If you want to see a video trip report of my Vistara flight UK725 from Delhi to Dibrugarh via Bagdogra, check this link out - with landing/take-off at IXB and landing at DIB
https://youtu.be/tgfPWfQbVn8(not my best video TR I admit, done in a bit of a rush, too much work these days)
As for what I was doing in Arunachal Pradesh, you can see a driving video going through some spectacular scenery out here on the Trans Arunachal Drive 2022, as we approached the small hamlet of Zemithang
https://youtu.be/m3nY8scVW4wAnd of course my written piece -
https://theprint.in/opinion/dashboard/w ... ie/973933/Recently, I was invited to participate in the Trans-Arunachal Drive 2022; this was organised by Arunachal Pradesh Tourism. For those who don’t know, Arunachal Pradesh is one of India’s north-eastern states, and also one of the most unexplored parts of the country. It is a ‘disputed’ territory and was occupied by Chinese PLA forces back in 1962 during a short border war, and China refers to it as ‘South Tibet’ - in fact the population of Arunachal Pradesh do practice Tibetan Buddhism, they are not Tibetan but tribal people who were ruled by feudal Tibetan overlords. Anyway, won’t really get into the history of Arunachal right now. But, while I will encourage everyone to visit that state, there are areas that are out of bounds for non-citizens and even Indian citizens/residents need an ‘Inner Line Permit’ (ILP) to visit those areas.
I was driving on the third leg of the drive in Western Arunachal Pradesh, but we took over our cars in the centre of the state, in the town of Pasighat. Pasighat has a recently opened airport with a thrice-weekly Dornier-228 service to Dibrugarh in Assam. However, that flight wasn’t operating the day we were flying. So, we would be flying straight to Dibrugarh. There are multiple daily services between Delhi and Dibrugarh, albeit only a single direct flight on IndiGo. The earliest arrival however was a Vistara flight UK725 that first flies to Bagdogra in northern West Bengal which is the flight we were on. UK725 DEL-IXB-DIB has since been replaced by UK741 which flies a DEL-DIB-GAU (Guwahati) routing.
UK725
May 11, 2022
VT-TYB
Seat: 14F
I was travelling with a friend who is Vistara Platinum so he managed to block the second exit row of seats for us, with only one drawback, flights to India’s northeast to/from Delhi give you spectacular views of the Himalayas if you sit on the side facing east (the A row on flights to the northeast), not as spectacular as the views that you get on Druk Air which flies over Nepal, Indian flights to the northeast stay inside Indian airspace. But as we were quite tired and a 7.50am departure meant that we had to leave home at 5.30am, the legroom meant a better nap. Check-In and Security was okay, again used priority check-in and got our bags tagged and off we went to grab a bite and coffee. My friend was crabbing some fast-food, so he went to the Burger King and I went to Starbuck beside it for a cold brew. In all fairness, Delhi airport Terminal 3 has a lot of places to munch on now. We both could have gone to the AmEx lounge, but we didn’t have that kind of time to waste a lounge visit and my friend was craving a burger because he felt that this would be the last fast food he’d have for a while. I decided to wait for Vistara’s breakfast.
Our gate was Gate 46, not too far from the food outlets and after a quick pitstop at the toilets, we boarded VT-TYB, one of four all-economy A320neos in Vistara’s fleet. The first all-economy plane - outfitted with 180 seats whereas IndiGo A320neos have a 31st row - 186 seats - means that Vistara can keep standard sized toilets on these planes - also because unlike IndiGo, Vistara has full-sized and functional front and rear galleys onboard.
We pushed back on-time and our timing was perfect, following a LOT 789 flying back to WAW, the DEL-WAW service continuing despite ATC issues in Poland. We had a standard Runway 11 departure, turning right over Gurugram but soon lost the Delhi-NCR area under a cloud of haze. My friend passed out and I was barely awake, but I did have breakfast, choosing the Omelette and beans and managing to glimpse of the mountains across the aisle before I also slept off, the extra legroom of the second exit row being a boon whole the aircraft cruised at 36,000 feet. The cabin crew came along to wake us up for arrival.
Getting to the runway
Breakfast
View across the aisle, If I’m correct that is Kanchenjunga, the third-highest peak in the world
Weirdly I’d never flown to Bagdogra (IXB) before despite the airport being the gateway to northern West Bengal, north-east Bihar and Sikkim. It is an Indian Air Force base and recently the the runway, aligned 18-36 had emergency resurfacing after a few Sukhoi Su-30MKI afterburners wreaked havoc on the asphalt. I noticed that currently there were only helicopters at the base most fixed-wing assets must have moved to Tezpur (TEZ).
IXB which like every Indian airport is full of IndiGo gear
Taxiing to the end of runway 36
Being based out of Delhi, it is rare to take one-stop flights to anywhere in India so this was an unique experience. The plane emptied out for the most part, from around 170-odd passengers, only 30-35 remained for the next leg to DIB. The security folks came to check all our boarding passes and identify our hand-luggage and the cleaning crew ran a quick sweep through the cabin as well. I took the time to talk to the cabin crew who said that the aircraft is cleaned and fuelled in IXB for the legs to and from DIB as Vistara has limited ground staff at DIB. Another 20-odd passengers came onboard for the leg to DIB and we backtracked to runway 36 for a northerly takeoff which gave some nice views of the river Teesta which flows into Bangladesh. A quick right turn later, we tracked the course of the Brahmaputra 28,000 feet above the river although our views were blocked by the cloud layer.
The river Teesta
I guess this counts as service on a 30 minute flight
Our approach to DIB was through light rain coming into runway 5; DIB’s main runway in being extended from 6000 feet to 7500 feet which should allow for fully-loaded A320/B737 takeoffs but it can easily support a A320 to DEL and does for IndiGo, the longer runway will allow for non-stop flights to BOM and BLR as well, and open up this stretch of Assam to more flights. It is a small terminal at DIB but it had to jetbridges and our plane parked at one gate just as an IndiGo flight to GAU pushed back from the other gate. An Alliance Air Dornier 228 that operates from DIB to Pasighat and Tezu was being run-up but wasn’t scheduled to operate that day.
Too much cloud cover
Approaching DIB
Small but nice terminal
Not mine, but we get it. I mean what on earth is he carrying.
My five days in Arunachal Pradesh were wonderful, this part of India is stunning and I am grateful to visit this area while it still retains a level of unfiltered rawness in a manner of speaking. As we were driving, we saw some amazing sights - sights akin to those I have seen elsewhere in the world. But higher and cleaner. The Sela Pass at almost 14,000 feet, the Jang Falls and the Shongetsar Lake as well as all of Tawang. We were partying and drinking every night and setting off at 5am every morning. We spent nights at Pasighat, Pakke Kesang, Dirang and Tawang and at the end of the drive we were flagged in by the Chief MInister himself. I mean if I had to do this trip, I’m glad I did it with one of my closest friends and the rest of the group was amazing as well. Great weather and food helped everything of course, but I’ll let my pictures do the talking.
The last day’s drive was to Guwahati and we decided to set out a bit late, avoiding the flight option given to us and choosing the next morning's flight to DEL. It was a gruelling 12-hour drive through the clouds - pretty much literally - our Mahindra Thar dealing with some rough roads and zero visibility at times, zero visibility with a 2500 foot drop the other side of the road makes driving interesting to say the least, not much that 5-Star NCAP ratings can do there. We reached the Radisson Blu near Guwahati Airport and despite five days of enjoying the rough life, including having to go in the open, I really didn’t mind a proper hotel one bit. The food was meh though, my taste buds having become accustomed to the amazing Pork out in Arunachal Pradesh.
Guwahati Airport was just a twenty minute taxi ride the next morning. The airport operations have recently been bought over by the Adani Group, a massive conglomerate in India who has bought out several airport operations across India including BOM which they acquired from GVK but also AMD, LKO, JAI, IXM, TVM and this airport. And for an airport that is the gateway to India’s northeast, GAU needs a lot of work. There is still no in-line baggage screening, and the terminal needs a lot of improvements. Personally instead of retrofitting the existing terminal, a new terminal building would be a better idea and a new T2 is under development at the northern-end of the terminal, however looking at a satellite image of GAU I’m not sure how much space the airport has for expansion for a parallel runway and other facilities.
Guwahati and the surrounding areas had been inundated with rains and the floods have impacted day-to-day life and impacted our AirAsia India flight as well, our plane which was coming in from Imphal was delayed by around 45 minutes coming in. Looking on FR24 a lot of aircraft were holding above GAU and others still were being diverted back to GAU. With delays all around, the holding area was really crowded, but I did find a quiet corner.
I5 784
VT-ATF
6A
There were quite a few mid-day flight options between DEL and GAU, but we found ourselves booked on AirAsia India. Recently, the Tata Group has decided that they want to reverse merge AirAsia India operations into Air India. One assumes that they’ll buy out AirAsia’s stake and merge the operations into Air India Express (IX). Fleet planning will become interesting since all of I5 planes are leased from AirAsia and IX uses a fleet of owned and leased Boeing 737-800’s. Personally, I think a large IX operation is a good move, a low-cost domestic and regional (Arabian Peninsula + SE Asia) and AirAsia India never really worked - they have a decent operation size now but the entire plan to bypass DEL and BOM as Tonyh Fernandes had planned at the start was, well, silly since DEL has become India’s mega-hub for all airlines (with the exception of IX, which doesn’t really have a hub, unless one thinks of COK and TVM) and now even I5 is increasingly DEL-based.
Weirdly, this was just my second-ever flight on I5, and the first also was out of GAU to BLR, so I was happy to take this flight since it might be my second and last flight on an AirAsia India plane. The flight was delayed due to incessant rain, this has caused major floods in the upper reaches of Assam, tragic since we had crossed those areas just a few days ago. Our plane was coming in from IMF and landed almost 40 minutes late, boarding began promptly although the crowded boarding area and three flights to DEL at the same time - I5, UK and 6E meant that confusion reigned but everyone seemed to get into the right A320.
We took off and passed the huge Brahmaputra River which was in spate, it really is a massive, massive river. But after so many days of driving, eating and partying I just slept off even though I was awoken by my pre-booked meal - which was a coleslaw sandwich that comes with corporate bookings on AirAsia. It was horrid but I had eaten a heavy breakfast at the hotel , so i nibbled on it a bit and promptly went back to sleep, awaking only when we were on approach to DEL. I could taste the smoky air coming into the plane, pity, but I was looking forward to meeting my son.
Flying over the Brahmaputra
Approaching cloudy Delhi
After almost 15 flights in the space of three weeks bouncing around India, I needed a slight break from flying, and well, there is nothing scheduled until June now. Until then enjoy some pictures from Arunachal Pradesh.