ashishp

Flew 9W after a long time on a major metro route day before in Premiere on a 9W-K flight and return yesterday on what was allegedly a full service 9W code flight again in Premiere. Aircraft in both cases was 737-800 with winglets (newer right?) and 8 J seats instead of the usual 16.

Truly appalled at the state of the aircraft and the airline itself. broken seats and PTV in Business class! stained walls and floors! the front toilets even had pan stains! And advertisements put up everywhere on the bulkhead etc!

6 out of 8 premiere seats were occupied, so atleast 3 people had to put up with badly broken seats. Jet got away because 2 old grandpas were put into those seats. not sure if they were upgrades or paying customers: but if i had got a broken seat after paying 28 grand, i would be hopping mad! My seat wasnt fully broken but was not in the best shape either. The occupant of the seat next to me opened up his PTV to check for service only to find it inop, and then found it would not go back into the seat arm rest. It stayed in engaged position even during landing 2 hours later. Other seats, the legrest extensions wouldnt go back or the seat wouldnt come back upright.

Worst thing was, the curtain separating J and Y was opened in between flight so passengers from Y kept walking through J cabin to get to front toilet. What gives? They only closed it when a fellow J passenger complained. As we were disembarking I learnt by virtue of being within earshot, that far from being repaired, the aircraft with broken seats was scheduled to operate to somewhere in North East within the next hour and J load was 4 of 8! poor poor sods!

if this is condition of a new 737-800 with winglets in Business class, wonder what the older fleet condition is like? and Y must be worse?

Crew did a decent job overall despite all constraints: no complaints there. But service on the full service 9W code flight was more Konnect-Select type scaled down service. but extremely helpful towards senior citizens and parents travelling with babies. Shades of what they used to be!

Most interesting was when the crew learnt I worked for the media. When returning from a visit to the toilet, the crew made conversation in the galley area, apologising for the trouble, mentioning how the whole industry is slipping etc. And then the male member of crew casually let it slip in whispered tones that they havent got flying allowances for months now, though they have received salaries with a months delay (May salary in Jul and so on).

Got a very bad feeling as I stepped off the plane yesterday. i dismissed it off as a one off thing on Wed. But yesterday saw it again! Very very bad feeling about this once great airline.

PS: moderators: sir how do i upload photographs? i cant see upload attachment button.

Keyser

it is extremely unfortunate....service & condition of the airline has been deteriorating over the years....2008-09 were their best years....great service, great condition of their aircrafts & they always went out of their way to do things for you....

Babu

There are very good instructions on how to post an image here:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...phy-forum.html

GUWonder

9W went downhill years ago in terms of at-airport and in-flight service. By 2007 it was clear to me that 9W's best years with regard to such service were already behind it.

FedUp2

I flew MAA-CCU-MAA in J last month and my experience was very similar to that of the OP; even the catering was wanting, both in terms of quality as well as quantity. With the virtual demise of IT, 9W knows it has no competitor and behaves accordingly.

AJLondon

I agree. The biggest problem is that 9W now feel they are the only domestic business carrier after the fall of IT. I too have had some really poor food and service, not just on routes like BOM/MAA-DEL, but also other routes like CMB-DEL etc.

9W must realize that if they continue down this path then one of two things will happen. Either paid pax will downgrade and start buying Y or, shock horror, start considering AI domestic business!

ashishp

actually i dont mind AI for J at all. however on the some of the routes i need to travel on, AI is no longer non-stop. They used to be but now 6E goes non-stop while AI is usually via another station. Adds upto 2 hours to the routing. Also on some routes now like GAU they are on CRJ which eans no business at all.

if AI were to start non-stops again with A320 I would go with them in a jiffy.


AI also treats afternoon and non-peak flights like 2nd class citizens: catering etc is poorer than on peak hour flight.

travelling with them today to SXR. hoping it would be better than the 9W experience.

Keyser

ai business on domestic is a pretty decent product....specially given the way jet is behaving these days....

onlysuites

India needs 3 major airlines. Now with Kingfisher gone Jet know they haven't got any competition at all. Having no competition is the worst thing for any business.

Yaatri

Wirelessly posted (Samsung Galaxy S: Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.3.6; en-us; SGH-T959V Build/GINGERBREAD) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1)

The reason for the decline is the same as that which made 9W a favourite. IT was a darling too before it stalled and came crashing down.
Neither had a workable business plan. The Indian market at the low revenue grew rapidly. Both airlines were successful in luring people with their generosity to even low rev people, which created unrealistic entitlements.
Their generosity was not sustainable. It's time to cutback expenses as numbers in passengers did not translate to numbers un revenue. Any cuts inevitably lead to complaints.

ashishp

you are right: the seafood served in ceramic bowls in economy class was not sustainable as KF has shown.

But I dont think broken seats would be acceptable even in an LCC.

However in Premiere, people are not paying rock bottom fares. People paying 28-40k for a one way ticket are not going to be happy to see broken seats and shoddy service. There was a time when Jet earned its money carrying Premium traffic. Their 737-800's had 28 J Seats, their 2 900's had 32: and we have seen these go out jam packed in J! Any revenue from Y was cream: and admittedly a lot of it!

The kind of shoddy service will only drive corporate customers (admittedly a shrinking market) back into the arms of Air India, since they are the only Full service game in town.

I made a round trip on AI this week, taking advantage of a hidden scheme that gives a large discount for same day return in J-class. Excellent service, brand new A319 on way out and brand new A321 on way back. Only complaint was the lack of non-stop option: what should have been a 2 hour NS flight turned into a 4 hour one stop via Timbuctou.

I wrote to both Jet and AI, using the feedback option on their websites: about the shoddy service and lack of non-stops respectively. Jet hasnt got back to me yet. the Air India city manager, a certain gentleman named Mr.Shenoy, personally called up to let me know that they plan to go non-stop on this specific route and others once half a dozen Airbuses undergoing checks get released for flying in winter.

AJLondon

Do tell! I may need to make a DEL-BLR-DEL day trip next week.

Yaatri

Glad that you agree.
No, it's not. People who did not know what's sustainable also do not know what's acceptable.
You have brought up many good points. Those factors have contributed in a major way to Jet's and Kingfisher's woes.
You hit an important point without even realizing that you did.
The amounts you quoted, Rs 28k -40k may sound like a lot of money, but really isn't. Compare these to nonstop first class fares in other markets, such as EU or the U.S.

Another gem, and I don;t mean sarcastically. Much higher ratio of premium to economy seats than is the norm. Sparse seating needs much higher fares than already low premium fares. And looking at looking at the premium market here, people are not at all willing to pay for the premiere class.

It's inevitable my friend.

You mean you actually flew Air India and lived to tell? What's the world coming to?
Some of the same people who untiringly complained about horrors of AI while singing praises of Jet and IT, promising for ever to be loyal to them, now complain about Jet. Does that give you a hint?

ashishp

Unless you are a govt babu or something, AI is not very upgrade friendly: atleast not op-up. Jet is also more upgrade friendly that way: which may explain the role premium seating played in their business model. They treated their FF's like kings! that is also changing now eh?


so are u saying basically that the premium model is not viable in India AT ALL?

Jet is also now scaled back to 8 seats from 28. Even their new 900 aircraft, which used to have 32 J earlier now has only 16.

I am not sure what you mean here.

AI is not a bells-and-whistles airline in J: not in domestic. Basic and predictable service. But if we are paying a premium, i do not want to see broken seats and stuff like that. Jet is loosing the game IMO, and due to their own mismanagement.

Babu

I never got an op up on AI!