indomitable

hello people, i have been a silent reader of the airlines of india forum for quite some time and this one is my first post. I haven't taken a kingfisher flight(almost more than a year now!!) mostly because of the news that they were unable to maintain their schedules. I have a trip coming up and was contemplating taking a BOM-DEL morning flight next week. I would need the opinions of the experienced FT'ians if you think i won't end up paying last minute fare on another flight due to IT cancellations. I was thinking of taking a kingfisher flight just because i haven't taken a kingfisher flight for such a long time (and they used to be such a good airline before!!) ...No definite cost advantage...

P.S: By burning miles i mean the miles on the Citi card.

Wildboar

Welcome to FT Indomitable!!

I dont have the numbers with me but i understanding is that IT is currently operating 95%+ of its scheduled flights. There were some issues last month of pilots not showing up but i think that has been sorted out for the time being. If i were to get a good fare on IT i personally would take it.

However, you mentioned that you plan to use the Premier Miles. In which case i am curious why would you want to fly IT because for lower number of miles you can fly Indigo? I personally would fly in order of preference Indigo/Jet Konnect-S2/Jet/Spicejet/AI/KF if i have to use my premier miles simply because the lower miles offset the potential miles i would earn on jet/AI when using a premier miles award ticket.

Keyser

welcome to ft indomitable....

i've been taking a couple of kingfisher flights every month now since the beginning of the year....most have been on time while some have been delayed....but none of them were cancelled....i've managed to burn almost all my kingmiles over the last few months so my suggestion would be to go for it....the condition of the planes are not the best though....you may want to keep that in mind....

zenith2010

Hi indomitable!

I concur with Wildboar and Keyser above, in that IT has more or less stabilized their performance at their currently curtailed schedule. In the half a dozen flights i've flown on IT in the last few months, there wasn't a single major delay or cancellation. Yes, their cabin interiors do look worn, but just the other day I flew on a JetConnect ATR that was outright dirty and literally falling apart, so perhaps this is not something unique to one particular airline in India. On all occasions I've had this fear of IT pilots going on a flash strike (was there one today?), but I've never had a single cancellation on me. Perhaps they are aware of the acute sensitivity of passengers flying with them, coz once they called me up on my cell phone just to say that my flight will be 20 minutes late due to a late incoming. I hadn't expected this level of pro-activeness! My employer doesn't book on IT anymore, but most of my personal/weekend travels lately has been on IT. And yes, every single one of these last dozen domestic flights have been redemption bookings (i've cut down mine and my folks' Kingclub balance a great deal . The availability is very good - just keep calling them even if there's none, by the 2nd or 3rd time they'll open up a seat or two for you! In any case, IT fares are the lowest in most sectors they currently fly on.

ashishp

well today around 30 flights were cancelled as employees went on a flash strike.

do u want to be land up at the airport for a holiday and face this?

PS: i wonder why no media outlet published the awful press release sent out by VJM himself to various media houses last week, apologising to staff for not being able to pay their Feb salaries this month as promised. Sorry piece of work that was! looked like a 8 year old person wrote it!

PVDtoDEL

All of his "letters" look like 8 year old kids wrote it.

Back to OP, I kinda fail to see the point of this idea. While flying IT might be ok now, since they've stabilized ops mostly, flying another airline would be a better value for those same miles.

indomitable

Thanx so much for your quick help people.. I get the point..I would book the ticket with miles on Indigo/AI.. Though, the posts do suggests that I can book IT in the future if i get a good cost advantage.. I actually never took the King club membership since the 9W membership with the JACC card worked just fine for me...Now, that the JACC option is gone, i have started flying mostly on AI with the bookings using Citi premiermiles card

A2A

the new jet airways co branded card is back. this time with hdfc.

PVDtoDEL

Another aspect that hasn't been brought up yet is safety. The DGCA recently stopped conducting daily checks on IT aircraft citing excessive costs of conducting these checks. Interestingly enough, this happened soon after EK Bharat Bhushan was replaced.

I'm sure that IT will do its best to keep its aircraft airworthy (a serious safety incident would all but guarantee impending bankruptcy), but I do wonder whether they might start cutting corners...

indomitable

I would agree with Keyser as he pointed out in the other thread on waiting for the Amex card(don't know how long though!!). Although the bonus miles seems to be a great deal for 2.5k, Amex might come up with a better offer in terms of bonus miles and lounge access(w/o priority pass basic tier!!)..

Thanx for pointing out the safety issue PVDtoDel. Airlines usually start reducing maintainance expenses w/o realising their potential safety impact...So, a maintainance that would seem pretty basic actually causes a big crash(I remember seeing an Air crash video when the simple IRS maintainance caused an aircraft to crash)

SpeedFreak

Air crafts have crashed because of a faulty light bulb which indicated landing gear position. All airlines can get away with stuff like this till someone messes up and then the hyenas can have a field day.