[xotiq]

I remember being on the last Kingfisher DEL-BLR flight, have retained the boarding pass!!

Recently got a chance to try international on Indigo. Flew Mumbai-Nairobi-Mumbai only because fare was ~60% less than the next airline. 6 hour long flight, the biggest flaw is the paper thin seat cushion, your butt starts cramping after couple of hours. Emergency, Aisle, Extra legroom seat- no difference. Hope the seats for the pilots are well padded

We book BLR-CCU and HYD-COK multiple times a year on Indigo, and service is decent. (No delays faced yet!). Fare is not low cost by any means.

Vistara- travelled BLR-DEL-BLR many times, and service is decent, predictable. Faced a 60mts delay once, and another time their servers were down due to which online check in was not possible. Customer care was good. Did not feel any difference between PE and E. Never flew Business on Vistara, so no idea.

Erstwhile Air Asia-Mainly for BLR-CCU, aircraft was quite old, worn out seats. Never faced any delays etc.

SpiceJet- used to book regularly, but last 1 year we have not booked. Air India- not travelled in the last 4 years.

Akasa, Alliance Air, Go First- have not travelled, though Akasa fares are less by a good margin on some routes from say Indigo. Going with Vistara for this poll.

[amitayu]

Voted Vistara as I have a personal account with Vistara for booking all personal travels.
But my office travel agency seems to prefer Indigo. I think they give better corporate packages ( read cheap and affordable) and seem to have a stronger grip on the corporate ticketing segm5till date.

[gauravdgr8]

Voted Vistara, my go to airline if they are operational in the route. If not, then Air India, no matter what the price is vs Indigo. They have improved by miles, specially being ontime.

If none available, then have to book the air bus, Indigo

[NomadSK]

Lately have been only Indigo for me - Competitive Prices/Generally On-time/Frequency.

Spicejet/AirIndia/Vistara - Haven't flown with them since ages.

Flew Akasa once and that day it got 4/5 hrs delayed due to some pilot issues

With Indigo, The only grouse is wafer thin seats. I carry this with me and my Butt says me "Thanks", Trust me I can watch netflix at ease for hours during the flight on other normal days it’s used on the car seat.

PC google.

[5hank3r]

If I could, I would have voted for Air India. I am regular traveler in Air India (not by choice but due to availability and requirement of star alliance membership) and I am observing a steady growth in quality and reliability of their service.

Last month I flew from COK to BOM on a new(?) flight with Recaro seats installed which had mobile holders and USB ports for charging. The interior was beautifully furnished.

[Raghu M]

I think for such threads, the voting should be recurring. Like, we should visit the same thread around this time next year. Looks like Vistara has an edge because of the new fleet and better interiors. Point is, how will they manage to maintain this going forward. That would be an interesting stat to look out for.

I flew the Vistara a couple of times and found it to be awesome. Otherwise, Indigo is pretty decent. Rare cancellations, always on time and no surprises so far. I generally take the lowest fare tickets because I am of the breed that actually do not care for anything as all my flights are mostly under 2 hours duration. I don't mind standing too (if they allow at all!)

[KryptonMonkey]

Voted: Vistara

I actively look for conveniently scheduled and priced Vistara flights to my destinations as a first choice. Ever since their launch, I've somehow instinctively been attracted to their service. Perhaps it was their association with Singapore Airlines that drew me towards them. Sometimes, even if the fare is more for a Vistara flight by around 1k compared to a similar Indigo flight, I still go ahead and indulge with Vistara.

My fallback options are Air India (post the Tata takeover) and Indigo, in that order. For short-haul flights, Indigo does rule the roost.

I absolutely won't fly airlines that are in financial trouble. You never know when they will cut corners in safety.

I haven't tried Akasa Airlines yet, primarily due to my paranoia about the Boeing 737 MAX 8 fleet that they possess. Perhaps in a few years, I will eventually give it a go.

[Satkaj]

Voted - Vistara.
No surprises in seats/ meal combo . Price difference in few sectors hardly matters and if one considers seat/ meal selection etc brings Indigo and Vistara at bearable difference .

Indigo , though becomes choice by default due to frequency, punctuality and sector options.

Yet to try Akasa.

Spicejet - I don’t see any reason now to fly with them.

[ramnath_77]

My Vote : Indigo

Why?
My reason is a bit unique. Most of my travel by air is for photography which obviously requires me to carry multiple camera gear (including long telephoto lenses) which travel with me in the cabin (of course the size of the camera bags comply with the requirements of our carriers but the weight almost always ends up in the 12-15 kg range).

While i find airlines like Vistara and also to some extent Akaasa to offer better seat comfort and also on other aspects, it is Indigo which i find the most friendly in terms of allowing me to carry such heavy gear with me as part of cabin baggage without much hassle. This alongwith their generally good On Time Performance wins my vote.

I have had issues with most other airlines on this aspect.

[dextor]

I wanted to vote GoIndigo because of the biggest network but then they are misusing their monopoly is certain sectors. Although it is a budget carrier but the ticket price is equivalent to full service carriers.

Also I do not like to be forced to pay for picking a seat which should by default be included in ticket price.

They have very weird pricing strategy. In monopoly sectors they keep the price always high whether you book 2 months in advance or 2 weeks. Only during the last few days when they see unsold seats, they start reducing prices. Once I had bought tickets for 12k which was reduced to 7k 2 days before the travel.

If I have an option to choose Indigo or any other airlines, I will prefer later.

[ArTigor]

Although I like Vistara, but I prefer Indigo for two important reasons:

On Time Performance: Indigo has superb on time record for all sectors that I travel. For me time is very important as I travel at least 3 to 4 times a month for work. I prefer early morning flights to attend 9 am meetings at destination, by taking early flights I also negate the Morning traffic at destination. A delay of even half an our spirals down to loss of at least 1 hour of early hour productivity at destination as after arrival, peak morning traffic kicks in on the roads.
This is one place where unfortunately Vistara is lagging behind Indigo, not that it is as bad as say Spicejet or even Air India but still Indigo is way ahead. I have also found Indigo to be very efficient in quickly settling down all passengers after boarding, this surely aids their on time departures.

Sheer number of routes and Time Slots: Indigo almost goes everywhere now that too at the right time slots i.e. mornings and evenings. I am amazed how they have captured the prime time slots almost everywhere. Vistara either doesn't fly to some of the city that I visit, or the time slot is odd.

One thing I used to like about Indigo till a year back was actually its Economy seats, although thin had sufficient padding for a 2 hour flight, the economy seats were spacious with more leg room than Vistara and the seat angle was comfortable too, this is very critical for me as I am a healthy built person. But I absolutely hate the latest Recaro seats that have been added, the comfort level of these Recaro seats reminded me of the NWKSRTC State transport buses from 90s which had wooden seats, these used to operate in rural areas of northern Karnataka. The Recaro seats barely have any cushion, it is just like a piece of cloth over plastic.

I try to avoid taking a Spice jet, in the last 6 months as an unavoidable option had taken 2 journeys with Spicejet and both had terrible delays. Mumbai Patna was delayed by 4 hours and the other a Delhi Mumbai flight was delayed by 5 hours!

One more thing I find surprising is that there is barely any difference between the rates of low cost carrier and full service economy, for ex. next week Indigo flight Mumbai to Delhi is costing me 4.8k rupees and Vistara economy is costing me 5.2k rupees.

[sunilrs]

Vistara for me. I like their Premium Economy offering and it is often available and a reasonable premium for a much better class of service. The food is also pretty good always and they operate from the better terminals. I have also never experienced inordinate delays with them. I also appreciate the Vistara Connect option to browse some entertainment during the flight. But it's not all roses of course, the network is quite limited in terms of destinations served and frequency, I guess they are not expanding it due to the upcoming merger. Secondly, I have been a CV Gold member for 2-3 years now, and I feel they are very stingy with complimentary upgrades. I also struggle to redeem my 1 class upgrade vouchers and have let them lapse twice now since it is so difficult. Jet Airways and KF were far more generous with upgrades.

Air India is next in order of preference, post Tata takeover the service has improved significantly and I guess by 2025, it should be as good as Vistara with new planes. I hope Air India builds a better FF program than CV, may be take a clue from the older Jet Privilege program.

If I had to fly an LCC then Akasa would be preferred (if they operate on the sector) then Indigo. I do not trust SpiceJet and actively avoid them after seeing the mess at check-in every time. I have not flown AIX yet and do not have any view.

Indigo is not bad and quite ok for 1-1.5 hour flight but I absolutely dont have the guts to fly them for more than 1.5 hours at a time. The brave souls who fly the paper thin seats for 7 hours to Turkey and Bali deserve a complimentary back massage at the very least from the airline. The scariest part of a longer flight on Indigo is the awful food options and the toilets and the fact that when it comes down to it, the difference between Indigo and an FSC fare is marginal.

[sameer_vwagner]

Voted for Vistara.

Have been taking Vistara for a long time and have been happy with their performance. Their food is great, in flight service too does not disappoint. Their PE cabin is a good product and it seems they have been able to market it properly on trunk routes (BOM-DEL; BOM-BLR; BLR-DEL).

If Vistara is not available, i opt for either Air India / IndiGo. There is no doubt IndiGo offers some really great options but offlate their attitude towards passengers has not been great. Air India is improving but there are a few areas that still are a little behind the competition.

Akasa - tried just thrice and no complaints with them. On all the three flights, they flew the aircrafts which had a business class cabin (aircrafts built for Jet Airways). Good experience.

PS: I don't know why but i love getting hot meals at cruising altitudes so the needle will always tilt towards Vistara and Air India.

[Tiago_Boy]

My preferred choice is Vistara. I travel very frequently and Vistara offers comfortable experience.

To save on the travel expense, I got myself a Vistara co-branded credit card. The card gets me 5 Premium Economy tickets every year along with Priority Check-in and 5Kg extra luggage allowance. I get 4 tickets based on 4 different spend milestones and one ticket on card renewal.

In addition, I get travel miles on spendings through the card which again helps me get more free tickets.

[parrys]

Vistara!
Hands down the best full service domestic airline.

Previously, I was a Jet Airways loyalist.

Sometimes I am surprised how Indigo has over 50% market share.
Their food is bad.
Contrary to opinion, I have faced multiple delays when flying with them.
The cabin / seats don't look neat, tidy and clean.
I guess it is only because our market is cost sensitive. If they were priced similar to Vistara or Air India, I doubt anyone would fly Indigo.

Moving forward, if I do not find a Vistara flight on the route, I would slowly migrate to Air India. Hoping that Air India improves, and slowly want to get on their frequent flyer program too.

But no Ch-Indi-Go for me.