Airlines frequently offer passengers the ability to travel on a different flight than they booked, given that customers might arrive at the airport early. At Jet Airways, this was an unwritten rule at various airports, and only Platinum Tier members were entertained. At Vistara, this was codified to allow all Gold and Platinum Tier members to fly on a plane up to four hours before their booked flight and introduced in 2018.
Even the no-frill carriers offer this feature, against a fee, of course. IndiGo, Akasa Air and Air India Express are some Indian no-frill carriers that provide a fly early feature under various names, but you must pay for them.
Under the revamp of Flying Returns, Air India came up with a Fly Early feature for their Gold and Platinum Tier members in April 2024. Now, they are scaling this feature.
Fly upto 12 hours prior with Air India’s Fly Prior
Air India has now finally started leading the narrative rather than falling in line. When Vistara launched Fly Early in 2018, everyone benchmarked their product to Vistara’s and began to offer a fly ahead feature for up to 4 hours prior. Now, Air India takes it up three notches.
Air India has launched “Fly Prior”, which will allow Air India guests to take an alternative flight departing up to 12 hours before their booked initial flight, provided the departure dates of both flights are scheduled on the same date. This allows travellers to make last-minute amends to their travel plans according to their needs, whether to make an unscheduled appointment or to arrive at their destination earlier.
The added flexibility of the ‘Fly Prior’ service is subject to seat availability in the same cabin class as originally booked. The service is available at Air India’s ticketing counters and check-in desks at airports across India. It is complimentary for Gold and Platinum members of Air India’s Flying Returns (nee Maharaja Club) loyalty programme. All other guests can easily purchase the service at additional fees.
Upon opting for the service, Air India guests will receive instant confirmation of their modified booking on the earlier departing flight. Their checked baggage (if any) will be instantly accepted. Any other purchased ancillary services previously added to a booking, such as excess baggage, priority handling, upgrade, etc., will be transferred to the earlier flight, except seat selection and special meal requests.
The ‘Fly Prior’ service fees are structured based on flight routes:
- INR 2,199 for flights between major cities: Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, and Pune.
- INR 1,499 for flights to/from Agartala, Amritsar, Aurangabad, Bagdogra, Bhopal, Bhubaneshwar, Bhuj, Chandigarh, Cochin, Coimbatore, Dehradun, Dibrugarh, Dimapur, Goa, Guwahati, Imphal, Indore, Jaipur, Jammu, Jamnagar, Jodhpur, Leh, Lucknow, Madurai, Mangalore, Nagpur, Patna, Port Blair, Rajkot, Raipur, Ranchi, Silchar, Srinagar, Tirupati, Trivandrum, Udaipur, Vadodara, Vijayawada, Varanasi, Visakhapatnam.
The new product offers a confirmed transition to a new flight earlier in the day and requires the passenger to be available at the airport. So far, the “Fly Early” variants used to offer a Standby option, where if the airline had seats available after closing the flight for check-ins, they would transfer customers to the earlier flights. In this case, you could be booked to fly at 8 PM on BOM-DEL, find out that you can fly on the noon BOM-DEL as well, beat the Mumbai traffic and check into your hotel earlier.
Some of the things to remember are:
- The Fly Prior service can only be availed at the airport from which the flight is scheduled to depart, with the customer’s presence mandatory.
- The charges paid for the Fly Prior Service are non-refundable. However, flight schedules and timings are subject to regulatory approvals and may be revised without advance notice. Therefore, the charges paid for the Fly Prior Service shall only be refunded if Air India unanimously cancels the flight.
- The Fly Early service is chargeable on a per sector per flight, per customer basis and will be applicable for each cabin class, respectively.
- The Fly Prior service is not applicable for Group & Unaccompanied Minor bookings.
- The Fly Prior service is complimentary for Maharaja Club Gold and Platinum members provided the change of the flight is in the same cabin class.
- The Fly Prior service is applicable for travel within India only.
- The Fly Prior service is a limited-inventory service available on a first-come-first-served basis.
- For any other ancillary service opted by the customer for their original flight, the following is the list of transferrable and non-transferrable services, respectively to the earlier flight under the Fly Prior Service. Non-transferrable ancillary services, if already opted for, shall not be refunded.
- Transferrable services: Priority service, Excess baggage, Upgrades
- Non-transferrable services: Preferred seat selection, Special meals and Lounges (Lounge service shall be transferrable only if time permits).
There is good economic reason from an airline perspective to offer this feature, as it will allow them to continue to sell more seats on a later flight, but if a customer is at the airport, they can fly out early and also get some measure of satisfaction from the airline not being a pain in their unscheduled plans.
Bottomline
Air India has introduced a new feature called Fly Prior, which allows customers to fly on an earlier flight in the day (up to 12 hours before) if they choose to. This feature will be offered on the same city pair the customer is booked on and will be free of cost to the Gold and Platinum Tier members of the Air India Maharaja Club.
What do you think of the new offering from Air India allowing you to fly confirmed earlier in the day?
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Should we buy Air India FR points?
How does this work if there are 2 PAX on the PNR, where one is Gold/Platinum and other is not?
@Anshul you pay for the non-status pax