https://youtu.be/C4sWFeQ6sn8
I had made a similar video about travelling soon after teh second lockdown was lifted in late June.
https://youtu.be/T4KuzAcpnhA
This is going to be a bit of a rant report, so apologies in advance.
So while this is a Delhi - Mumbai trip report I was supposed to fly into Pune (PNQ) but suddenly about ten days before the flight, the Indian Air Force that operates the airfield decided that it was time to resurface the runway. Pune Lohegaon is one of India's largest airbases and indeed is the main airbase in the west of the country and two-three squadrons of Sukhoi Su-30MKI fighters are based there. And when those Sukhoi's take off with full burners they chew up the runway requiring Pune's only runway to be resurfaced every two-three years. Now the Air Force jets can be relocated to the many bases in and around Western India, but civilian flights to Pune? No such luck. The fact is that Pune requires a dedicated civilian airport and there has been much debate about this for years and while I'm not a Punekar, I find it astounding that one of India's most commercially and industrially important cities doesn't have a proper airport. Even if the runway is resurfaced, PNQ can't handle widebodies given the limited length of the runway. So, as a result I had to fly into Mumbai and drive to Pune, and while the Mumbai-Pune Expressway is relatively good, driving through Mumbai which is in the throes of urban redevelopment with the addition of a MRTS system means that a trip to Pune via Mumbai adds between 3-4 hours to travel time.
First rant over.
This was my first flight since early August, even though since then I have been fully vaccinated I did lose my father in early September and dealing with that and the aftermath has taken a toll. Indeed, when the opportunity came up to travel for a couple of drives in and around the Pune area, I jumped at the chance. Maybe getting out of town for a few days and burying my head in what I love doing would help. But when the unintended diversion to Mumbai came up, I did debate the pros and cons of the trip, but I went ahead when the folks at Skoda India offered me the latest generation Octavia to drive on the Expressway.
Back to the flight. I was now booked on Vistara UK995, a 1020 departure from Delhi. Watching pictures an d videos from Delhi and Mumbai airports over the previous week's festive rush (it was the Navratras, a a time of year which is particularly festive and this season continues unabated pretty much till the New Year with Diwali, then the marriage season and so on...) The government here allowed airlines to go back to full pre-Covid capacity although maintained fare caps. Now, the fare caps didn't allow airlines to discount heavily in the low season but right now they will keep the airlines from charging usurious rates, though I feel that the caps are rather generous for the airlines, you won't hear stories of one-way Delhi-Bombay fares touching Rs 35,000 ($500) despite this being a global top-10 domestic route in terms of capacity. Okay, the point being that airports were crowded, and load factors were running at all-time highs, the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) that runs airport security in India has not kept up hiring to match the passenger increase and India has always been a security-obsessed nation. It all adds up to insane queues.
Not too bad!
To be fair, after entering the airport I managed to clear security fast since I only had hand luggage. My Macbook charger though caught the screening machine's eye and well, that took a few minutes to sort out. But I still had enough time spare even though boarding was an hour before scheduled departure (why???) more than enough time to catch Starbucks' pumpkin festivities in India. Anyway, got to Gate 29B and boarded VT-TNB Vistara's first A320Neo with #NotJust anotherNeo plastered on it. It was a 4.4 year old aircraft and India's first A320Neo with the CFM-LEAP engines. In fact, India has one of the largest A320/A321Neo fleets in the world with all major airlines with the exception of SpiceJet operating them.
We were to depart from runway 28, which meant a long taxi from the domestic side of T3, we taxied past a couple of old Jet 777's and the Air India Airbus graveyard, where all the old Air India/Indian Airlines OG A320's with their four-wheel main bogeys have been retired. Several airframes have been bought by owners of amusement parks across India. While there are more people flying than ever before in India, it is still a very small percentage of the overall population and flying is still exotic for the majority of Indians. In fact, recently one caught stuck under an underpass.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cit ... 724321.cms
You also get to see construction on Terminal 1, the LCC terminal, which might be a dedicated IndiGo terminal when it opens next year
Sad!
The new T1 coming along well, the design is very similar to BCN main terminal.
It is very hazy these days over northern Indian, so despite the window seat, views of the country were limited. I settled back and started hearing some podcasts and watching other aircraft on the BOM route, we few 2000 feet under a GoFirst A320 flying JAI-BOM.
She followed us all the way until descent and landed a few minutes after us.
But soon it was time for service. Now, the crew had already 'warned' us that thanks to COVID service would be limited, now what does that mean? Well, if you see the video where I've put the 'unboxing' of the food box, it was sad. Yes, I get it was a late-morning flight between breakfast and lunch, but my limited point is I hoped the airline didn't serve anything at all rather than this godawful paneer (cottage cheese) and thousand island sandwich. I barely had a bite. Or give a 'Buy on Board' at least as Indigo does right now. I understand that many airlines do not serve, but when you market yourselves as a full-service carrier and charge fares according, this is just not on. And if COVID was an excuse how come there is full service up in J-Class - I'd flown up there on a DEL-GOI flight back in February, so yeah...
Unacceptable.
Long story short, after I landed in BOM I tweeted about this and that tweet seemed to touch a raw nerve among other flyers and it went viral. So much so, that the airline took notice of my tweet and the comments of other passengers too. And I wasn't the only guy complaining mind you. So I heard from my friend Tarun, an aviation correspondent for The Economic Times, that Vistara began to get concerned about the negative social media posts and decided the next day to start serving hot meals in Economy, something I'd experience on my return flight. More on that later. Landing at BOM also gave me a chance to see the Air India hangers and the 'gear' that Vistara's part-owners Tata Sons have acquired as they buy Air India.
Not in the best state, Tata Sons will need to spend several million $$$ to get the 777/787 fleet to full operational health
More dilapidated 9W planes
I made a video on this as well, and why I don't think Tata Sons acquisition of Air India is a great idea.
https://youtu.be/BcGihglwDNg
Okay, so after a few days driving around Pune and Lonavala, it was time to get back to Delhi and my 17-month old. After seeing social media full of horror stories and images of maddeningly long queues at BOM Terminal 2, my friends and I who were flying back all decided to get to BOM at least 150 minutes beforfe deaprture. Well, despite leaving on time, accidents on the Expressway and crazy traffic in Mumbai meant that we reached at 5.30 for our 7.30 flight. Thankfully, Bombay just like DEL doesn't need 'physical' boarding passes to stamp at security anymore so it was a quick journey through one of the better terminals in the world and while security was slow, at least we were past it quickly. So quickly in fact that we still had an hour to board, and a friend nd I visited a bar to grab a quite expensive beer before takeoff.
Boarding was a bit chaotic, I used my status not only to board early but prevent a gate check-in of my roll-on as UK940 just like UK995 was packed. We boarded one of Vistara's older A320's VT-TTM and pushed back ahead of time. Unlike my last time to Mumbai this taxi took some time, we even held for a white-tail Russian registered Ilyushin 76 departing. Man, that was loud.
Lots of flare, sorry.
We took off after allowing quite a few other aircraft to land at the peak arrival hour, standard departure route, and I got some nice nighttime views of India's financial and entertainment hub.
Nice
I was quite tired and I put on my music and dozed off, until I was woken up for 'service'. I was keen to find out what service would be. Vistara's press releases had indicated that I'd only get vegetarian food, which really wasn't a problem, I've never had a major issue with that. I know that some folks do though. So we got served a portion of Dal Makhani and Vegetable Pulao - which I can only describe as 'Buttery Black Lentils and Vegetable Rice' for a non-Indian audience. There was a bottle of water and a packet of multigrain cookies to go along. Now, not quite pre-COVID service levels where one got a choice of meals on Vistara Economy with a salad and dessert for flights at mealtime. The food was hot and the portion was decent, as for tasty? Erm... listen airline food on domestic economy was never that great, but this was towards the lower-end of the scale TBH. My mother and younger brother flew Vistara the following morning DEL-CCU and said they got omelettes and potatoes for brekker. I'm guessing Vistara is slowly ramping up service, even as it figures out the existential crisis of whether the brand will survive after Air India's takeover or will Tata Sons operate four airlines in India - AI, UK, IX and I5.
The rest of the flight was uneventful, and we got into DEL more or less on time but with traffic picking up I'm very sure air delays are going to start getting bad in the next few weeks particularly at airports like BOM with single-runway operations. Construction at DEL didn't stop for COVID although the new runway and the connecting taxiways are far from ready.
