Flynas begins India operations from Hyderabad

In April this year, I had met officials of Flynas, a Saudi Arabia based low cost airline who had said Flynas is keen to launch India operations. They wanted to begin from Mumbai or Delhi but these airports are either too expensive for low cost airline or getting a slot there is too difficult.

I recently noticed that they have launched flight to Hyderabad. Flynas will now connect from Hyderabad to Riyadh (Flynas's hub in Saudi Arabia) two times a week and connections to select cities from there.

Hyderabad people can fly to Riyadh for about 1000 Riyals (1000 SAR= 20000 INR approx)
This is not cheap and there's one more interesting factor-some other one stop destinations are cheaper than Hyd-Riyadh- For example, you can fly to Jeddah for 150 Riyals less. This is probably dictated by Competition (Saudia flies direct to Jeddah from Hyd, other airlines also offer cheaper one stop flights)

Same situation to Amman, Dubai etc- one stop far away destination via Riuadh is priced lower than non-stop flight to its hub, Riyadh.

Frequency is bit poor at present with only 2 flights a week. Thursday and Saturday. Connections to only select cities are offered from Hyderabad at present. Hopefully more destinations will be accessible for cheap in future.

Flynas website also lists many other Indian airports- Bengaluru, Mangaluru, Chennai, Kochi and so on, but no flights could be found yet. Hopefully soon.

Official Press Release here.

Flynas website: https://www.flynas.com/en/

First flight with Air Vistara-detailed experience

I had my first flight with Tata Singapore Airline group venture Air Vistara. Air Vistara is clearly the popular airline for many as of now, given the troubles with Jet Airways and Air India, other two prominent full service airlines.

Vistara stated Chennai operations very recently (Feb 2018), so I could only experience their service now, several years after they began operations. In February this year I booked a cheap return ticket to Kochi from Chennai, for about Rs 2300 per person. The trip that happened a week ago was a result of this purchase.

Pre-booking experience:
Created an account on Vistara website, but due to my error or system's only first few characters of my name were registered. The name is non editable in the profile, got it rectified by sending a mail to Club Vistara.

Booking process was fine- Vistara charges about Rs 250 convenience fee per ticket if paid by credit card, this amount is waived off if paid by net banking or wallet. (Related- Who charges least convenience fee?)

Due to Kerala floods there were some concerns if our trip would happen. Thankfully flights to Kochi resumed from August 30. When I spoke to Vistara customer care I was told free cancellation/rescheduling is allowed only  for those had travel date till 5th September. My travel date being 12th September, I stood to lose 100% if I don't fly. Other factors being favorable, I decided to proceed with the trip.

Flight experience:
For the onward journey my sequence number was 001- but I was assigned a seat in row 22. System would show all forward rows as unavailable, which wasn't true. For return journey row 8 was automatically assigned.

Not fully loaded
The Chennai-Kochi flight was just about two third full- may be due to Kerala floods or due to odd mid-day timing of the flight. Return flight was almost full.

Confusion over free food
My ticket was booked in February during a sale. Boarding pass mentions fare type as "economy". It is not "Economy Lite" that Vistara introduced a month ago. However while food was being served, crew asked me if I wanted to buy anything. Apparently her manifest didn't indicate that I should given free snacks. I said I am entitled for free meals. One of her colleague recognized that mine is not Economy lite and granted my snacks. However she said she needs to take my boarding pass, to take a photo and report to company that they have given me free snacks. They returned the boarding pass after some time. Even while leaving the plane a staff remembered us and asked if we got our boarding pass back. Did not face this issue on my return- my guess is someone rectified the mistake from back end- so good work overall.

The complicated food arrangement
Vistara has the most complicated food service in-flight. Cabin crew need to be very careful to comply with all combinations.
Vistara Economy Lite passengers are not entitled for free food. They need to buy. Whereas other ticket holders like Economy Standard, Economy Flex etc get to have free food. So cabin crew need to be very careful who gets free and who has to pay. This gets even more complex when some people change seats.

Besides free food for eligible passengers, Vistara also has an in-flight menu with items for sale. So cabin crew also have a mandate to try sell some food while they serve standard meals and snacks.

Plus Vistara aircraft has 3 different cabin types- Business, Premium Economy and Economy. Business and Premium economy passengers get different food.

In a short flight all this means too much work for cabin crew while executing in-flight service. But there were about 6+ cabin crew for a passenger count of 100-130+ and they did a good job within about 1 hour of flight.

The food as such was a light snacks-nothing extensive for the 1 hour flight- May be Chennai-Delhi/Chennai-Kolkata passengers get better food. I would personally prefer to buy an Economy Lite fare that saves a few hundred and use that money to buy an Upma or Biriyani in-flight. If economy lite fare is cheaper than 300 rupees compared to economy standard, buy lite fare, spend Rs 150/200 to buy food, still save Rs 150-100. Note that no cash /wallet payment is accepted, only  credit/debit cards.

Vistara world 
Vistara has an in-flight entertainment system similar to JetScreen. One day before my flight I got an email asking me to download Vistara world app. I did. But however on board I couldn't connect to anything. Tried multiple times throughout the journey- no luck. Informed cabin crew- who checked and said everything is fine- they showed me the app working in their phone. Without able to diagnose any further I said it is fine.

But on my return flight I figured out the mistake- just turning WIFI ON and opening vistara world app wouldn't do. We need to go to WIFI settings, connect to in-flight WIFI first and then open Vistara world app. This was my mistake not reading instructions carefully. So on return flight I could access what's there on Vistara world- a bunch of movies, TV shows etc- nothing much exciting as most of them I had seen already on Amazon Prime. Only interesting factor I spotted was old in-flight Magazine- we could read any earlier editions from Jan 2018 as soft copy on Vistara world, which is a good initiative.

Compared to JetScreen, Vistara's cabin crew made specific announcement to keep the volume low and pay attention to in-flight announcements while watching Vistara world. You've to bring your own earphone. Also Vistara world can be used for almost entire duration of flight- like from take off till landing, unlike JetScreen that works only after reaching cruising altitude and will be turned off before beginning descent (sometimes as per original flight time even if actual flight was delayed)

Boarding pass all mine!
In almost all other flights, airline staff take back major portion of boarding pass, leaving a small portion with passengers. In Vistara no one asked to collect my boarding pass- it was all mine. But may be it was a mistake- on return flight, they did take bigger portion of boarding pass.

In-flight Magazine was decent, but I would rate JetWings and SpiceRoute a bit more better in terms of content.

The onward flight was few minutes ahead of time while return flight was 15 mins late.

Loyalty Points not credited
Few days after the flight I login to Club Vistara account, but there's no trace of my Kochi flight and zero loyalty points added. Have sent a mail and DM on twitter to Vistara- so need to see how quickly they resolve it. Anyway I don't think I will fly so frequently and on higher loyalty point fares on Vistara to accumulate enough useful points before they expire, but no harm trying. Have booked two more tickets under their latest Flash Sale.

Jet vs Vistara

• Jet Airways services coffee/tea. Vistara didn't- may be flight was too small duration to have time for coffee/tea- not sure.
• Jet has also copied Vistara's Lite scheme and now offering fares without meals.
• Naturally Jet Airways network is much bigger, they have a larger coverage, more frequent flights while Vistara's coverage has lots of catching up to do, mostly for South Indian cities like Chennai, Bengaluru, Kochi etc.

Overall the Vistara experience was pleasant. None of my FB friends had any complaints on this airline earlier. This could be partially because their fleet and coverage is much smaller and thus so is the probability of something going wrong. Their market share is slowly but steadily increasing, which is good. I heard Vistara will also plan some international flights from late 2018- best wishes to them.

Similar:  Dubai trip with FlyDubai Experience * AirAsia vs Malindo * Vistara premium economy experience * 

WOW Air India sale is back- INR 13499 onway to US, Europe, Canada

Yesterday middle of the night I received an email from WOW Air, announcing super cheap one way airfare of Rs 13499 from Delhi to different parts of the world, including far away Los Angeles or San Fransisco. For a moment I was like-what is this? They had this sale earlier, I have already made some bookings, they had increased fares thereafter, so what’s new in this mail? I ignored the mail and went about my daily activities.

Later in the evening I checked WOW Air website again. I realized that now they’ve reintroduced Rs 13499 one way fare for various destinations on select dates. Thus if you’ve missed your chance of booking ultra low fare tickets to Europe, USA and Canada on WOW Air, this is your second chance- act now and book.

But please know following things before booking:

• WOW air is accepting bookings only between December 2018 and March 2019
• WOW air is only flying to New Delhi in India- so if you’re from other cities you’ve to plan your city to Delhi and back separately
• WOW air’s lowest fare tickets do not include any hand bag, check-in bag or meals. (one personal item- like a laptop bag is free) Everything costs extra. Adding a bag and 3-4 meals could cost about INR 10000+ on a round trip ticket.
• WOW air doesn’t have greatest of the reviews- their hub in Iceland is known for its bad weather which often disrupts flights and airline’s low cost structure and cramped seats and expensive in-flight purchase gets many bad reviews online. But they get you to your destination.

My guess is not enough sales are happening on ex-India flight. A round trip to US/Canada for Rs 27000 was tempting, but once they increased the price last time, the value proposition was lost. I wouldn’t pay 40-45k for a low cost return ticket (20-23k oneway approx. once they started increasing the fares). Savings are disproportionate to the value. It makes more sense to pay 50-55k to a full service airline like Qatar/Etihad or Emirates and fly with comfort, food and bag allowance. Naturally WOW Air couldn’t fill enough seats once they withdraw ultra cheap 13499 fares. So now I think they have re-introduced the reduced fare, but only for select dates and flights where load factor is low. Need to see for how long this fare lasts.

I am happy that they've retained the price in INR at 13499 despite rupee losing valuation and fuel getting expensive.

One of my flights were cancelled, the support was reasonably quick to re-book on an earlier flight.

Irrespective of that, if you’re based in Delhi and would like to avail this reintroduced low fare, you should book now. Be advised that lowest fare tickets are non refundable (unless you pay Rs 2000 extra) and has other terms and conditions you should be fully aware of.

There’s no mention of extending India operations. WOW Air still isn’t accepting booking beyond March 2019. I feel they are still debating if they should commit to India operations once summer begins in Europe or deploy the A330-900 elsewhere more profitable.

Details on https://wowair.in/

Why its not a good idea to post your boarding pass on social media?

Many of us have a habit of posting our boarding pass photo online- particularly facebook, while we are about to begin a trip. Seems like a harmless move- what can one do with photo of a boarding pass? Well, in wrong hands or by someone with wrong intentions, a lot of things can go wrong. Read on to find out more.

Sensitive information in boarding pass:
Boarding pass has PNR (Passenger Name Record), eTicket number, your first/last name etc. These information, if not blurred before posting online, can be misused by strangers.

Why revealing PNR is dangerous? What can go wrong?
No one can make money from your PNR info- there's no financial risk. But having your PNR can help a stranger know more about you, your plans etc and if they so wish, they can make some changes to make your life miserable...

How?
Almost all airlines allow anyone to retrieve ticket details just by entering PNR or eTicket number and passenger last name. No other info is required and no password/OTP/SMS/email alert is involved. This means when you post photo of your boarding pass and let everyone see all details, below are the things one can access/modify w.r.t your trip:

What all can one do with your PNR information?
With your PNR and last name, one can access your ticket on airline website and know/do the following:
- Know when are you returning (if return ticket is on same PNR)
-Know who else are traveling with you (if PNR has multiple passengers)
- Do some mischief like do a web check-out or change your seat or meals etc (if that person is traveling on same flight he/she can change your seat next to theirs or select their seat next to yours)
- Know your email ID (most airlines allow emailing of boarding pass and pre-populate your email ID and others can copy it) & frequent flyer program
- Cancel your return flight
Further if they know your date of birth also, then they can call airline call centre and might be able to do more mischief.

If someone is stalking you based on info they could access from your boarding pass pic, you won't even realize they are doing so, or may not be able to link it to you sharing your boarding pass photo.

Why airlines have kept it so unsecure then?
You may be wondering why airlines are not securing the way one access their tickets online. But here's the thing- The ticket details were supposed to be personal to you and you're not supposed to be sharing it with strangers. Thus airline website's booking management system assumes only you will know your PNR and others don't. They haven't anticipated the scenario that passengers will be posting their boarding pass on facebook and someone may abuse the system.Current system as is simple and safe, if you keep your PNR/eTicket info to yourself.

Further there's no financial risk and the cases of abuse are almost nil- no one has time, interest or motive to access your ticket details and do something bad. But then, the potential exists- there are many who may be stalking you on facebook or might be looking for more information about you or looking to cause you some trouble.

So what precautions to take?

• Some information like D.O.B, boarding pass details are best kept private
• If you still wish to share, blurr or mask the portions revealing PNR, eTicket Number and Frequent flyer number. Or click from a distance or use aperture mode so that no one can zoom in and read all finer details.

There're no known incidents of someone being harmed because they posted their boarding pass online- but then the potential exists. So it is better to be careful than sorry.

Know about TIMATIC- your most reliable reference for visa requirements

International travel Is a complicated process. Passengers often need to have visa for their destination country- but there’re 100s of exceptions and variations to visa rules. Visa requirements are a function of several parameters such as

1. Nationality of the passport holder
2. Destination Country
3. If the passenger holds any other visa (such as US or Schengen visa)
4. Date of travel (in case new rules are applicable from a certain date)
5. If the passenger meets certain guidelines- like should have return ticket, should not stay more than X days and so on
6. Transit country
7. Countries visited in recent past (there could be some vaccination needs)
8. Purpose of visit
9. And several other instructions and guidelines that vary from country to country, time to time.

Ever wondered how do airport check-in staff decide if your travel documents are good enough to be allowed into destination country? Airlines will be heavily penalized if they bring a person to a foreign country without valid documents. Obviously no staff can remember all possible combination of rules that applies to a traveler. They need a reliable source that they can refer to when in doubt. That tool is called TIMATIC

TIMATIC stands for Travel Information Manual Automatic

So where to refer for TIMATIC?

TIMATIC is maintained by IATA, the apex body for most airlines in the world. The official website is this- but this IATA website needs you to pay and subscribe. 

https://www.timaticweb2.com/

Most airlines flying international sectors would have subscribed to TIMATIC but would give access only to their staff. Only few airlines have TIMATIC Access in public domain.

You can refer to some of the public links available on airline websites(some airlines who have subscribed to TIMATIC have kept  public interface for anyone to access and cross check)

I find United Airline's website interface best 

https://www.united.com/web/en-US/apps/vendors/default.aspx?i=TIMATIC

Emirates has its version here

https://www.emirates.com/us/english/before-you-fly/visa-passport-information/find-visa-requirements.aspx

Few others are 

https://skyteam.traveldoc.aero/

https://www.iatatravelcentre.com/

Vistara: https://www.airvistara.com/in/en/travel-information/vistara-experience/on-ground/visa-requirements/visa-timatic 

How you as a traveler can use TIMATIC during your trips?

1 Check for visa requirements

When you’re considering visiting a destination, you can visit TIMATIC to check your visa requirements- at times you may be exempted from visa if your passport is eligible for it or if you have visa of a 3^rd country like USA. This will save you time, effort and money otherwise needed to be spent to get a visa.

2. Carry printouts for reference

It is possible that at times airline staff, immigration officials may not be aware that you don’t need visa to visit certain country. Carrying evidence from TIMATIC will make it lot easier for them to cross check and let you through. For example there’re dozens of small, lesser known countries in the Caribbean region or off north Africa or in Oceania region that give visa on arrival to Indians- many of us might not even have heard of these countries- even immigration officials may need some refresh to ensure that you’re allowed in visa free there.

3. Ensure compliance with fine print

While many websites tell you that Indian passport holders with US visa can get visa on arrival at Philippines, but there’ll be many fine print which won’t be clear on these websites and if ignored can land you in trouble. Some fine print are

• That a US visa holder should have visited USA at least once on that visa (you can’t just get a US visa and head straight to Philippines)
• Free visa on arrival facility may be available at select airports only- you may need proper visa for some land crossing or less popular airports
• There could still be additional rules- like no of blank pages, validity of passport and US visa, no of days allowed and so on- non compliance may result in you being denied boarding or deported back home

4. Stay up to date

Visa and immigration rules constantly change- What was correct an year ago may not hold good today. So for each journey/planned trip, it is better to validate your documents are in order- particularly when visiting lesser popular or far away country. Cross checking on TIMATIC avoids last minute tension, trouble or confusion. At times your travel agent may give wrong advise or outdated information. It is in your interest to be 100% sure.

At times we read news that a certain country is now allowing visa on arrival to Indians-Don't rush to book your ticket right away. Unless this new decision reflects on TIMATIC, airline staff won’t let you board. So it is important to give some time for these rules to get reflected in systems like TIMATIC, before planning your travel.

If you trip is not straight forward-you're not just going to a country and returning- you may have a transit or stopover or you might be flying onwards to a different country or you have only one way ticket and so on- then there will be more questions and concerns-you should be fully prepared and ensure compliance with all applicable rules.

Be advised that having a go ahead on TIMATIC doesn't guarantee your entry into a country-it only states you're eligible to travel. Being allowed into a country is a discretion of immigration officials, who might want to verify your story, purpose of visit, financial ability and various other things before allowing you in.

Happy travels from Airlineblog.in

Similar: Understanding Transit Visa requirements

Timatic on Wikipedia

GoAir goes International-Phuket and Male

GoAir is soon going international.

GoAir International destination 1: Phuket, Thailand
So far there were no direct flights between India and Phuket. We had to fly one stop via Bangkok. GoAir is launching direct flight between India and Phuket- 3 days a week from Mumbai, 2 days a week from Delhi.

This is a good option to fly direct if your destination is Phuket and origin is Mumbai or Delhi- saves a stopover at Bangkok which is a common practice with any other airline.

You can fly one way direct to Phuket and may be go to Phi Phi, then to Krabi, then fly to Bangkok, spend some time and return to your home city via Bangkok- makes a very good Thailand trip. Indigo is also beginning Chennai-Bangkok and Bengaluru-Bangkok flights from October.

Because it is not a daily flight, if you chose a return flight you might be given a one stop flight via Mumbai or Delhi, if one the day of onward/return journey if there’s no direct flight.

GoAir is promising an intro fare of 18k-19k return- is this attractive enough? In my opinion it is a reasonable return fare, but not dirt cheap. Last year I had a Chennai-DMK-Phuket return trip for under 10000, booked under an Air Asia sale. So 18-19k is on a higher side, but for short term travel it is reasonable- as full service airlines cost around 25-30k for a return trip to Phuket. But point to be noted that the promo fare is not available on all days- was costing 300-400 USD or 25k for some of the dates I selected.

GoAir's Phuket service will start from 11th October Flight duration will be about 5 hours

Check my Phuket posts-

1 Phuket offbeat 3 day Bike tour itinerary

2 Plan your visit to Phi Phi Island

3 Maya Bay now closed
4 Big Buddha statue, Phuket
5 Phuket-Krabi 7 day optimized itinerary
6 Attractions to explore in Phang Nga national park area
7 Visiting James Bond Island on my own without package
8. The offroad- Phuket

GoAir press release has more details

GoAir International Destination 2: Male, Maldives
GoAir is also flying to Male (Maldives capital) from Mumbai and Delhi- again 3 days and 2 days a week. Male is currently served mainly by Srilankan which offers connectivity from most Indian cities via Srilanka and a few direct flights with Maldivian air, Air India and a one stop flight by Spicejet.

Again the return fare of 18-19k is on a reasonable scale. Cheapest would be around 12-14k during airline sales- Cheaper from Chennai and Kochi.

Check my Maldives posts
1. Seaplane watching in Male
2. Male island city tour and places to visit
3. Hulhumale, Maldives in Photos
4. Things to do in Maldives- complete list

Both Maldives and Thailand give visa on arrival for Indians-thus these destinations are convenient to visit.

Best wishes to Go Air.
Air Vistara is expected to begin international operations by end of this year. Curious to know which destinations they will chose first.

Air Asia Big Sale- Not tempting enough

Air Asia is currently running a big sale- however I am a bit disappointed after I checked a few random fares.

Chennai-Osaka lowest I had seen was 16k return. Anything around 20k would have been great. But this time I could only see about 25000 INR for a return ticket. Reasonable if you’re very keen to go to Japan but not cheap enough (I’ve seen 32k on Srilankan with food and baggage for Chennai- Tokyo Narita return). Given that the sale is long term- valid for travel till November 2019, I was expecting a more discounted fare. 

Similarly Chennai-Odissa, Chennai-Seoul and various other destinations are priced much higher than the lowest fare I had seen. So I don’t have a motivation to book on this sale- will wait for a better sale with cheaper fares. However do check for origin-destination and dates you have in mind- you might find something cheaper or reasonable that you might want to travel.

Check this post for some of the lowest fares I have seen on Air Asia

Also to be considered the fact that due to increasing fuel prices and loss of currency value the earlier lowest fares may not always be viable now. So a 10-15% deviation from previously known lowest fare should be ok. On second thoughts- the lowest fare seats are often sold for a loss anyway- their purpose is to get some publicity, excite people and bring more passengers who may book at higher prices- so may be we should wait for next sale with even lower fares- your call.

Oman Air Sale- Good deals for immediate travel

Oman Air is currently running a sale. Chennai-Muscat return ticket can be purchased for about 13k INR.  Chennai to Nairobi (Kenya) return ticket is available for about 25k.  Chennai-Cairo (Egypt)-24k, Chennai-Paris about 30k... You can check on the airline website for more deals or for origin and destination that interests you.

Oman air doesn't have a world wide network, but they do fly to select cities in Europe, Asia, Africa and Middle East. Some cities served with partner airlines- discounted fares are not applicable for such destinations.

Travel date can be as early as next month.

I have not yet flown on Oman air-hope to sometime soon.

So begin here
https://www.omanair.com/en/
Thanks to Siddharth Kumar for the tip off