Kingfisher Experiences?
 

Anyone have any experience flying Kingfisher? I may need to use it for DEL-BOM later this week.

I flew IT this week from DEL to BOM. Experience was excellent, far superior to Jet for half the price.

There were Kingfisher recaps that insisted on helping all the way to the checkin and others at the baggage claim to help everyone with their bags.

They have IFE with about 5 TV and 5 radio channels or so. The meal was quite tasty though there was no non-Indian choice. Not a problem for people like me who like Indian food. They gave out a welcome kit with a nice Kingfisher pen, over the ears headphones, mints and a wet-nap. The case is also for you to keep.

My only problem is that it doesn't seem possible to book IT from Israel other than paying for it online with my credit card.

Thanks for the review. What was on the IFE? Was there online seat selection when you made the booking, and if so, were the exit rows available for selection?

Great experiences
 

I strongly recommend Kingfisher airlines on routes they serve in India. They have ocassional problems with ontime arrival (a lot of it airport infrastructure related but their limited network and small fleet causes impact). I am not sure what the ontime rankings are per DGCA reports.

They now have a critical mass of flts on trunk routes and are expanding steadily. Their economy product is probably the best in India. Their airport experience is among the best in India for economy passengers.

I have personally decided to switch my business to Kingfisher. I used to fly Club Premier in Jet Airways and now prefer Kingfisher for the value (Jet Club seat is still more comfortable and a superior physical product).

Kingfisher is trying to emulate the superior aspects of Jetblue airways. It is not copying the light weight service aspects of SouthWest or the ultra cheap ways of Ryan. It is low fare and not low service.

Background:

I have extensive experience flying in India though I'm based in the US. I usually fly for business reasons in India and reliability + service are recommending factors. I have generally gone with Jet Airways unless IA or S2 offer better schedules on specific routes.

One of my Indian relatives flew on Kingfisher the first week they started operations and kept recommending them strongly. My travel desk in India however kept advising me against flying Kingfisher because of their limited route network and small fleet.

Recently I decided to fly them on a personal segment while traveling with some family members. I was "wow"ed by the experience. The brand impacts you the moment you arrive in the airport. There are staff hired by Kingfisher who wait for you in uniform at the departure terminal and the moment they see Kingfisher passengers struggling with luggage bring luggage carts and help you all the way through check-in. Similarly, at your arriving airport, Kingfisher hired staff will look out and help pax with luggage all the way to their rental cars or other transport. They absolutely refuse any tips. Similar to Skycap service but done with a lot more service touch for free.

The checkin staff were extremely friendly and helpful. I have flown several times on Jet Airways where the load would be 20% in business class but your next seat will stupidly be assigned to another passenger. In Economy Jet Airways is even worse in terms of not assigning empty seats intelligently. On Kingfisher, I found that they had kept most middle seats empty when loads were light. My family of 4 on a segment was assigned Window/Aisle in a single row with middle seats blocked.

The food was decent. Comparable to the others - in general Jet, Sahara and Kingfisher all seem to offer reasonable food choices. Compared to US, Europe short haul flts the food on Indian carriers is vastly superior.

The inflight magazine was thick, with excessive emphasis on fashions and cosmetics and little light on travel/adventure. Vijay Mallya takes "lifestyle" to be in a certain narrow mold of a spirits distributor.

Given the lower fares and lighter loads, I do worry about Kingfisher being viable in the long term. They are definitely trying to emulate the Jetblue model and not the Air Deccan's Ryan Air model.

is there a website for Kingfisher? I plan to travel extensively in India next year and have always used JET, but would try it out....

These are very good reviews and I thank yosithezet and enjoystravel for their comments.

I'll certainly try to check Kingfisher out myself later this week or in 2.5 weeks time.

If Kingfisher ends up being too good, I'll have to find an alternative supply of those tamarind chewable bonbons that Jet Airways gives out. :D

www.flykingfisher.com
www.flykingfisher.biz

... unfortunately they seem to charge a higher fare for non-Indians than Indians. Although, legally, it can be done on the basis of residency and not citizenship.

Can anyone say PIL? :D

do i recall correctly that there is a kingfisher beer in India?

Yes. Same fellow.

Thank you!!! i will check it out...really like Jet, but open to new options....

Good to know. I would like to have an Alternative to Indian Airlines/Air India as my travel to India is expected to increase greatly next year.
-UFFA

UnitedFFinAsia - if you will be traveling in/around India a lot, i'd suggest sticking with 9W (Jet), S2 (Sahara) and KingFisher. None of the three offer any opptys to earn into UA MP, but then the miles from point to point within India is not that great. Maybe a DEL-BLR|MAA makes sense, but a short hop in South India is not really much.

Is the CEO of this airline and the beer company a relative of a former Congress (I) financier-politician?

Just curious about some aspects of Kingfisher -- including its history.

Can't say I know the answer to your question, but Vijay Mallya, the creator of the Kingfisher brand (I'm not sure if he's still running UB breweries), was elected to the Upper House of the Indian Parliament (the Rajya Sabha) in 2002. He was elected as an independent candidate supported by one of Congress (I)'s Karnataka state rival Parties. Given the state of India's politics it isn't unlikely that affiliations and loyalties have changed since then, but I can't seem to recall Mallya's relationship to Cong (I).

If you find out differently, do post it here. Its part of an airline's history so not essentially off-topic... or is it?
:cool:

The beer's great though, and from what I read here the airline's not too shabby either. ^

He also races horses.

Mangalore airport had a Mallya -- relation or not??? -- who was responsible for that airport. He was an associate of Nehru and a MP too -- but passed away forty years ago. I'm just curious if the Mallya of Kingfisher had any prior personal or family relationships with airport or airlines or if this was just part of a desire to be an Indian version of Virgin's Richard Branson.