[AlphaKiloPapa]

Originally Posted by lina

1. No 737 and especially no 737Max. So that rules out Akasa and Spice. Also, much of Air India.

Air India does not have B737's in its fleet. Air India's narrow body fleet consists of A319, A320 and A321. Only in the wide bodies AI operates B787, B777 and earlier B747. It has recently added Airbus 350 in its fleet. I have been working as an ATC at Mumbai for the past 8 years so I can confirm that.

Air India Express used to operate B737's which is now merged with Air Asia.

[Rangy62]

Voted for Indigo for their coverage and timings. )

[Neversaygbye]

Voted for Vistara as I find their service and comfort to be a class apart, and they are my first preference where available and affordable (sometimes the fare difference over the other airlines is almost double!). However, in general, and especially considering that Vistara only flies on limited routes, my preference is for Air India on routes that Vistara doesn't fly. Comfortable seats with good leg room, free food (though you have to be at the front or the back to have any chance of getting a non-veg meal) and class leading free checked in baggage allowance are just some of the reasons. Service quality continues to be a hit or miss thing - even with new staff. However, flights are mostly on time these days and in most cases the overall experience is good. The one airline that I go out of my way to avoid is Indigo - just LCC in name with truly uncomfortable seats and leg-space and the most unhelpful and arrogant check-in and boarding gate staff I have seen anywhere who seem to be straight out of the book of the old Air India. However, it's also a fact that sometimes Indigo is the only choice - I recently flew from Calcutta to Nagpur and only Indigo had a direct flight. So I had to take it. While I can still live with the arrogance and discomfort associated with Indigo every once in a while, the one airline I would not even think about flying is Spicejet. Unreliability is their middle name for one ,and another reason is to stay away from their Boeing 737 fleet as I know that the 737 Max has an inherent design flaw that Boeing has tried to paper over with software.

[SR-71]

Voted for other as none of the options except AI offers rewarding loyalty program. And since I have moved to One-World, AI (part of Star Alliance) does not matter much either. So, my choice is purely based on the cheapest available flight that match my time requirements and have zero hops preferably. For the short 90 minutes to 2-hour journey, we do within India it really makes no difference to me.

[mchandra13]

Voted for Vistara. All my corporate bookings have all been with Indigo and a few with Spice Jet. But Vistara definitely trumps all of them in the domestic circuit. All my personal and family bookings are thru Vistara
Indigo is good to travel from point A to point B in time for most part as long as there are no snags. If you have to deal with their ground staff for any customer support thats when their true colors come out. Offlate what I have seen is their staff in general have grown arrogant(may be because of their dominant position) and unhelpful. On corporate bookings, I get to taste their food which is mostly dry masala upma, poha and noodles soaked in hot water and then given with a plastic spoon/fork. The other option is to go for the cold sandwiches. After a couple of times, I only take their nuts boxes and never tried those hot water based recipes.

On an unrelated note, Indigo runs a B777 between Mumbai and Istanbul under a code share with Turkish. This flight has a capacity of 531 seats which is the largest capacity for any flight flying out of India. On an average it takes close to 90 mins to board the entire flight when its full.

[VaibhaoT]

Voted for Air India Express.

I am not a frequent traveler. Hardly travel for professional reasons. Also almost all my travel are domestic.

For me cost & on-time arrival takes precedence over comfort.
Before COVID Indigo used to be my preferred airlines. But for some reason I rarely travelled in Indigo post COVID. One reason is cost. Its hardly an economical airline anymore. Also recently I had very bad experience (Domestic Air Travel & Airlines | Reviews, Anecdotes, Advice, Cautions).

In last 6 months I travelled 6-7 times in Air India Express. Overall I had pleasant experience. Cost wise it was always cheaper than Indigo & comfort was it was much better. I hope Air India Express will give a very tough competition to Indigo in future.

If budget was not constrained for me, I would prefer Vistara anyday. I love their food and in-cabin experience.

I never travel by Spicejet. Just doesn't trust them. I am ready to pay more to other airlines than travel Spicejet.

[The Observer]

I chose Vistara due to the superior in flight experience. My kids prefer Vistara over Indigo too.

[ads11]

Voted VISTARA.

Flew them recently for the first time (oddly enough because Qatar bungled our flights and had to rebook us) and found them so refreshing. Service quality was fantastic, modern airplanes with neat interiors and good grub. All in all a happy experience.

We had a bunch of guests travel from overseas into India for a wedding and I really struggled to explain to them that Indigo was actually a low cost carrier because honestly the prices were not that different from some of the other carriers.

I think it's telling that by far, all our guests, be it my in laws, European guests, Australians, etc, a sizeable majority had such bad experiences these last 3 weeks on Indigo that at the wedding we found them all referring to the airline as IndiNO-GO.

I suppose standards slipping and arrogance stemming in were always bound to happen when you've such a stranglehold on the Indian aviation market.

I hope for consumers sakes that they're given proper competition and we start seeing more diversity in options. Unfortunately my very surface view is that at best we can look at a duopoly where the might of the Tata group airlines serves as a counter weight to the Indigo juggernaut. I hope we have more sizeable quality players too.

[BoneCollector]

I haven't voted for any as yet. My frequent flights are mainly between Patna and Delhi. On this sector, IndiGo has the best schedules so we have to take that. Vistara and Air India timings don't suit us as they have 2 flights each which doesn't tally with our travel schedule. If they start an afternoon flight on this sector, it would be our go to airline. But as of now, IndiGo it is. Spicejet on this sector is horrible so it's never opted.

[mpksuhas]

The online experience - booking / web-check-in / boarding pass issuance etc has changed for good in AirIndia Express. I assume may be same for AI too, haven't tried once the new software upgrade happened.

Got webcheck-in option reminder came through whatsapp. Same with gate information too.

[fordfreak]

Voted Indigo

Yay!

• Their network connectivity is the best from my home airport (Kolkata), for domestic & certain international routes. It gives me a good number of options to choose from with regards to departure & arrival times.
• I appreciate their (usually) good on time performance.
• Well maintained and clean aircraft. Crew are also polite for the most part.
• Pretty happy with their website / app interface as it is very simple to understand and use.

Nay!

• BIG BIG drawback now is the change they have made to their 'Fast-Forward' service. Earlier, Fast-Forward offered priority check-in & baggage delivery at the arrival airport. Now it only offers priority check-in & boarding. This is a service I greatly miss, as it made my journey through the airport much more pleasant.
• Changes to their meal plans are not good! Their meal plan includes a snack and a beverage. Earlier they offered a bottle of water / soft drink / juice, etc., as the beverage option. Now they offer the same, but serve it to you in a paper cup! Food options & quality have also taken a dip. Now I prefer booking the cheaper fare and carrying something to eat / drink from home.
• Cannot entirely blame the airline for this but - in some instances they do not strictly enforce their boarding procedure. Whenever boarding is announced for a certain seating zone, usually all the passengers rush to the boarding gate. Gate staff just give up and let everyone onboard, leading to a chaotic boarding experience with multiple queues merging at the gate.

Despite the drawbacks, I still continue to choose Indigo just for the sake of convenience. If any other decent option comes up, I shall gladly try something new.

[Aritra]

I am yet to get voting access, but it has to be Vistara among the current crop of domestic carriers. Vistara does a fantastic job of giving the right blend of features & ambience at an affordable price point.

Akasa provided a great experience and would come second to Vistara, but they would need to sustain this sort of services at similar price point over the longer run to make an impact and I am not sure how an entire fleet of 737-Max aircrafts would help their cause with their infamous reliability.

Never liked the services of Indigo that much - Indigo landing before time is more overhyped than anything! Their services (if they exist) are not class leading, more so when you can see that in some sectors Indigo is almost as costly / costlier than AI & Vistara. If the prices were significantly lower, may have tilted in Indigo's favor, but not at this cost.

SpiceJet - well, the less said the better! My first experience with SpiceJet ensured I was delayed by more than 7hr on a 2.5hr flight - enough to make me steer clear as much as I can. The next tryst was when a colleague & I were flying from Mumbai to Bangalore. He took a SpiceJet which was about 1hr before my Jet as he wanted to be at office in morning for a meeting. Well, after waving goodbyes at the hotel, we met at the airport, only for my flight to take off in time. After reaching office and during lunch, called him up to understand he was still at Mumbai!

[SidTheChamp]

If I can go back in time, then nothing beats the experience of Indian Airlines. They used to cover all locations, great food and travel at decent rates.

Coming back to present time, I selected Indigo because it covers the maximum locations where others don't go and secondly the timings are usually suitable for travellers.

For eg. I travelled Mumbai-Jaisalmer and back in December'23. Only two flights, and the other one is SpiceJet

During business travel to Bangalore and back, Indigo used to have the flight at the right time of travel. Many options in morning and evening hours.
So far couldn't get Vistara. But that's in my wish list. So definitely next time will try out Vistara.

[V.Narayan]

In the last 60 days I have completed 5 round trips i.e. 10 flights domestically. All on work on either Air India or Vistara. Most were economy class and 3 were business class. Except for one sector - Delhi to Chennai - the flights flew punctually. The Air India service is quite decent. Vistara of course is tops. I continue with my 'avoid Indigo' policy till I am forced to by lack of options.

An airline needs to provide its passengers - safety, punctuality, service (inflight and on the ground) and price. Safety is a given as without it the rest doesn't count. That is one big reason I have avoided SpiceJet and earlier Go First like the plague. On punctuality and service, based on my experience over two months, I would put Air India on par with Indigo with the added bonus that their boarding staff do not yell at customers and their cabin crew don't behave in a snarky manner. that leaves price where Indigo isn't exactly a market leader.

Indigo of yore reflected the values, skills and personalities of one of the founders and the then CEO. Today, at least where customer attitudes go, it reflects the attitudes, literally, of the other remaining founder. As simple as that.

I wrote to two senior folks at Tata's suggesting they do not merge Vistara with Air India. Air India is not likely to come up to Vistara's standards any time soon but poor Vistara will get dragged down for sure. They don't need my advice nor are they seeking it but what the hell, no harm writing to old acquaintances.

[coolkurt]

Still avoiding all the airlines flying the 737 Max. Indigo and Vistara for me. The former for their network and no nonsense service, the latter for the flying experience.