Recent Air Deccan Experience

akt

Recently, I had to travel to India on short notice and had the occasion to fly Indian, Sahara, Spicejet, and Air Deccan. The first three were smooth. My experience with Deccan is summarized below:

(1) Deccan site was forever "being upgraded" (=dysfunctional) and I couldn't book my tickets online. As no travel agent in my neighborhood dealt with Deccan, I went to the airport and found the Deccan counter abandoned.

Wiser, I returned later, this time a couple hours before their flight, and did find a few youngsters arguing with a small mob of irate customers. Wouldn' you know it, the "sytem" was being "upgraded" and couldn't do anything anybody wanted! They couldn't process credit cards. For some odd reason (and I don't claim to understand this) they could also not accept cash.

Finally, a young manager called around and arranged for me to pick up my tickets at some travel agency in the city. From the look of things, he was getting a cut of the commission, because he got very nervous when I suggested I'd just go to the agency myself; he insisted I should stay with the deal he had worked out.

Anyway, had I known about this agency earlier, it would have been far more convenient to just go to them in the first place.

(2) One of the trips involved arriving in Delhi by Deccan and catching another Deccan flight to Lucknow 4 hours later. Magically, the arriving flight managed to be late by exactly 4 hours, making us miss our Lucknow flight.

At this point, Air Deccan did something no airline has ever done in my decades of flying experience...

They refused to accommodate us on their own next flight with seats available. Instead, they said, they would refund us the 1st ticket's price and we'd have to purchase a new ticket at now-very-high last minute prices!

Fortunately, we were on the familiar ground here, so we decided to take the refund, visit some people and take the Shatabdi train next morning.

(3) I am a pretty hardy traveler. For saving or adventure, I have never hesitated to take Indian airliles, Aeroflot, Uzbeck or Romanian airlines. I'd even take Deccan again when necessary. However, their behavior did leave a bad taste in my mouth, and it is not an airline I can recommend to anyone.

Some of you may be wondering why I bought Deccan in the first place. I was traveling on a very short notice and many flights were unavailable. When possible, I did choose Indian, Sahara and Spicejet and all of those journeys were normal.

Indiluv

Ditto AKT - Air Deccan nbg!

arunchs

Sigh! They were the first Budget Airline in India. They showed most of the middle class and lower middle class in India how it is to fly. They really started a revolution. I am not sure what is happening inside there, but if only they could clean up their system and start operating smoothly, they still have the potential to be the number one airline in India.

I have personally never even dreamt of taking Air Deccan flight due to their frequent delays and cancellations. But I really wish they clean up their system and do better in future.

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akt

Deccan's prices are low. Also, they sometimes fly to small places not served by others. Therefore I do wish them good luck and hope all problems will be fixed soon.

Thinking about it more coolly, you can use them as long as no connection or any other time-sensitive appointment is involved. Then book early (so at least get a low price) and check in early (so you are not the one being bumped due to overbooking).

As for low prices, while some airlines deliberately remain pricier than others, most have moved to a dynamic pricing in which budget prices are available provided you book early. Only Jet and KF were significantly higher on the routes/dates I was researching. Spicejet, Sahara, Indian and others (Indigo or Go Air, I forget) were often only a few rupees higher than Deccan.

ronago

we had a flight from trivandrum to Delhi 2 weeks ago, and the flight was on ime and every thing went smoothly, just we paid 700rp for over weight....

akt

Glad everything was ok for you. Yes, Deccan's allowance is only 15 kg, while for some others it is 30 kg. If you as Rs 700 to the ticket price, was it still cheaper than others (if you remmber)?