I wanted to give a quick trip report on my domestic India leg today:

8-Feb
Jet Airways 3XX
Delhi-Mumbai
Departure: ontime
Arrival: 5 minutes ahead sked

This was operated by a 737-400, a slightly older aircraft but still in decent shape. The domestic terminal in DEL is, uh, in sorta very bad shape. As in, very bad shape. That said, at least my flight was on-time so I got out of there lickity split.

We boarded via stairs - all domestic flights in DEL are via stairs unless departing from the int'l terminal. I took my business class seat, a window. Now, everyone I read about raves and raves about the service on Jet. Admittedly, I was pleasantly surprised it - every single employee I encountered was hyper-friendly and eager to help. Speaking of employees...I was also surprised the number of employees required to get a flight closed and on its way! My gosh - they employ about 2x the people per plane as I am used to on United. There's the ticket taker, the bus attendant, the person at the stairs to check your handbag security stamp, the 9 baggage people...at one point I glanced into the hold of another Jet flight and counted 5 baggage people inside a 737 and 4 standing around.

They came around with menus for breakfast. This 737 has 6 rows of biz class - United, are you listening? - and they had 4 options for breakfast. Two Indian, a western (omelette) and a light option, lowfat waffles and yoghurt.

I chose the omelette. They soon came around with a tray of fruit and wheat flakes - I thought, did I order the wrong thing? I must be flying United too much because I thought that was the whole breakfast! Then when I saw everyone received the same, I realized...

Shortly thereafter came the omelette. A friend told me upon learning of my trip here that I should stick to Indian food, even if I do not like it (I do), because western food is not good. He was right in this instance - the omelette was not that great. I ate it tho, and went to sleep straightaway. Landing in Mumbai is an interesting thing - you fly in over the city's slums. The ingenuity of people always amazes me - literally, people have framed homes out of anything they can fashion and created entire villages, indeed an entire city, to call home.

The Mumbai domestic airport is about 95% nicer than the Delhi domestic airport; we were bussed from a remote stand to the terminal, my bag was already on the conveyor, and I walked right out to greet my hotel car transfer. Am I really in India? Within 15 minutes of touchdown I was in the car to the hotel.

All in all, I would fly Jet Airways again on domestic flights, although I would like to try Kingfisher too. As most flights within India are ~2 hrs or less, amenities are not much of an issue for me. The seats on Jet are OK - standard domestic first class. Food is OK too, nothing notable or memorable. Service is impeccable though - they really know how to run a professional airline and it shows.