India's southwest

Im blogging from chennai. I flew AirDeccan for the first time yesterday. I had to come to chennai on short notice and the only airline that could get me a ticket in a matter of 3 hours was this one.

Southwest airlines in the US is a pioneer in cheap airlines. It is such a popular case among the profs teaching us that we all are tired of hearing a few companies that tend to get repeated sometimes. Dell, Cisco, Southwest...

Air deccan is modelled like southwest. The basic funda being they strip off all the frills and bring the cost down. At the same time, by bringing the frills down, they dont have to make their planes wait on the ground but keep them as much as possible flying, which is where the planes make maximum money for the airline. In all this, they are able to charge you a price that even the apex fares of the other airlines cant match.

I was supposed to fly by the 5:15 flight, which was scheduled to arrive in chennai at 6:45. The whole setup semed to make me feel a bit inferior at first, because I was flying a cheap airline. Having flown Jet and IA before, I was wondering how the experience is going to be.

The first indication that this was different: there is no ticket!!! I booked my ticket over the net and the printout I had was the ticket! It is all I needed to walk into the airport, straight to the check in counter. They asked me for photo identification to determine I was the guy who booked it... And then gave me the boarding pass...

Next hit: No seat numbers. I was almost tempted to say the usual, "Seat by the window please" when I remembered there these guys follow free seating... There was a Jet airways flight to bombay at the same time and somehow, there was a distinct hurry among the Jet and airport staff to help those passengers to move faster through the security check... There was just one guy representing Deccan who was very cool, even though the time was 5:10... Deccan was checking in passengers even at 5...

I was very politely asked to take a seat in the lounge along with the other passengers while the Jet patrons hurried and their plane took off just a few minutes late... We kept biding our time, the Deccan staff very cool, smiling and experiencing no hurry... This went on for 20 minutes and when I almost lost my patience, the deccan mini bus came and all of us were taken to the plane...

The plane is an ATR... It was one of those kinds that I had heard of before, the small 50 seater ones but never had the chance to fly in... Jet flies some of them in the chennai-hyd route but I had consciously avoided these until this day... So here was my chance...

the interiors were like an airbus but of course the plane itself is very small... The next interesting factoid: There was only one air hostess to manage the entire show... Actually it made sense... for such a small aircraft, it made no sense to have more than one.. This one was very good... Smart, good looking and professional... She had an artificial accent but not that it could not be tolerated... She handled the plane and the passengers very well and was in command all through...

The plane started with the usual demo by the hostess about the safety features... one thing i found very disconcerting was the fact that my window seat was just next to the wing and in an ATR, the wings are above the body... So, you can see the engine and the fan blades of the engine rotating... my paranoid thoughts kicked in to tell me that I would be the first one to see something go wrong with the engine... anyways, seat belts on and ready for take off and then i realized something even more disconcerting... the noise of the engines... I cannot listen to loud noise continously and this one wasnt easy... the ATR is positvely louder than the airbus and boeing... As the aircraft took off, the feeling was all nice, except the noise...

these planes fly at an altitude of 15-20 K feet... if i remember right, the boeings fly at around double that height... but beyond a point, i guess it really doesnt matter... but the ATR does ascend slower... that gave me a wonderful view of secunderabad...

Once at the cruising speed and altitude, the pilot talked to us and welcomed us aboard... His distinct russian like accent made me think that he may be one of those pilots from the CIS countries on hire... The noise had gone down a it but still nowhere near comfortable for the super sensitive ears of mine... I looked around to see whether the flight was full... not one extra seat!

The inflight mag, "Simplyfly" (thats their punchline too), was ok... Noticed an article about Shvetha Jaishankar and her stint at ISB... Interesting reading... There were other usual stuff, newspapers, though many randome pages were missing... the cleanup crew had not taken care of that... not that i expected it... I had an interesting book with me as a precaution... "Biography of a germ" by Arno Karlen... In case you catch hold of this book, jump straight to the 4th chapter and enjoy... I am not much of a biology fan but this one will make interesting reading for anyone fascinated by nature...

Southwest does not serve inflight meals... So I wasnt expecting any here too. The air hostess did come with a trolley and I was wondering what this one was for... Deccan actually sells food on board. At normal rates. You get plain cakes, water, juice, sandwich, brownies and cashews. None more than 10-15 bucks. That left me wondering. Why sell these at all. They might as well charge me 20 bucks more and give me a light snack. I as a passenger anyway pay 2-3 grand and an extra 20-30 bucks wudnt hurt. At least the hostess doesnt have to sell, I dont have to pay and buy. The in flight experience remains as close to a normal airline! Selling stuff for 10-20 bucks did not make sense to me at all.

The flight was uneventful otherwise. The weather outside was clear and there was no turbulence. We landed 15 minutes late. A mini bus took us from the tarmac to the departure lounge. After the usual haggling with the auto guy, I was home. It was comforting to know that I was home for dinner and comfortable sleep in my room. Contrast that with no dinner and sleep in the train. I had spent a couple of grand more (as a student, it does matter) but once in a while, it is seriously worth it. Except for the headache thanks to the constant noise, it was worth the experience. I would give Deccan a 3.5 out of 5. I will probably fly with them again.