[lamborghini]

Originally Posted by Shiftlock

I have an upcoming international trip from Delhi t3 and I was wondering what is the best way to reach Delhi from Hyderabad. Is it advisable to book indigo and then transfer from t2 to t3 at delhi or should I book an Air India/ Vistara flight?

P.S: for weight allowance, which airline is the best to book? for reference, since I have an international trip I will be travelling with 2 x 23kg check in bags.

Air India / Vistara have best weight allowances.
Vistara premium economy value would get you 20kgs check in bags + no stress of changing the airport either.
Given Indigo + weight + meals = Vistara Premium Economy pricing most of the time (there are always exceptions), could be an option worth considering + since you're flying out of Hyderabad - the check in should be smoother than Indigo (as fewer Vistara flights unlike Indigo + premium economy).

[SuperGirl_Dad]

Some not so good news from Indigo:

"Unsafe landings increase as IndiGo seeks to trim soaring fuel costs using ‘unsanctioned methods’
DGCA finds fault with the flap 3 landings behind four recent tail strikes; pilots say it is part of the airline’s fuel saving measures."


Indigo has had a good reputation, hope they are not short sighted to bargain fuel costs with safety.

Link to news article

Edit: Didnt Flap 3 landings were reported with Air Asia by an ousted Pilot (Pilot suspended for raising safety concerns against AirAsia)and many critized him for bringing it into social media. Would like to hear our esteemed members view on this.

[anjan_c2007]

Here's something which shows the heartlessness of M/s Indigo Airlines. As the incident happened with someone who protects our borders it cannot be taken lightly. A jawan was travelling this morning from Nagpur to Guwahati via Kolkata and the incident happened at the check-in counter. The text is by my friend and touches our hearts.

(Posted by a friend)
Team Indigo
Rules are fine, but please have some exceptions.

An #Indian Army Jawan travelled to Gauhati via Kolkata from Nagpur by #Indigo flight 6E812 this morning. His checked in luggage was 4 kg more than permitted, while in hand baggage he just had his meal box, which means certainly less than 5 kg.

The Indigo ground staff at #Nagpur demanded ₹2200 charges for extra luggage, this Jawan pleaded that he has just ₹1000 that he'll require for travelling to his post from Gauhati by bus & other expenses.

My friend CA Raju Sharma who happened to be at the Airport joined the Jawan in requesting Indigo staff to consider his situation as he doesn't have cabin baggage. They didn't allow him to take 4 kg luggage from main baggage in hand as staff said this will delay the flight. When Mr Sharma repeatedly requested staff to consider Jawan's genuine situation, the staff replied, "if you are so concerned, why don't you pay for him?".

Proud of CA Shri Raju Sharma who paid from his pocket this charge of ₹2200 so that the Jawan boarded his flight.

Team Indigo - the purpose of this post is not for any action on Nagpur staff, but to have some policies considering such situations.

Every time a Jawan in such a situation may not find Raju Sharma to help.

They have an extra luggage allowance of 5 Kg for students which is praiseworthy. But what about the defence service personnel especially the lower ranks who are in active service and posted in our borders ?

This jawan was an OR (other ranks) evidently and not an officer and the paltry Rs 1000 cash he carried is indicative. Most of them don't have credit cards. And its also an unnerving fact that they seldom get leave to travel home. They are entitled to annual leave (AL) and casual leave (CL) but it all depends on their Commanding Officer and the duty exigencies. Most likely the jawan had come home to Nagpur on leave.

All airlines need to have some way out for defence personnel and especially jawans during such exigencies. Merely offering a discount on the fare is not all. In such cases, the heart needs to rule over the heads of these airlines.

[mpksuhas]

Originally Posted by SuperGirl_Dad

Some not so good news from Indigo:

Though not related to this 'flap 3' landing, there was similar news about Indigo few years back. I am not able to find the article on searching now. That was a mention by Airbus about Indigo having lesser landing gear life since the instances of hard landings are more. In other words, instances where it should have been a go around gets avoided due to performance related pressure on pilot.

[anjan_c2007]

Originally Posted by anjan_c2007

Here's something which shows the heartlessness of M/s Indigo Airlines.

Reported in today’s newspaper.

[wheelguy]

Originally Posted by mpksuhas

Though not related to this 'flap 3' landing, there was similar news about Indigo few years back. I am not able to find the article on searching now. That was a mention by Airbus about Indigo having lesser landing gear life since the instances of hard landings are more. In other words, instances where it should have been a go around gets avoided due to performance related pressure on pilot.

On unsafe landing practices by Indigo, The Hindu interacted with Indigo pilots and all they had to say is they were pressurized by the airline to do flap 3 landings to save fuel, and they are unwillingly using this unsafe landing technique. Excerpts from The Hindu:

Risky landings

Responding to The Hindu‘s query on the nature of deficiencies discovered, a senior DGCA official said, “As a company policy, the crew were asked to carry out flap 3 landing every time, which is not in line with the Airbus Flight Crew Operating Manual (FCOM) procedures.”

A flap 3 landing, known as a soft landing, involves only three of the four flaps on the wing and produces less drag, as a result of which less fuel is burned than in a flap full landing, known as a hard landing. But during a flap 3 landing, the aircraft’s nose is pitched slightly hgher than in flap full, while its tail is down, therefore increasing the chances of a tail strike. The Airbus A321, which was involved in the recent unsafe landing incidents, is longer than the A320 aircraft that dominate IndiGo’s fleet, which means that the risk of a tail strike is higher.

Pilots at IndiGo have been told that a flap 3 landing could save the airline 6 kg of fuel per landing. Though Airbus doesn’t prohibit flap 3 landings, they can be trickier for runways at an elevation such as those in Mumbai (50 feet), Delhi (800 feet), Bengaluru (3000 feet) where there is a possibility of aircraft unable to land within the touchdown zone or overshooting the runway.

Tracking pilots’ fuel usage

Some of the airline’s pilots who spoke to The Hindu on the condition of anonymity said that they preferred not to carry out a flap 3 landing because of the risks involved. Though the airline only recommends the flap 3 landing, letting pilots have the final say, there is always the fear of a “phone call from above”, pilots said. They also worried about how defying the airline’s recommendations could affect their prospects within the company, especially if they wished to apply for a management position.

“What if I am incapacitated? Will my co-pilot be able perform a flap 3 landing? I am not sure, and therefore in the interest of safety I never conduct this form of landing,” said one IndiGo captain.

Another pilot worried that the airline was keeping a strict vigil on how much fuel they each consumed on their flights. “There are meetings where we are shown a graph plotting fuel spent by different pilots. Though the individual data is anonymised, that can’t be hard to extract,” the pilot said.

Pilots also spoke at length about an “exponential increase” in duty timings and mounting fatigue. They urged that the regulator must investigate whether the tail strikes were also due to mental and physical exertion of pilots.

“The tail strikes are a matter of the luck of the draw. Some of those in the cockpit were senior captains who train other pilots. So, why is this happening? Pilots are not getting enough sleep, which is impacting their decision-making capabilities. I sometimes get only 15 hours of rest period between my flights. We are on minimum rest, and maximum duty hours. Has the DGCA looked into pilot fatigue reports submitted to the airline, forcing many of us to report sick to work?” asked a captain at IndiGo with nearly 15 years of experience.

[Mystic]

My personal observations in air travel in the past half century:

1. We were frequent travellers between Bombay and Lagos in early 70s. In those days, we were permitted to travel ONLY by Air India as my father was a Government
Employee. As there were no direct flights from India, we used to fly via Europe and got an opportunity in the process to see all important European cities by break journey for few days. I still remember big jumbo jets with emperors names like Ashoka, Akbar etc. Most of the planes used to be almost empty and I used to wonder on what is the minimum occupancy required to make it break even for a Government airline. It seems as per the stand by pilot sitting with us to whom I remember asking in those days as a kid (We were four siblings all below 12 years and hence we used to travel with out passports but with our photos pasted in our mother’s passport) and he us told us that it requires a very few occupancy as the aviation fuel is kerosene.

2. I see a huge drastic change in the passenger experience post 9/11 . Too many restrictions on security etc. I remember in the Olden days pre 9/11, domestic airlines used to operate like buses.

3. Now a days , we have flights which are hardly 15 minutes air time with less than 100 kms distance on road. With the present security rules in place, I don’t know who are the actual end users for such planes in India. When I was in USA, I take such planes to avoid driving in times of heavy snow fall as it is dangerous on roads.

4.In Bangalore and also in Hyderabad, the airports used to be in cities and now they are moved far away from cities. As an example it takes more time to reach Bangalore airport from Electronics city than to fly from Bangalore airport to Dubai airport.

5. I initially disliked the turbo props until one Vietnam war pilot who was sitting beside me in one of the flights told me that in case of an engine failure, the prop plane can glide to ground unlike a jet and hence safer.

[arijitkanrar]

Originally Posted by Mystic

5. I initially disliked the turbo props until one Vietnam war pilot who was sitting beside me in one of the flights told me that in case of an engine failure, the prop plane can glide to ground unlike a jet and hence safer.

Well, I think you'll be happy to know that jets also can glide
They just dont drop out of the sky like a rock.
Most commercial jet airliners usually have a glide ratio somewhere between 15:1 to 20:1. It depends on a lot of other factors but it generally falls in this range.

What this means is that if we take feet as a unit of measure (since in aviation, feet is the most commonly used unit for altitude), for every 1ft loss in altitude, the aircraft will glide 15ft at the minimum. Or for every 1000ft drop it'll move forward 15000ft.
So take an aircraft cruising at around 35000ft. If both engines were to fail, the aircraft can glide approx 525000ft which is around 160KM.

Also modern aircraft come with better wing designs which mean more efficiency and lower drag. The B787 for eg has a glide ratio of approx 20:1. If you do the same calculation, you'll see the distance goes up to 213KM.

Then in addition to this modern turbo-fan engines are extremely reliable and powerful. Reliability means that there is a very very low chance of an engine failing mid air. Power means that even if a single engine fails on a twin engined aircraft, the remaining engine is more than upto the task to keep the aircraft flying although the flight crew will most like look foe suitable place to land.

So, engines failing and falling out of the sky should be the least of your worries on a jet aircraft

You can also read the story of the Gimli Glider.

[vinjosep]

Hi All,

Not sure if this is the right thread.

What are the best options for frequent flyers to keep the expenses down?

I might have to move into a role that needs a weekly domestic round trip for quite a few months. The flight cost could be a personal expense, unclear as of now. I couldn't find any options for such a bulk booking, for a single passenger.

Any pointers? Thanks.

[SedateGuy]

Originally Posted by vinjosep

Hi All,

Not sure if this is the right thread.

What are the best options for frequent flyers to keep the expenses down?

I might have to move into a role that needs a weekly domestic round trip for quite a few months. The flight cost could be a personal expense, unclear as of now. I couldn't find any options for such a bulk booking, for a single passenger.

Any pointers? Thanks.

If the dates are known well in advance tickets can be booked quite cheaply.

[s4ch]

Originally Posted by vinjosep

What are the best options for frequent flyers to keep the expenses down?

...

Any pointers? Thanks.

Depending on the route you take and which Airlines service that route, I would strongly recommend getting a credit card that can help you collect points, which can then be transferred to Airline partners (mostly Vistara in India) for reward ticket redemptions. Have a look at the Credit Card thread as there is a lot of chatter in recent weeks about this.

[Red Liner]

Originally Posted by vinjosep

Any pointers? Thanks.

Always buy tickets using Skyscanner or Skiplagged!

[libranof1987]

Originally Posted by vinjosep

The flight cost could be a personal expense, unclear as of now. I couldn't find any options for such a bulk booking, for a single passenger.

1) If the days of the week are more or less fixed, book in advance. If you have the flexibility, choose days when the fare is low; this could change every week, in case there's a public holiday / extended weekend etc.

2) The lowest fare will most likely be one without baggage allowance; travel with just cabin baggage

3) Check if you can find flights on a specific airline that suit you best for the sector you will fly; stick to that, and find co-branded credit cards that get you accelerated rewards

Explore the Smartbuy portal if you have a HDFC credit card; you get 5x points on bookings

4) The expense travelling to/fro the airport is significant as well; check how you can reduce that

That said,

5) Avoid flights at very inconvenient times (very late night, early morning); the savings will not be worth the effect it'll have on your health, peace of mind

[volkman10]

Indian airlines carried 124.23 lakh passengers in August, clocking a MoM jump of 22.8%.

With a market share of 63.3%, IndiGo6E retains the top spot followed by Air India and Air Vistara with 9.8% each.












Link

[itwasntme]

Purely of academic interest, but are Vistara or Air India still flying wide-bodies on domestic routes?

And if so, do they ALWAYS fly them on that specific flight/sector, or is it based on the seats sold for that particular flight, i.e. they can allot a narrow-body whenever they want.