Low Cost Carriers in India - Reliability
 

My three friends and I are mostly flying from one Indian city to the other due to lack fo time.
We are using GoAir, Spicejet and Indigo. How reliable are these airlines with regards to timing for checking in, on-time performance(departure/arrival), luggage delivery and customer service...Also, what's the maximum baggage allowance? I believe it's 20Kgs but what if the bag is over that limit?

All three have pretty horrid stories here and in this forum:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=470

Just do a search.

can't be any worse than the US carriers....if you are looking for a seat and that is it, then this will be just fine....

Oh, but they can. Many of the Indian LCCs do not seem to operate flights during times of heavy fog (lack of equipment/training for those conditions perhaps?), so if you are traveling to/from DEL, for example, be aware that the fog can wreak havoc on your travel plans.

There's usually a fee (don't know for those airlines what it is specifically), but the rupee is so weak against the USD that it's probably not a big deal unless you've got a suitcase full of bricks.

Yeah, far worse than the carriers who cancelled flights even before the snow storm here in the northeast this weekend. :rolleyes:

Low cost carriers are just that - so buyer beware.

After searching on FT, It looks like out of the three, Spicejet seems to have the upper hand on service and performance. We're mostly interested in flying from point A to point B and arrive reasonably on time. Also, flights are no more than 1 1/2 hours long.....so any lack of food/enternaintment will be bearable.

Yes, far worse.

Well good luck anyway, the die are cast I guess.

On the other hand its good you are not able to enjoy indian mainline on short hops. They will make your future domestic airtravel in the US seems terrible.

Last weekend I was sitting in a Mesa UAX CRJ on a 1hr DTW-IAD hop looking at my tiny cup of water (the FA announced she couldn't serve any sodas due to the short duration) and remembering the terrific service I got on a similar flight on 9W with cold towels and a full meal for a fifth of the fare. :rolleyes:

From just my personal experience, I'd say Jet Airways, Kingfisher and Indian are more likely to be more reliable (i.e., they are not as often delayed by more than 5 hours or cancelled) than most other Indian carriers that cover North, South and East India.

Out of the low cost carriers, Spice has given us less issue than the other low cost carriers and even less issue than the non-LCC Air Sahara.

Overweight baggage fees are usually in the 60-80 INR per excess kg range. 70-75 rupees (i.e., less than $2 US) per excess KG seems to be about the norm for excess baggage (whether the excess baggage is another suitcase or an extraordinarily heavy bag or some combination of the two). Very cheap excess luggage fees by European and American/Canadian standards.

A number of carriers in India will waive the baggage fees up to the international allowance -- as a courtesy if not as part of policy -- if you mention that you came from an international flight the night before. (Having a foreign passport and/or your boarding pass from that international flight and/or a USD-quoted fare may help avoid the excess weight fee even as it may -- although less common than before -- trigger a "foreigner fare".)

Jet (9W) actually has a different weight allowance for tickets bought using the USD prices which came in handy as we were shlepping spare Enflied parts around last Thursday.

if you have an international bp they will allow international allowance.
It has worked for us on Jet airways and Indian. Both times we were asked to pay excess, but on showing the international bp (even though it was 2 weeks old) they didn't charge us.