[vignesh207]

I've flown Vistara few times and the service has always been excellent. Vistara seems to have positioned itself as a fresh, new, premium airline but Air India has always been associated with something going wrong. I'm surprised Tata is going to merge Vistara with Air India and loose the valuable name and brand they have established over the past few years just to keep the legacy of Air India alive. :(

[narmad]

Originally Posted by vigsom

On board a Vistara flight


What could have been better

1. Meal service was slow; got my meal only approx 40 mins after take off
2. Meal quality was mixed - the dal was excellent, and so was the custard. "Cake crumbs" and the vegetable could have been better.
3. Not enough serving trays loaded in the carts - cabin crew were running against time to fetch more trays from the aft side
4. In the hurry to fetch more trays, both sides of the cart were open - this could have resulted in the odd tray inside being pushed out to the other side onto the passage.
5. As a result of 1 and 3, coffee/tea service got delayed and I got mine after the aircraft had commenced descent.
6. Again, final cabin clearance got delayed due to 1 and 3
7. The wrong baggage belt was announced on arrival, and those who didn't look out for the display at the baggage belt realised later that the baggage was on another belt.

Agree with you 100%
Exactly same experience on BOM-DEL flights. Nothing has changed .

Can't blame the crew though. They have been very professional and I guess , do their best under the circumstances.

[sameer_vwagner]

Lovely to see this thread. Have kept Vistara as my top option for any domestic travel. Have always loved their experience in-flight and at Mumbai airport. Delhi is a different matter though.

Have had the pleasure of taking Vistara's business class on a few occassions. Have loved their service for sure. It is miles ahead of Air India and Jet Airways and closer to KingFisher's business class.

Am posting a pictures which also includes the only time they screwed up (had to be Delhi). Some major screw up in communication meant only non-veg food was loaded on the flight for business class. Since it was an 8pm departure, business class had just 3 passengers out of which only i was a vegetarian. When the cabin manager got to know of this, she apologiseed profusely and asked if she could get me anything from premium economy food. Since i already had food, i declined so she served me everything else other than main course. A couple of days later, i got a call from Vistara HQ where the agent apologised once again for the screw up and issued me a business class voucher (domestic) for use within 6 months. To be honest, I was not expecting this from them.








Premium Economy:

My most prefered class when am not flying for work or when business class is very expensive and no seat is available via upgrade. Has good legroom and better seats than economy. Food too is a lot better and for frequent Delhi trips from Mumbai, they have served Starbucks coffee every single time. Priority baggage and boarding is just a few perks that make it a good offering. A few pics from the food served in PE.















Economy:

Found the legroom here to be decent, little better than LCCs but not as good as Air India for sure. Food served is again very good but the choice is less and spread is limited. That said, it still is better than LCCs (Have always preferred pre-prepared hot meals over ready to eat)






Leaving you all with one picture i clicked from inside a Vistara flight to Leh from Delhi last year.

[Kiran Melkote]

As a frequent Vistara flyer, I have no complaints whatsoever.

It's hands down the best with a caveat - get a Gold membership or fly business only. Business class may be difficult to do every time but Gold membership is easy if you can afford 10,000 rs annually for an Axis Vistara Infinite Credit Card as you get an automatic gold membership.

There are other benefits to spending this amount - free business class voucher on joining/renewals plus additional business class vouchers on hitting milestone spends (2.5lakh, 5lakh, 7.5lakh and 12 lakh spends per year) and each spend gets airmiles instead of reward points. Besides, it's a Visa Infinite with it's own benefits. So far, I have had a great experience using this as my primary card and have spent very little money on flight tickets.

Check in is always a breeze with extra baggage allowance and they even had a concierge service earlier (now only for platinum members)

Something to consider if you fly often.

Btw, I don't work for either axis or vistara. (Realized the post sounds like an ad)😂

[insas1983]

Originally Posted by shankar.balan

I think Indigo legroom and seat comfort is tops. Indigo slim seats make for decent support and excellent legroom. And I also think Indigo is a better airline overall in terms of on time performance and all their little sub-services like XL seats, fast forward and quick board and all, work beautifully.

I think seat comfort is subjective but having flown with Indigo 95% of the time on Vizag-Bangalore and Vizag-Chennai routes, I would prefer sitting on a wooden bench rather that those thin, cushion less Indigo seats. I found the Air Asia seats to be much more comfortable with better leg space. Only problem with Air Asia is they cancel left right and center hence the only thing working for Indigo is predictability and bearing with the awful seats and leg room.

[mpksuhas]

Originally Posted by insas1983

I think seat comfort is subjective but having flown with Indigo 95% of the time on Vizag-Bangalore and Vizag-Chennai routes, I would prefer sitting on a wooden bench rather that those thin, cushion less Indigo seats. .

Or is it that some of their flights has substantially less cushioning. I get what you mentioned about Indigo seats, though its not much of an issue for me for domestic / ~2 hour flights, with longer / international flights it gets very uncomfortable.

More than leg space, my grouse was with the cushioning of their seats. But I started feeling this as a bigger issues in some of their recent flights. Not sure if compared to initial days, their seats have become thin or it was just me getting old and grumpy.

[pganapathy]

Flew Vistara in November Bangalore to Chandigarh and back. Loved the flight. They were very happy to not stress about weight, especially on our return flight. They happily took our cabin baggage into the check-in as well. Only kept one suitcase as it had our jewelry from the wedding we attended. The food was decent and the service was good. It does seem to be a bit more expensive than the LCC's but if I could afford the difference I would fly it. Am hoping that SIA actually helps them maintain and improve service levels

[fordday]

I may be in some sort of spot.

Booked a ticket through Cleartrip app for BLR-GAU 5th Feb travel.

The Eticket from Cleartrip is all correct. But the Vistara E ticket shows my name as <firstname><no space><middlename>mr<space><lastname> as in Rajivkumarmr Sharma.

The actual should be like Mr Rajiv Kumar Sharma.

Wrote to both Cleartrip and Vistara.

Cleartrip in their Tweet message and email reply says it okay and the name showing in airline ticket in GDS format (whatever it is).

Vistara in their tweet message says its okay and their system recorded the name correctly as in Mr Rajiv Kumar Sharma but their email reply simply refused to acknowledge and asked me to contact the travel agent (Cleartrip).

Is this something any one faced before ?

Can it have consequences? What should I do ?

[thanixravindran]

Originally Posted by fordday

I may be in some sort of spot.

Is this something any one faced before ?

Can it have consequences? What should I do ?

I don't think you have anything to bother. I have faced the same with Indigo boarding pass and no issues for boarding. In fact I have given my driving license as ID proof which doesn't even have my surname.

[fordday]

Originally Posted by thanixravindran

I don't think you have anything to bother. I have faced the same with Indigo boarding pass and no issues for boarding.

Thanks. But why do they complicate things like this?

I never had this situation before in any of my travels even when booking through other apps.

My worry is that if something goes wrong, they will jump at this opportunity to deny me any help or service.

[Naetik30]

Took my first flight Vistara from Leh to Delhi in 2022. It was a normal flight. But the food was nothing great, even though we were on premium economy.

In May 2023, we took Vistara from Delhi to Paris and from Frankfurt to Delhi. Something odd I observed in both the flights - the cabin crew was professional, but absolutely nobody even smiled at the passengers. I am not asking for something special here, but it felt like everyone had lost something. It seemed like they had orders to keep a straight face through out.

Felt pretty weird.

[sameer_vwagner]

Hello!

I visited my wife in London in February 2024 and decided to book myself on Vistara directly from Mumbai. The service UK 15 was excellent and its a shame they discotniued this service in April 2024. I decided to splurge a little and got myself a seat in their premium economy cabin. Listing down a few observations:

Check In

Was fabulous. Since Premium Economy passengers have their own dedicated counters, the time taken was less than 10 mins. Staff was very helping and courteous.

Immigration

Have always loved Mumbai airport's immigration services. They're quick, there is staff to help you to counters that have less queues and somehow the chaps there are not too nosy (this is my personal experience - a chap in Delhi had a lot of questions when i flew to Koh Samui from Delhi via Singapore).

Lounge

Adani Lounge was good and the staff was eager to help. The buffet spread was to everybody's liking and I loved it.

Boarding experience

Boarding was done sequentially and like all other Vistara boardings, was good and the staff was helping wherever needed.

In flight experience

This is where Vistara begins to pamper you. On the seat waiting for us were a bottle of water, a blanket and headphones (wrapped in bag made from rice).

After being seated, we were offered a cold towel and the in flight menu card.


The generous legspace in Premium Economy cabin.


A random pic captured at Mumbai airport with some dimming of the windows. The dimming function (luckily for me) worked great.


Cold Towel


Bar menu


Wine menu


Lunch menu


Snacks menu

This was followed with some orange juice for us.


For the aviation enthusiats, the details are listed below:
Aircraft: Boeing 787-9 Dream)Liner
Registration: VT-TSO
Age: 2 years and 6 months
Flying Time: 9 hours and 8 minutes
Altitude: 38,000 feet (FL380)
BOM take off from RW27
LHR landed into RW 27R

Attaching some pics from the aircraft:

Lunch - would rate it 8.5 out of 10. Food from TajSATS, Mumbai / Delhi / Goa kitchens are very good.


Post lunch Starbucks coffee


Snack served over Europe - would rate it 8 out of 10. Again, no complaits.


Post snack Starbucks coffee

Attaching some pictures taken from the window.

The majestic Mount Damavand as seen from my window. This is the highest peak in Iran.


The IFE screen displaying the flight details as seen on the pilot's HUD.


One more HUD data over the Caspian Sea.


The city of London as seen from the window on approach for London Heathrow's Runway 27R.

Some pictures of the headphone pack and amenity kit handed out to the passengers.

Headphones were basic and would have expected better ones in the premium cabin.

Looked good.


This contained a pair of travel socks, a lip balm and a mouisturiser.

Overall the service was really great. The crew used to make a round of the cabin once every 30-40 mins to check on the guests. On every alternate checks they used to carry water bottles (this is a nice touch).

If you are looking for a trip to any of the cities that Vistara flies, you can give them a shot.

Before I leave, leaving you all with the picture of my Uber ride to the city from Heathrow airport.



The rider was not ok with internal / front pictures and politely asked me to click from this angle. My ride was a Tesla Model 3 and loved my trip back to Baker Street from Heathrow.

[ads11]

Originally Posted by sameer_vwagner

The service UK 15 was excellent and its a shame they discotniued this service in April 2024.

Wait they've stopped UK15?! Oh no, that's such a shame. Now I realise why I couldn't see it at all when looking up flights recently. It was such a great service, was my mum's go to option when coming to London, with the evening landing time working perfectly for me to get down to LHR after work. Heard nothing but good things from parents when they've flown Vistara.

Originally Posted by Kiran Melkote

As a frequent Vistara flyer, I have no complaints whatsoever.

It's hands down the best with a caveat - get a Gold membership or fly business only. Business class may be difficult to do every time but Gold membership is easy if you can afford 10,000 rs annually for an Axis Vistara Infinite Credit Card as you get an automatic gold membership..

Very interesting, thanks for sharing. Wish I'd let my mum know about this - amount she flies Vistara, she'd have handily made great use of the perks.

I've only flown Vistara once and that was as a replacement flight booked for us by Qatar when they messed up with our actual connection from Doha. Must admit it was really pleasant in economy, certainly noticeably better than the AI experience (which I suppose is understandable).

I still don't understand how Vistara will be folded into AI given the fact they've built up a bit of a niche for themselves and a fair amount of goodwill for a premium service. Wouldn't it all be flushed away as collateral damage in the process of merging the two airlines?

Originally Posted by fordday

I may be in some sort of spot.

Booked a ticket through Cleartrip app for BLR-GAU 5th Feb travel.

The Eticket from Cleartrip is all correct. But the Vistara E ticket shows my name as <firstname><no space><middlename>mr<space><lastname> as in Rajivkumarmr Sharma.

I've noticed this happen umpteen times on umpteen airlines. Probably some after effect of the way in which the coding handles naming strings. It's never caused me trouble at the airport but I do concede it can be stressful. If it makes you feel any better it happened just recently with British Airways both for a booking made via their own site and another by AMEX Travel acting as the travel agent.

[sameer_vwagner]

Originally Posted by ads11

Wait they've stopped UK15?! Oh no, that's such a shame. Now I realise why I couldn't see it at all when looking up flights recently. It was such a great service, was my mum's go to option when coming to London, with the evening landing time working perfectly for me to get down to LHR after work. Heard nothing but good things from parents when they've flown Vistara.

Yes. Unfortunately, they have. Made CDG and FRA daily service. UK15 was eating into AI131's occupancy and AI used the ex-Etihad birds to fly this route so UK15 was sacrificed.

The freed up B787-9 Dream)Liner is now used to operate the DEL-DPS sector. Also, BOM-FRA is operated using their dry leased aircraft (VT-TSQ).

Since am a Vistara loyalist like your mother, I am taking the DEL stopover on my next trip. UK994 connecting to UK17. Will keep this thread posted.

[ads11]

Originally Posted by sameer_vwagner

Yes. Unfortunately, they have. Made CDG and FRA daily service. UK15 was eating into AI131's occupancy and AI used the ex-Etihad birds to fly this route so UK15 was sacrificed.

The freed up B787-9 Dream)Liner is now used to operate the DEL-DPS sector. Also, BOM-FRA is operated using their dry leased aircraft (VT-TSQ).

Since am a Vistara loyalist like your mother, I am taking the DEL stopover on my next trip. UK994 connecting to UK17. Will keep this thread posted.

Thanks for the update! I see what you mean by it eating into AI131 - which ironically is the service I've used far more. We just tend to prefer flying through BOM vs DEL because the immigration for my wife is far smoother in Mumbai than Delhi. It's gotten really bad the last few times we've been through Delhi, with it taking most of our connection time for her to clear immigration. Seems mad that DEL already feels bursting at the seams when it felt new just a short decade or so ago.