So…After a life time of Trains and Buses you’ve finally decided to graduate to flying (Probably not, but it’s my blog so just go along with it). Welcome to the glamorous and luxurious world of air travel (and also economy).
Full Service Carriers (FSCs), Low Cost Carriers (LCCs), Lounges, Loyalty Programs and a whole lot more. From booking to the in-flight experience to customer support, this is the disingenuous and highly biased guide to it all. (As per my limited experiences, in economy)
The Booking Process
The joy starts with the booking process. This could fall into 2 categories, both with pros and cons:
- Doing it yourself:
- Pros:
- You have complete control over what you book without an agent trying to up-sell you or force you into a particular airline. This usually means it’s cheaper too.
- Can be done from the comfort of your own home (Assuming your home is actually comfortable)
- Cons:
- Dealing with online portals and the ritual you have to go through to try and stop them from jacking up prices. Incognito mode, changing laptops, switching networks, feeling like a rouge hacker sticking it to the system.
- When that inevitably fails, watching prices creep up every time you refresh the page is fun.
- Failure. At every step. You will enter everyone’s details atleast twice and payment details atleast thrice. It is the law at this point. And then maybe if the stars align you’ll get your tickets. If you’re on Santa’s naughty list maybe not.
- Their customer support is overworked and usually pretty miserable. Dealing with them is a test of patience and will define how good of a person you are in the eyes of God.
- You may still have to deal with the whole up sell, especially if you’re on the airlines own website. But it is easier to say no to a web page than an actual person so that’s there.
- Dealing with connecting flights, especially the international variety, can be a special hell of planning flight times, airport terminals and transit visas.
- Pros:
- Having someone do it for you:
- Pros:
- You don’t need to stress about the drama about picking flights and dealing with bookings.
- You have someone in person to yell at when things inevitably go wrong. It’s much more cathartic. The said person will think you’re an annoying idiot though.
- You may get an overall better deal if the person doing the booking is genuinely helpful and knows what they are doing.
- Cons:
- Most travel agents have fixed itineraries and deviating can be a costly experience.
- You will probably get charged a lot more simple flight or hotel bookings anyway. Everyone has got to earn a living, right?
- They will not care as much about your trip as you do, so there is a high chance of bookings being done late or visa applications being delayed. But at least you know who’s to yell at when it happens.
- Pros:
A short guide to major Airlines in India:
- Indigo: The market leader and the Indian Railways of airlines. Not the most comfortable or posh, but fly literally everywhere and are usually pretty punctual. The product is consistent, the food isn’t great but they will get you where you want to go.
- Go Air: R.I.P. For the time being anyways.
- Jet Airways: Schrodinger’s airline. Is it dead? Is it alive? Nobody knows.
- Air India: The grand daddy of Indian aviation. They don’t seem to have a middle ground, it’s either great service on a decent enough aircraft or a straight up horror story of 10+ hour delays or being stranded in Siberia. Food is usually pretty good though. They’re now back with the Tata’s who have a pretty good track record of running an airline.
- Vistara: Tata’s pretty good track record of running an airline. The only other FSC in India right now, though not for long. Good food that’s included in the price of the ticket, comfortable seats, usually friendly crew, pretty punctual too. Nothing much to complain about. Will soon be merged into Air India.
- Akasa Air: New kid on the block and growing fast. Decent product, punctual and efficient. Gets you from A to B just fine. (And as a bonus for me, it’s what’s keeping Kochi to Bangalore flights cheap so a big thumbs up there.)
- Air India Express: Shuttle service between Kerala and the Gulf. Wildly profitable for that reason.
- AirAsia India: The Tata’s ill-fated attempt to start an Airline with AirAsia. I’ve always liked them, especially the seats and hot meals for an LCC. They’ve been through a lot a wacky stuff during the years including multiple lawsuits and leadership changes. Will soon be merged into Air India Express which, branding wise, may actually be a good thing. They go by AIX Connect these days.
- Spicejet: Can’t comment since every time I booked with them the flight got cancelled. How they survive while Jet Airways and Go Air died is a mystery.
- Honorary Mention: The Gulf Big 3: Emirates, Qatar and Etihad: In the absence of a decent long-haul airline from India, these three filled the void. (Emirates was even joked to be the official airlines of Indian at one point). Good product, usually punctual and fly to a ridiculous number of places.
- Honorary mention: Singapore Airlines: Basically, the same but flying in the other direction. They saw the writing on the wall and founded Vistara with the Tatas. Now a minority stake holder in Air India.
Classes of travel:
For Full-Service carriers:
- Economy: The cheapest travel class of the airline world, this makes up most of the seats in an airplane. Strictly seating only with a little recline, it’s not the most comfortable experience but it’s what most people can afford. Comes with a hot meal and usually a blanket on overnight flights. Luggage allowance ranges from a measly 15 kg to a ridiculous 65 kg (That’s an entire extra person per person. Though don’t try it.)
- Premium Economy: A fancier version of economy for between 1.2x to 2x the price. You can usually expect a bit more legroom and sometimes even a bit more width. Foods usually better too. Worth the upgrade if you get it at a decent price.
- Business: For the fancy people whose business actually pays for it. (It’s in the name!) You get lie flat seats (Or fancy recliners on shorter flights), a menu with meal options and the joy of watching economy class peasants pass by you on their way to cramped seats and backpain.
- First Class: This is rare (Only Air India and some foreign airlines offer it.) It is for meant for the ridiculously rich people who want what is practically a full bed or even a hotel suite in the sky. All the gourmet food options you could ever want and personalised service to the point of ridiculousness.
For Low Cost Carriers:
- Economy: This is similar to the economy in FSC but without food included. You can either book the food in advance or pay for it on board. Some airlines don’t offer anything hot except for tea and cup noodles (Looking at you Indigo) so be warned.
- Extra Economy: Usually termed Economy Saver or something like that. This is for people who find economy to fancy. Seat selection – Paid. Food – Paid. Check in Baggage – Paid. (Almost booked this a few times without realising it. These fairs should come with a flashing red warning or something.) The cost of changing dates, cancellation or more luggage (Or any luggage) is probably more than the ticket. These tickets also sell out really quickly.
- Flexi Economy: The fancy economy seat that costs a lot more. It’s meant to allow for easy changes of plans. Usually includes a choice of most seats and sometimes food, even if it isn’t always hot (Like seriously, Indigo!!).
Loyalty Programs
One of the may options you’ll see while booking your ticket is entering you loyalty number. Each airline calls it something different. Flying Returns is Air India’s. Skywards is Emirate’s program. Club Vistara is…well…Vistara’s. The point of these is to keep you flying with the airline by drip feeding you rewards the more you fly.
These programs can be as straight forward as earning based on how much you paid for the tickets to complicated enough to need a bunch of excel sheets and a Chartered Account to sort through. Various other factors also come into play, like if you booked the tickets on the airline’s website or not, whether there was some sale going on, what class you’re travelling in, which card you booked with, if it’s for a flight you’re taking or retroactive for a flight you’ve already taken, is it with a partner airline? and a few hundred other parameters. And these are the simple loyalty programs. There are also normal and tier points you can earn, where the former is to spend and the latter is to get your status tier with the airline upgraded so that you can earn and spend more of the former. Not to mention some other fancy bonuses.
The primary way to redeem the points you earn are free flights (Subject to availability, black out dates where the airline is making too much money so screw you, if it’s a connecting itinerary, if it’s a partner airline, and bunch of other factors). You can also get your travel class upgraded if you prefer. (Subject to the same long list of conditions).
Partner programs add an additional layer on top of this. You can earn points with co-branded credit cards, normal credit cards, shopping at the right store with the write card, renting a car from a particular company, staying at a particular hotel chain and so on. What each gets you depends on how much you spend, what your status with the company or hotel is and what multiplier the airline gives you for points. (0.1x vs 10x can really bite).
Spending points has much the same issue. Partners and affiliates would help you burn points subject to various conversions. Thus, giving you free rides, stays, toys, food and groceries.
There is a reason why you can actually find online consultants with the sole job of helping you earn and spend airline points. It’s a real, complicated and at times very lucrative job.
Conclusion
So you’ve finally got your ticket in hand. Picked an airline, spending hours on research and reviews, before finally just going with the cheapest option. (We all do it). You’ve picked your class of travel (Economy, statistically most people fly economy. There’s no shame in that. Only backpain). You’ve even signed up for the loyalty program. The only thing left to do is actually take the damn flight. That and more whining coming up in part 2.