seenitall

I will be traveling from Udaipur to Delhi on April 1. I need to connect (on a separate ticket) to United 83 that departs Delhi at 23:35. The two choices I have are AI that leaves Udaipur at 11:00, or SpiceJet that departs at 12:55. Clearly, both flights are scheduled to arrive at DEL long before my departure -- so delays of these flights are OK with me, but flight cancellation is not!

While I would prefer to stay the extra two hours in Udaipur, I would chose the AI flight if it is likely to be more reliable than SpiceJet. Otherwise, I would choose SpiceJet. What do you recommend?

Further information. I see that SpiceJet has a later flight that day leaving Udaipur at 19:00 and arriving DEL at 20:25, and that AI has a flight leaving Udaipur at 15:45 to BOM with a 50 minute connection to DEL, arriving at 20:10. I assume that these two options are too risky to be considered as backups considering I will have checked luggage and need to transfer from T1 to T3.

SeeBuyFly

It is very difficult to make predictions, especially about the future. Spicejet has been through a rough patch lately. AI is never 100% reliable. It is always best not to have extra connections (via BOM in your case); it's a recipe for trouble. It's also not a good idea to connect on separate tickets, because if things get messed up, it's your problem; I hope you are booking this together with the UA flight on a single record (possible with AI but probably not with Spicejet).

Anyway, no one can tell you what will happen, but either of the early nonstop flights should be fine 98% of the time (now that fog season is over).

planensimple

If you are more worried about flight cancellation, In this case choose AI then but as SeeBuyFly said its always a better choice to get the ticket on the same PNR to avoid the hassle. Given that AI and United are both Star Alliance partners , it could have worked well for you.

tmac100

Point very well taken! I always thought predictions were about the future
FWIW, let us know what happened.

Keyser

stick with ai....

arakhanna

AI flights are delayed generally sometimes by a few hours but that should not cause much problem for you. I too would recommend AI vs SpiceJet.

Safer option

GuyFromBOM

Stick to AI, you can through check-in at UDR and maybe try to convince them to allow the same baggage allowance as UA for the short hop to DEL.

SG on the other hand arrives at T1D at DEL (AI & UA use T3) and besides the lack of through check-in with your UA flight, also add the hassle of inter-terminal transfer!

hyho61

The inter terminal transfer in DEL is a big deal. I would choose AI or Jet over Indigo or Spice for any domestic-intl-domestic transfers.

seenitall

Thanks for all of the responses. I have now found that my travel agent has already booked SG, so AI is no longer an option. While if my UA flight was on the same PNR as the UDR-DEL flight, there would have been some protection available from using AI, sadly it was booked several months ago, so is separate. Further, because our connect time in DEL is scheduled to be 10+ hours, we were not planning on staying at the airport. So the T1-T3 connection will not be relevant, unless our inbound flight is delayed severely.

With our large amount of connect time, our only important fear is a last-minute cancellation of the SG flight. If there is such a cancellation (say, due to SG insolvency) and it takes place at least the day before our journey, I can always try to get on the AI flight. FlightStats show that over the history available to it, neither AI (63 flights) or SG (61 flights) have ever cancelled -- while 9W (177 flights) has cancelled 10% of the time -- go figure?

So for better or worse (hopefully, better) I am on SG. I will report on the outcome. Thanks again, and stay tuned.

seenitall

Well, the trip on SpiceJet worked out fine. The fight was about 15 minutes delayed, but since we had so much connecting time in Delhi, this was of no consequence.

But more interestingly, on our India trip we had domestic segments on three different airlines: IndiGo, Jet and SpiceJet. Both the flights on IndiGo and SpiceJet were completely fine. The least professional, by far, was the flight on Jet Airways. Once the last passenger entered the plane, the door was closed and the plane started pushing back immediately -- all while several dozen passengers were still streaming down the aisle to find their seats. Further, all of this was occurring 10 minutes before the scheduled departure time. Perhaps this was an aberration, but if that is Jet's approach to safety, I will not fly them again.

JohnnyRockets

Glad you made it.
Happened to me on most Indian carriers but not that frequent.

MANCHESTER

Spicejet & Indigo are about half the price of Jet for an upcoming BOM-DEL flight I need to take. Is the general consensus that these airlines are fine for this short hop?!

Many thanks

vishalgupta22

IMHO, Indigo is the best in India

mrahul

Both are fine.but if everything is same, may be indigo might be the one to go.we hear all good things about it.

abhilife2001

I would choose Indigo over Spice Jet any day.. they do the simple things well which combined makes for a nice experience..