relaxed and smiling. Due to the small number of passengers, maybe.

Air Deccan ground staff seemed to take being on time seriously - they probably want to retain their statistics lead or whatever - so they were in quite a hurry to make up for the ten minutes delayed arrival of the flight. Walk out to the aircraft waiting just outside the terminus... or take a bus there if your airport is bigger.

Free seating - I've heard of people "rushing for seats" and so on, but none of that on this flight, since it was only half full. Leg room is of city bus variety, just like on Indian Airlines A320 last year, but the seats here recline only 2 inches. Anyway, it's only an hour in the plane, so it's all right. After all, can't expect to recline in a no-frills airline. No free food either, of course - not even toffees. The noise level inside was lower than the Airbus - the turbo-props are quieter. And the ride was quite smooth - no different from a large jet - may be different in bad weather, I suppose. But overall, the experience is OK for an hour's commute.

The air-hostesses came up with coffee for Rs. 20 and sandwiches for Rs. 40 and so on. Cookies for Rs. 10 were the hot items which "ran out" by the time they were half-way up the aisle. And the comments about air hostesses on Indian Airlines being more human than the rest are probably right - these ones, maybe because they were young and nervous, were finding it difficult to smile. And totally stumped by my question, "Is this a Dornier or an Avro?" (It was an ATR, of course). The Indian Airlines lady was quite confident of her reply, "26,000 feet" or something like that, for my question last year on how high we were flying.

Touchdown, walk out if you have no baggage to claim. At Bangalore airport, penny-pinching travellers like me can just walk out of the Airport, 10 minutes of brisk walking gets you to the bus stop where there are buses to the city centre ("Majestic") every 10 minutes or so.

An interesting footnote. In the plane, the airhostesses were hawking some wares, passing on some coupons which the passengers tick for buying some items. In the APSTRC bus, later, an enterprising pair of guys were carrying out an auction of various cloth material, shawls and so on, with free gifts of combs and so on to anyone who participates in the auction. I suspect the latter had more sales volumes.