Air India

Tag Archives for Air India.

Review: Flight AI 657 (DEL-BOM), Air India, Business

by Ajay 1 Comment

an airplane on the tarmac

Introduction Check-in: ICICI/American Express Altitude Lounge Mumbai Terminal 1A Airborne: Flight AI 660 (BOM-DEL), Air India, Economy Class Check-in: ICICI/American Express Altitude Lounge Delhi Terminal 3 Airborne: Flight AI 657 (DEL-BOM), Air India, Executive Class Since it was only me and the television in the Altitude Lounge at Delhi, I got bored pretty quick and decided to hang out at the gate after my breakfast in the lounge. It was going to be a full flight it seemed from the numbers that were lining up at the gate. While I’ve done tonnes of early morning flights and I’ve begun to not like them much, I like the fact that planes are back at their base and hence there is less…

Continue Reading »

Review: Flight AI 660 (BOM-DEL), Air India, Economy

by Ajay Leave A Comment

an airplane on the tarmac

Introduction Check-in: ICICI/American Express Altitude Lounge Mumbai Terminal 1A Airborne: Flight AI 660 (BOM-DEL), Air India, Economy Class Check-in: ICICI/American Express Altitude Lounge Delhi Terminal 3 Airborne: Flight AI 657 (DEL-BOM), Air India, Executive Class After an enjoyable experience in the Altitude Lounge at Mumbai, it was time to board my first Air India domestic flight in months. I’d picked to fly an Airbus 321, because these are the newer planes for Air India on the domestic segments, and I guess they use these on the regional segments as well. I’d pre-blocked my seats for months, as the Air India web-booking system allows you to do so. I suspect this would change after the unbundling guidelines coming into effect, and…

Continue Reading »

Show Air India some Facebook love

by Ajay 1 Comment

Air India has been one of those airlines, which has never had social media presence before. Taking advantage of this, multiple lookalikes have sprung up on Twitter and Facebook. But looks like they’re upto getting their act together now, so if you’re interested, do like them on their official Facebook page which seems to be growing fast. I came by for the first time when it was only a few 100 likes old, and here and now it was 36K likes when I returned. They promise a response Monday – Friday 10 to 5 IST.   Live From A Lounge is present on Facebook, Twitter & available via email, RSS.

Continue Reading »

GoIbibo flash sale today offering discounts on Jet Airways/Air India (10-12 PM IST)!

by Ajay Leave A Comment

Goibibo.com has a flash sale which will be starting up a 4PM India time, and will go on till midnight today (26 May 2013). During this timeframe, they will be doling out different discount codes for different airlines during the day. Here are the discounts being offered: 4-5 PM IST: Rs. 1000 off on GoAir, on a minimum booking value of Rs. 4000 (roughly 25% off), and tickets can be booked for any dates. The promocode for this one is GOS1000. [Over] 8-9 PM IST: Rs. 250 off on Indigo and SpiceJet on a minimum booking value of Rs. 4000.  The promocode for this one is GOS250.  [Over] 10-12 PM IST: Rs. 300 off on Air India, Jet Airways and Jet…

Continue Reading »

Something New: Introduction

by Ajay Leave A Comment

Introduction Check-in: ICICI/American Express Altitude Lounge Mumbai Terminal 1A Airborne: Flight AI 660 (BOM-DEL), Air India, Economy Class Check-in: ICICI/American Express Altitude Lounge Delhi Terminal 3 Airborne: Flight AI 657 (DEL-BOM), Air India, Executive Class One of these times in the past couple of months I was going to visit the family in Delhi, I thought of trying out something new, or rather different from my regular experiences in the past months which usually would be Jet Airways and the regular lounges which would include the Carnations Lounge at Mumbai Terminal 1C and the Plaza Premiere Lounge at Delhi Terminal 3. Since this trip was personal and I had to book up in advance, I decided to use a couple…

Continue Reading »

Unbundled airfares begin to take off: Indigo, Air India and Jet Airways go first

by Ajay Leave A Comment

Unbundling airfares was expected to take off in a while, however the airlines are already set to go ahead and charge exotic varieties of add-on charges on top of your ticketed price right away. Indigo was one of the first to take off with the new charges, and will now charge an additional Rs. 200 if you want to pre-book a window or aisle seats on their planes. If you want a front row seat or an emergency exit, you should be ready to fork out another Rs. 500 for this privilege. They’ve fondly called this Seat Plus. If you intend to pre-assign a non-premium seat, just pay Rs. 100. This is working out exactly as I predicted on May…

Continue Reading »

Lounge Bites: May 05, 2013

by Ajay 1 Comment

I’m just trying to wriggle my way out of a bad bout of cold and flu which kept me out of action since 2-3 days. I figured a complete, medicinal recovery would be better than trying to drag my feet and keep up with work and other stuff, so I missed out some things. Here is a recap for you: Travel Agents across India seem to be off work on Tuesday 7th May 2013. So, if you depend on them, organise your business a day before or after. I am still refusing to believe this fully, but I am scared for flying Air India if this is true. Apparently on a Bangkok – Delhi flight, both the pilots went to…

Continue Reading »

I seem to have found the root cause of Air India’s frequent flyer mess

by Ajay 10 Comments

Yesterday, I wrote about how disappointed I was with the Air India frequent flyer program. It did not stop there. I went about doing some digging into the whole affair. Air India has outsourced the entire management of their frequent flyer program to a South African loyalty management company called LoyaltyPlus, to the extent that the program is hosted on external servers and not Air India’s own. Now, I assume here that a loyalty solutions company helps draw up a program and run the program and would be very involved with the on-going affairs at Flying Returns. So, I decided to have a look at their roster of clients, and it turned out that I could not find one top-notch…

Continue Reading »

Is Air India Flying Returns the most miser frequent flying program?

by Ajay 16 Comments

Last year, I spent some time investigating the Air India frequent flyer program “Flying Returns”. At that point of time, I kind of started to appreciate the program a bit, because they finally had some structure to it, and they have much better availability over other Indian airlines. Earlier, the tier hurdles were not clear and no one had a clue as to who got their top tier and who did not. Seemed like in the process of getting ready for Star Alliance membership, they came up with a process because they needed to. However, this post on FlyerTalk seems to have raised a few valid pointers about how the program still sucks, and in my own personal experience, that…

Continue Reading »

Air India advised to axe in-flight meals

by Ajay Leave A Comment

Another zillionth committee was set up by the Government of India to see how costs could be controlled in its pet loss-making project Air India. And predictably, they have come back with the same recommendations which are the low-hanging fruits for any airline to save costs, Unbundle. Something that competitor Jet Airways has made noises for a long time about but hasn’t gone ahead with so far. According to the press, Air India will likely have to follow the Low Cost Carrier model, without having to shed its full-service tag to survive. Obviously, the first suggestion, right there on the top, is to axe in-flight meals. It has been recommended that only tea, coffee, cold drinks, peanuts and biscuits be…

Continue Reading »

Is this how flight dreams break on a middle seat?

by Ajay 4 Comments

Sigh, and sorry for the cheesy title if it looked like one. I’m resurfacing from about 40 hours of hibernation now that I am in Delhi and I landed here for being with family over the long weekend. I was flying in the afternoon, since I needed to be in Delhi by the evening, and I had run a quick day at work, because I needed to firm up some things at office rather than work from home. Missed lunch in the hullabaloo that ensued, and arrived at the airport early. Still, my time management sucked, since I wanted to try out two new lounges at the Mumbai Airport for you guys, and I only had time for one now.…

Continue Reading »