I believe I can fly...

It's Batman, it's Superman..... No you dodo, it's just a plane!

The Indian airspace has become so overcrowded in the recent past that one might consider excusing the confusion. So, I thought, as a person who has travelled a lot in recent times, I thought it might be interesting to compile my thoughts and evaluate the various service providers in the Indian air-space. The choice seems obvious, "if you're a price sensitive customer, take a low cost airline, otherwise one of the others". Well, let's do our little analysis and see...

The airlines I shall consider for this discussion are airlines I have travelled by, which are:
Jet Airways, Air Sahara, Indian Airlines, SpiceJet and Air Deccan.

The parameters I shall evaluate on are:

1. Cost
2. Reach
   
3. Service {Booking, Pre-flight, In-flight}

Cost: I guess, when it comes to cost, one should let the numbers speak for themselves. So I will take the example of a Hyd-Delhi flight, a week from now, a fortnight from now and a month from now.

Time from now	1 week	2 weeks	1 month
Air Deccan	3324	3103	2803
Air Sahara	3854	3854	3854
SpiceJet	3323	3323	3323
Indian Airlines	4270	4194	4194
Jet Airways	5650	4300	4300

As you can see, Air Deccan is not always the least expensive. And even if they are, very often the difference is not too great.

Reach:
Indian Airlines clearly takes the cake on the number with 65 Indian cities covered. However, their prices have long been restrictive for that figure to represent actual travel between those cities.

Air Deccan with 56 cities covered, gets much higher occupancy on it's flights. Quite impressive for an airline that is an infant compared to the government incubated mammoth. A few years ago, one wouldn't believe that so many people in India would be traveling by air. One has to admit, Air Deccan has changed the face of the Indian airspace.

Jet Airways is not far behind at 44 cities, some further flung out than Deccan's current charter. One that I recently had reason to check for is Leh.

Air Sahara is disappointingly lagging at 21 cities. However, after the merger with Jet, I wonder which one will expand faster.

SpiceJet, inspite of being the most recent entrant of these is at 12 cities already.

Service:
On the bookings front, pretty much all airlines now have e-ticketing. One of them for some vague reason likes to create additional work for their people and for the passengers.
Air Sahara, gives you a receipt online, which you have to exchange at the counter outside the airport for the actual ticket. Only then may you proceed to check-in. An unnecessary level of indirection and higher check-in times for the passengers.

Pre-flight service is pretty much non-existent for Air Deccan. Well, so is service in general, but this is where they suck the most. You might stand in a kilometer long security check line when your flight is going to take off in 15 minutes, but none of their staff will come to your aid. It doesn't help that they're treated as 3rd class citizens by the airports.
SpiceJet faces the same issues but manages it much better.

In-flight, Jet rules the roost. The service is what they charge extra for and they deliver. Sahara's fine but does not match up to Jet. SpiceJet is much better than AirDeccan (even though they just give you a measly cookie). Indian Airlines? What shall I say... it's still a government run airline, so the term service does not apply, even though they might charge for it. The food sucks bigtime.

Last, but by no means the least, the air-hostesses ;). Here, it's kind of a matter of preference, and I haven't traveled Kingfisher yet (I'm told that they rule on this attribute), so for me, the Air Sahara women out-shine the others by virtue of their attire, in addition to the fact that most of them are fairly attractive.
With Jet, the sophistication levels are much higher, but then they're so stiff upper lip that it's no fun anymore.
SpiceJet reminds of Punjab. They may not be the smartest or the most sophisticated, but they will highlight their hair and show some leg, so as long as they don't speak much all's well.
I refuse to comment on the subject for Indian Airlines and Air Deccan for obvious reasons.

Conclusion:
If you are the common man (or woman), or are traveling to a location where the only other airline is Indian Airlines, check fares on all airlines. Air Deccan is not always the cheapest (in cost, I mean).

However, if you have the luxury and intellect and know how to read this blog, I assume that you are a person who would not mind spending a couple of hundred extra if you can see value in it. If that is the case, I would recommend SpiceJet or Sahara, depending on how much you mind shelling out that extra dough.

If you're traveling as part of your job, do not even consider anything besides Jet (and Kingfisher, I've been told).

I hope that comes in handy and agreements disagreements are welcome. I shall keep updating this post as and when I try out the remaining domestic airlines.

Tags:

• India
• Airlines
• Jet+Airways
• Air+Sahara
• Air+Deccan
• SpiceJet
• Indian+Airlines