Can Jet Airways harmonise their Boeing 737 fleets please?

Just last week, I was away to Vietnam on Jet Airways’ latest route, fully aware that Jet Airways operates a Boeing 737 flight, via Bangkok.

Now, as a 22 year old airline, I can appreciate that Jet Airways has inducted planes over the years. But to have a zillion uncoordinated products, is not really giving customers on the international segments a harmonious experience.

For instance, when I flew from Mumbai to Bangkok on 9W70, I got a plane (VT-JBY), which had a leatherette business class, however, with no Audio Video on Demand. There was a simple overhead screen, playing a video. However, there was no audio channel to hear out the video on. There was no in-seat power, so, my assumption that I could use my laptop to watch something on the plane, was useless as well because with 3% battery, there was not much I could do for a whole 4 hours.

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Top it up, there was just one copy of a business newspaper on the plane, which was taking off from Mumbai on a Friday morning. The flight attendant had to beg, borrow, steal to get that copy to me. I did read all the words apart from the adverts on that newspaper, I can tell you that.

On my next flight, 9W 64, which is a DEL-BKK-SGN flight, and we were going to fly the BKK-SGN segment. On this segment, which was a pretty short flight by the way, I had in-seat IFE, where I could select and watch some programming. I forgot to take a picture, but I was so happy to be able to watch some amount of The Big Bang Theory on the plane.

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On my way back, on the SGN-BKK and BKK-BOM segments, I got the same product. I flew 9W 63 and 9W 67 on VT-JFW and VT-JFY, both are planes which are less than 6 months old. These planes had in-seat power, but no in-seat IFE.

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Considering these were brand new planes, I am wondering if Jet Airways thought it through to have a harmonious product and is planning to retrofit all the old planes as well. Also, I miss why they wouldn’t put In-seat IFE consoles in the newer planes.

Stuff like this makes you feel that the airline looks at themselves as a transporter of people from point A to point B, rather than an experience. Such a buzzkill.

Anybody else feel unhappy like me with the tonnes of disparate products strewn around Jet Airways’s Boeing 737 planes?

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About Ajay

Ajay Awtaney is the Founder and Editor of Live From A Lounge (LFAL), a pioneering digital platform renowned for publishing news and views about aviation, hotels, passenger experience, loyalty programs, travel trends and frequent travel tips for the Global Indian. He is considered the Indian authority on business travel, luxury travel, frequent flyer miles, loyalty credit cards and travel for Indians around the globe. Ajay is a frequent contributor and commentator on the media as well, including ET Now, BBC, CNBC TV18, NDTV, Conde Nast Traveller and many other outlets.

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Comments

  1. Ajay,

    I guess I get your reasons for flying Jet even internationally (miles, elite status,etc); however, the experience is so poor that I prefer flying an Asian or Middle-Eastern carrier even if I have to fly Economy. Also, with Air India in Star Alliance, I would just sign up for KrisFlyer or TK Miles&Smiles, fly AI in and around India, and credit everything to those programs. Just my $0.02.

    • @Hitesh, I have multiple programs I am elite with: air India, jet, British airways, Etihad and American. With Jet, I have enough reasons to give them business. Also, one needs to always have status on home carrier for benefits as well. For instance, I do have lots of last minute work trips. If I don’t have air India or jet elite status, I would be paying an arm and a leg just towards change fees.

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