Brucemcdou

Planning a trip to India in March 2020 including several domestic flights. I'm surprised that it seems there are few options for first class on domestic carriers. Air India has a separate first cabin on a few of their domestic flights but not the majority it seems. IndiGo appears to have no option. SpiceJet has an "extra leg room" option they call SpiceMax which looks like it's just the exit row and the front/bulkhead row with extra luggage and food. GoAir offers a "European business class" option called GoBusiness at the front of the cabin with the middle seat blocked on otherwise ordinary economy-style seats with extra luggage allowance and food included.

Are there any other viable options I'm missing? Any thoughts on the SpiceJet or the GoAir offerings? Currently planning to fly DEL-BOM-COK-DEL over the course of 7-9 days. Thanks in advance!

[ON EDIT] Just found Vistara. Doesn't have a great network but certainly appears to have a legitimate First class product on their domestic flights. May change around our travel plans based on their schedules and routes.

deovrat

Your observations are largely correct. Air India & Vistara are the full service carriers, having business class up front; though not on all routes. I'd rate Air India as 6/10 and Vistara as 8/10 for the product.

The other options (Spicejet, GoAir) are pseudo offerings as you rightly pointed out.

Brucemcdou

Thank you Deovrat - that's what it looked like. I was sort of hoping I had missed an option but we'll work with these options.

Happy Travels!

Keyser

all the flights you are looking to take are around the 2 hour mark so either uk or ai would work for their business class product....uk would be my preferred option but there is nothing wrong with ai as well for these short flights....

the rest are all lcc airlines & i would avoid spice jet....either go air or indigo are perfectly fine....

luxveritate

Keyser

when someone from the u.s. says 'first class' for domestic travel then what they really mean is 'business class' in most other regions of the world....in the u.s. domestic airlines offer economy (some offer premium economy) & first class....there is no business class....

EYrevanchist

Air India does offer three-cabin service on some key routes like MAA-DEL, BOM-DEL etc...

Keyser

those are flights that are either coming or going to an international destination like lhr, jfk, etc....the 3 cabin flights are extremely few & sometimes have very bad timings like in the middle of the night....

EYrevanchist

That's strange IIRC all MAA-DEL flights were on widebodies with F (77W, 77L, 744) and were well timed.
BLR-DEL on the 77L was also very well timed.

Keyser

i don't think so....i don't ever remember that....all maa-del flights operate on 2 cabin a320 or a321....

there was a very short time that there was a widebody blr-del flight....the timing was late at night for that as well....

i may be mistaken but i think the only routes where the 3 cabin aircraft is used is between del-bom-del & del-hyd-del....

EYrevanchist

I've done MAA-DEL on the 77W, 77L and 744 and never had a narrowbody on the route, and First was sold.

Keyser

its possible ai might have been using a 3 cabin aircraft for a limited period at some point of time in the past but it was never a regular thing....i have been flying del-maa-del 7-8 times a year for the last 10 years or so....i have never come across either a 77w, 77l or 744 on this route....

malgudi

None of these flights are over 3hrs ... you will do just fine in Economy.

maerim

On a 2 hour or more flight and even often on a 90 mins or more flight I pay for Business Class on Vistara and if not Premium Economy. In BC it is mostly peaceful, I can work and be productive, while experiencing good service. Customer's choice.

GetSetJetSet

RIP 9W