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-   -   The Air Travel & Airports Discussion Thread (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/route-travel-queries/63892-air-travel-airports-discussion-thread-34.html)

I have an ECR stamp in my passport. Got it when I was in school, and expires in 2014. I'm still a student (will get my MBBS degree only next year). Planning a trip to Malaysia and Singapore next month with friends. I'm worried that the ECR stamp along with my student/unemployed status will be troublesome at airports. I know the travel rules have been relaxed in case of tourist visas, but the decision still rests with the emigration officers, right?
I'd like to get my passport changed to ECNR, if possible. I only have my ICSE/ISC certificates; no professional degree or job or income tax papers. Will it be possible to get an ECNR status? If so how long will it take? Is a "tatkal" scheme available?
Any advise will be much appreciated!

I think the bare minimum for ECNR is a graduate degree. But on the other hand, if you are travelling to any of the ECR countries for non-employment purposes, you are not required to get a clearance from the Protector of Emigrants.

Found this link for you which might be useful:

http://www.immihelp.com/nri/ecnr-emm...red-stamp.html

Says 10th pass is good enough, so the graduation requirement might not be relevant in your case.

Thanks, so I guess that does make me eligible.
But any idea how long it will take, after submitting an application?
The problem is, I've got exams till Nov 7 and plan to travel in the last week of Nov. So I've got just over 2 weeks to get my passport corrected, take tickets and make reservations, and get visas. Will it be possible?

Good god! Please use even Air India if you need to but don't go near Aeroflot. Horrible airline. Cheap and Cheerful I can appreciate, but this is Cheap and Nasty!

Well here goes my cousins experience which was in cattle class but origin and destination was the same in the other direction - Pune to London - a few years back.

Was supposed to travel on a Monday morning from Mumbai and transfer with a 3 hour gap at Moscow. I believe Aeroflot uses the old SVO rather than the newer DME used by most European airlines.

Well the airline rescheduled the journey a mere 10 hours. late night on Saturday. So the flight reached Moscow after the last flight to London had left. No Russian visa, he and his wife had to cool his heels at the transit lounge at Moscow overnight.

AND my cousin was not informed about the 10 hour delay at BOM. So he left on Sunday night by Road (KK Travels) and found out about the delay after he reached BOM airport.

Actually the airline had informed - they sent a message on rescheduling to the Travel agents computer system including that the connection flight will be next day. The travel agent in Pune and his staff like most Indian agents (except the real big ones) were happily enjoying their weekend after having locked the office on Saturday afternoon and got the information about the delay when they switched on their computers on Monday morning!!! By that time my friend had already found out about it the hard way!!!

Dont ever go near Aeroflot! Royal Jordanian or Saudia will be better for cheap deals.

Run as far and as fast as you can from aeroflot. Got a friend whose wife is Russian and even she doesn't use aeroflot to fly back from Mozambique to Moscow. There are a whole bunch of cheaper Arabian airlines who are trying to replicate emirates. Use one of them.

Besides that is a shorter route and would make more sense. Any issues are easier to resolve. Why do you want to go via Moscow anyway. You get direct flights

Recently my brother had Cochin-Perth flight in Airasia via Kaulalampur. He would recommend the flight as it costs less than half of other airline fare and also hassle free and ontime. Airasia charges were around 17k wereas the nearest competitor(Qatar airways) charged 38k. He could have made it 12k, if he had booked ticket 3 weeks before.

Completely disagree.

We flew them to Europe in 2010. Lovely aircraft within europe and a old but very comfortable plane for India.

The meals are sucky (Emirates = yummy, they even have VJML!!) but they are reliable. Our return flight was delayed by 3 hours (incoming delay from India or wherever), but the only issue was that the SVO terminal had no free water - you must buy water in that terminal (the other one had it). The terminal is old and no great shakes, but the airline is excellent value for money. Of course, if emirates is only 10% costlier, then go emirates. Else aeroflot is fine. Quite safe too IMHO.

Phamilyman - With due respects, there is no shortage of better alternatives between Mumbai and London at slightly higher prices than Aeroflot and as "pganapathy" pointed out the Moscow route is much longer for BOM (or Pune as the case may be).

And regarding safety, please take a couple of minutes to read the below posting from Wilkipedia. This is a well known notorious incident for people who follow aviaiton safety.
http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroflot_Flight_593

Just reading the first few lines of the article will cause a rethink for some of the members here. And I confirm that I do not have any conflict of interest here - I do not work for any competitor of Aeroflot at all - I am just a keen follower of aviation safety that is all. This is also convered in one of the episodes of the long running series "Air Crash Investigation" in the National Geographic Channel.

I dont want to create any controversies here but I wouldnt fly Aeroflot or for that matter any russian air career unless they are the sole operator on that route. The reasons are aplenty.

I am subscribed to avherald myself. I am on pprune as well. But hey, i still flew aeroflot, put my money where my mouth is, and here I am, giving you first hand reliable information but everyone here lets their biases (about Russia?) overrule it.

Coming to them, that incident is 18 years old. By that logic, the western world should still consider India as a country of snake charmers and what not. You cannot take the actions of one man and still rule an airline as unsafe 18 years later.

By that logic, stop flying AF. Their pilots were proven to be clueless chaps in the AF220 disaster just 3 years back. I can dig out data points about Turkish (amsterdam), Continental (Buffalo) but there's no point if people who have not flown an airline want to slam it.

I trusted my and my wife's life with Aeroflot. Have you?

Coming to India, i would encourage BHPians to read up on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_...equipment_list

Then please ask your friends in the ATC to talk about their experiences (esp pre 05, when fleets were not as young).

OR Read up on pprune on stuff like this: http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/4...-incident.html

Its fallacious to think our airlines are holier than thou while aeroflot is the devil :)

-- I have flown an Air India 777 twice since then, and will continue to do so btw!!

LHR-SVO-DEL = 2516 + 4367 = 6883 km
LHR-DEL = 6744 km
Diff = 139 km

LHR-SVO-BOM = 2516 + 5049 = 7565 km
LHR-BOM = 7221 km
Diff = 344 km

@800 kmph, the first is 10 minutes and the second is 25 minutes.

So shorter, yes - but I think the main considerations would be transit time and difference in fare, not distance.

The only airlines I actively encourage people to avoid are those belonging to the erstwhile SSRs (these used to advertise heavily on Indian TV channels in the UK), and Kingfisher.

I have not and will not . Not just Aeroflot, add a few other names as well! THANK YOU

Regarding PPRUNE, I do not hold them anywhere near credible as AAIB of UK or NTSB. of US or India's own DGCA. Reason will be clear if you chose to expand PPRUNE (or let me do it myself for the benefit of others here - PROFESSIONAL PILOTS RUMOUR NETWORK). It is in the end what the name says. This is my personal opinion which like what I have expressed earler, I have as much a right as yourself to do the same here

There is no AF 220 incident. I assume it is AF 447 you are talking about and SU 593 cannot under any stretch of imagination be compared to that incident.Speaks volumes of the concerned organisation's SOPs that the SU incident was allowed to take place.

No one (any of the other posters commenting on the topic or myself) mentioned anything about India's airlines or its safety record which by the way is nothing to be ashamed about! So please do not attribute things to people who have not mentioned anything about the same in the first place.

Now to some other specifics. The T-BHP member who posted the query in this thread is taking a flight from London to India. There is just a 1 hr 30 min transit at SVO and the only flight which connects to the DEL flight is the first flight out of LHR. If for some reason the same is delayed and there is a mis-connection, then you are stranded overnight !!! Compare this with Emirates or Qatar who have 4-5 flights each way both between LON and DXB/DOH and from their home hubs to DEL/BOM. In addition SVO which SU uses is an old airport. Most of the western airlines like LH and BA have long since moved to a much better equipped and newer DME airport.


Just like you have expressed your view point about why you think how wonderful Aeroflot is, others including myself also have the right to express why we feel on the contrary it may not be a bed of roses!!! I may not have flown, but I still remember the harrowing time my cousin faced when he flew Aeroflot and the anxiety all of us faced, back home in India trying to track him down , stranded at MOW overnight!!! Despite being on a tight budget, he still chose to fly back on Kuwait Airways!!!!

NB :A request - I am more than happy to debate the merits of accidents and incidents in aviation further with you, but please let us not discuss the same on this thread. Feel free to start another thread and I will be happy to discuss further . Little point taking this thread away from the topic.

TKMCE, I fail to understand how your cousin's harrowing time at MOW was Aeroflot's fault. They had informed his travel agent well in advance.
And getting stranded at an airport is not something so devastating that you chalk it up to a horrible experience due to the airlines and start recommending everyone to not take it.

Getting stranded at an airport is really no big deal and you will realise that everyday many people go through that.

I went through that when my BA flight was diverted to Frankfurt due to 2 cms of snow at Heathrow and I, along with 60-80 other people, had to spend the night at a cold locked down airport. But that does not mean that BA is a crappy airline (although at that time i was quite mad at them)

Now, there may be other reasons for you to ditch Aeroflot (and you may be right) but you need to provide better reasons than what you have given so far.

Cheers
Amitoj

Amitoj

When you have multiple alternatives, all I am saying is choose an alternative whch gives you less incovenience!!!

From London to BOM/DEL the choice is not just one or two we are talking about a mere 20-30 !!! Of course not too sure whether Syrian Arab Airlines, or Iran Air are still options!!!

I will say this again, either fly direct or choose a middle east airline with a little more stable reputation on this route!!!


Getting stranded may not be a big thing for regular travellers like you, for first time or irregular travellers, stick to a far more stable option!!!


Aeroflot did not do a great job - not when you reschedule a Monday early morning departure and send a reservation system message to a travel agent on a Sunday . A responsible airline will arrange their local airport office to call the travellers up and inform instead since in India like the rest of the world hardly any travel agent works on Sunday. This was not a weather diversion like in your case where nothing can be done ... An airline many loved to hate,,,, Kingfisher did inform about reschedulings on Sunday (on bookings made by my travel agemt) atleast 2 -3 times to me on time...

Meanwhille please go ahead and stick to your favorite airline, I will stick to mine. and ofcourse phamilyman can stick to his .. Let the world be as tranquil as it was earlier...........Cheers

NB : By the way I happen to be a historian - so do google BA 149 about discovering a little nugget of history... That was a little more "warmer" experience than your cold night at FRA on the same airline thanks to the weather gods!!!:)


Good luck and God Bless..