nan | 楠木

Funa asked me last time to write a review of Indian airlines. I’ve only taken two so far, Kingfisher and Jet. Kingfisher seems to be more interesting in terms of “personality”, purely because of their boss, the extravagant playboy Vijay Mallya. Indeed if you go to their corporate website, you immediately see a full-screen pic of several bikini girls. Of course, that’s because they have other businesses besides airlines (the airline is the new business, only started in 2005). Still, even the Kingfisher poster girl appears slightly more naughty than your usual air hostess.

Airplane & Seating

Out of the 3 flights I took (Delhi – Kolkata, Kolkata – Chennai, Chennai – Delhi, all econ class), planes were 737s and A320s. My colleague mentioned that 737 is the standard for domestic flights, though on some budget airlines you could get propeller planes.

In general, the seats were just what you’d expect from econ class, though I was impressed with Jet Airways’ seating space. I had my computer bag stowed underneath the seat before me, and still I had ample leg room, which is definitely not the case when I try that in China. I can’t be sure whether Kingfisher offered such good legspace.

Entertainment

Both Kingfisher and Jet Airways had individual LCDs for econ class, with a range of channels to choose from. There was lots of Indian content, from news to Bollywood to comedy etc, as well as the usual flight information. I remember back when I did some research on the Indian telecom industry, the top mobile content that consumers wanted was ABC – Astrology, Bollywood and Cricket. Don’t know if the same rule also applies here.

Jet Airways was able to do one better, though, as theirs were touch-screens and had interactive content (India travel guide, with info on major Indian cities). I found this to be quite useful and it was quite good reading material.

Additionally, if my memory is correct, both carriers had provided newspapers for every passenger, tucked in the back of the seats.

Meals

As for inflight meals, well, I came across a website that’s much more authoritative in this respect:

http://www.airlinemeals.net/indexMeals.html

You can basically find any airline up there with photos of their inflight meals.

I will say though, that the two airlines I’ve taken both offered metal knives & forks, as opposed to plastic ones found on most other airlines I’ve taken (not that many though). And one had porcelain plates (forgot which airline), as opposed to aluminum foil. The food wasn’t superior, but the accessories made a difference.

Other

The one other thing that I’d mention, is that most airports in India suffer terrible delays. Very easy for flights to wait in the air for space to clear up. Two hour delays seem to be perfectly normal. Don’t know whether airlines can do anything about it, though.