ANA Japan Sale-Mumbai Tokyo 30k return

ANA is offering cheap tickets to Japan for next 5 days. If Japan is in your mind, check now and book.

I could see Mumbai-Tokyo Return for as low as INR 30000 for Feb/March 2020. Try more date and destination combinations, you may get even luckier.

Cheaper tickets are available from other cities ANA serves in India- Chennai, Delhi to various destinations on ANA Network. Do check.

Note that ANA's lowest fares do include baggage allowance and meals during the 10-12 hour long non stop flights to Tokyo, but this promo fare is non refundable and not changeable if you can't travel as per plan. All the best. Dreamliner service will be pretty comfortable otherwise.

All Japan travel planning info you may need:
0) India to Japan comprehensive Travel Guide

1) Japan Tourist Visa for Indians

2) Useful Japan travel itineraries.

3) Japan trip on low budget- 77k all inclusive

4) 12 Experiences very unique to Japan

5) Japan Capsule Hotel experience 

6) One night at Hiroshima

7) Japan Bullet train experience 

8) All you need to know about JR Pass

9) Himeji Castle

10) Osaka from Umeda sky building

11) Bamboo forest, Kyoto

12) Kyoto city from Kyoto tower

Let me know when you book your ticket based on my alerts.

Goa to London INR 7800 one way!

If UK is in your mind, there's a super cheap ticket available- GBP 90 or approx INR 7800 one way.

Available for travel date 12 December 2019- you still have 2 months to process visa and plan your trip. Available for 10 pounds more (GBP 100) for 19th December if you need another week. Available for slightly higher rate for other dates. From your city you have to plan a travel to Goa to catch this flight, which may cost around 3000-5000 Rs extra.

This is similar to what I had written last year- Thomas Cook's super cheap ticket to London

Points to note: 

• This is on a Thomas Cook Charter plane, non stop to London from Goa.
• 90 GBP is hand bag fare only. Cabin bag costs 40 GBP extra.
• Seat selection 22 GBP extra.
• Meals during the flight are included as per website. Alcoholic drinks for purchase.
• Above price is one way. No discount for return ticket. You have to book return ticket either with Thomas cook or with any other airline at normal fares. Normal ticket from London to India typically costs approx 25000 one way, if you are a bit flexible with dates. That is a round trip for under 33000, which is a good deal.

Perfect opportunity to plan your Christmas trip. It is also good opportunity to fly to London on this flight and then fly onwards to somewhere else - say Canada or USA etc a lot cheaper than what a direct flight from India would have cost.

Check here to check and book.
https://www.thomascookairlines.com/en/cheap-flights/india/goa/

UK Tourist visa details in this post

Indigo to China-14k return-Cheapest ever!

Indigo has announced flights to China's Chengdu and the return fares are fairly tempting- under INR 14000.

If China is on your mind, you can try this option to visit China for half the normal cost (typical return ticket to China- mainly Beijing, Shanghai etc cost INR 25000 onwards in most cases) then this is a good opportunity.

However please keep following in mind
Chengdu alone would be boring as there is not too much to see/explore. You might want to visit few other major towns in China- but Beijing/Shanghai are almost 1800-2000 kms away- a return ticket on flight can cost around 25-30k making it cheaper to fly directly to Beijing or Shanghai.

You can still visit Chengdu, go to few more places by bullet train and make a decent first timer's trip if you wish.

Air Asia flies to few destinations in China- you can wait for a good sale for a return ticket under 20k INR.

Related
China Tourist Visa for Indians

Visiting China- All you need to know

Air Asia Chennai Delhi twice daily service launched

After Chennai-Blr, Chennai-Kolkata and Chennai-Hyderabad, Air Asia has announced Chennai-Delhi flights.

Above: Contextual image- Heritage Transport Museum, New Delhi

Return fare costs around INR 7200-7400 onwards. These are normal fares. Hopefully a return far of around INR 4500-5000 should be available during big sale or any discount sale.

At this moment Air Asia website isn't selling one stop flight from Chennai to other destinations  such as Amritsar or Srinagar or Jaipur etc via Delhi.

Air Asia operates out of Terminal 3 in Delhi. Good to see this 4th Destination from Chennai. Hopefully Air Asia India considers few more destinations from Chennai- may be Mumbai, Pune, Goa, Kochi etc.

Air India Maharaja Experience after long time-10/10

It has been long time since I had flown on Air India, India's national carrier. Had a few short flights in 2018- Chennai-Coimbatore, Delhi-Bikaner etc- those were short haul flights on turbo prop and didn’t give proper Air India experience. Could have booked Air India to Kathmandu this year but for some reason went with Indigo as it was a bit cheaper. Finally flew Chennai-Port Blair and back on Air India A321 last week and it was a perfect experience on all aspects. No complaints at all.

Booking: Was done in Feb 2019, on Air India website- Chennai-Port Blair return for 5200 Rs, meals and bags included. At times I have seen booking on some websites like Easemytrip could be a few rupees cheaper-but in case of cancellation they charge Rs 250 extra eroding any savings. So unless difference is significant, I usually book direct on airline website.

Bid for Business Class Upgrade: Air India allows you to bid for business class seat and claims to help you save up to 75% on business class fares. Got dozens of SMS and emails asking me to try this. But for this you need to big an amount, make a payment and have to wait till you reach the gate. No business class baggage allowance, no priority check-in/boarding, no lounge access, no nothing. If not upgraded we have to wait for 10 days for refund. I was happy to try my luck getting extra leg room emergency row than trying my luck upgrading. One way to encourage more people to bid is to give some guaranteed benefits- such as priority check-in or boarding etc which doesn't cost anything, to passengers who have bid, irrespective of their winning or not.

Web Check-in- did a day prior, smooth process, though wasn’t offering emergency rows. However at the Chennai airport there was no dedicated counter for web check in passengers. I would have asked for exit row but didn’t want to stand in line for half an hour for this, so printed by boarding pass in a kiosk and went to security.

Departure: Was perfectly on time, both onward and return flight

Meals: Air India serves proper meals on non-ATR aircrafts, but all vegetarian, which was fine with me. We were served breakfast which included pongal, wada, bread, mango flavored yoghurt etc. No complaints on the food. A piece of chocolate would have been nice. Also Air India can take some tips from Vistara and Qantas to reduce plastic usage onboard.

Aircraft: Was A321 both ways. A321 is slightly bigger than A320 and has more seats. Air India has about 12 business class seats and some 150+ economy seats. Mine was of course economy. Leg room was decent. Aircraft had entertainment system but in disabled form. I guess aircraft was being used for international sectors earlier.

Super spacious emergency row seat: The A321’s emergency row is amazingly spacious. I had more legroom than my legs could extend. There’re two such rows in the aircraft- Row 9 and Row 22. 9A, 9F, 22A, 22F offer maximum leg rooms. On my return journey, my sequence number was one.  Implies I am the first person to check-in for the flight. Andaman has hopeless internet speed, so no one had bothered to do web check-in. At airport, counter staff refused to assign exit row seat initially saying they will be assigned towards end. But upon insisting he assigned us emergency row.

Return flight was uneventful. Flight was on time. Bags came out within reasonable time.

Above left: My legroom in economy was more than what business class passengers got (refer right side image)

Legroom in standard economy seat for reference- still feels a few cms more than low cost airlines.

I had got similar legroom on Srilankan airline A321 last year- check this post.

In-flight magazine Shubh Yatra was good, but only few seats had it. Like in my row, none of the 3 seat pockets had one, I had to get it from another row- this was on August 10^th, 10 days into new month. I guess passengers tend to take them away in their bag.

Above: armrests showing signs of aging and now defunct entertainment system controls.

Ava megamart- I saw the ava in-flight shopping booklet on the floor of the aircraft when I boarded in Chennai- I have written about Ava skymart in detail here. However we were not given any fresh booklet on Chennai-Port Blair or Port Blair-Chennai sector. Now the handling fee for free gift has gone up to 1200 Rs from 999 few years ago.

I hope to fly Air India long haul international sometimes, but Air India fares never match middle east based airlines.

There’re some people who have a generic hatred towards Air India. I can assure it isn’t that bad. Of course delays happen and disruptions happen- which are common in service industry like air travel with so many dependencies. For one or two flights that suffer major disruption, Air India also operates 800+ flights every day without any issue. So your probability of facing something wrong is fairly low. If the ticket fare is attractive and flight schedule is convenient, I don’t see a reason why you should avoid Air India

Update: My tweet on this topic gets 11000+ impressions, particularly after Air India retweeted it.

Cheap Flight to New Zealand-53k return-October-November 2019

If New Zealand is on your mind, you might want to check this.

A typical return ticket to New Zealand, on popular airlines like Singapore Airlines and SQ+ Air New Zealand combined, typically costs around 70k to 90k or more from various Indian cities.

However, I have spotted a bit cheaper return ticket, costing around 53k-55k INR for October-November 2019.

These are two stop flights on Cathay Pacific, with Qantas operating the Australia- New Zealand sector.

Chennai-Wellington on Singapore Airlines/Air New Zealand for 53k, October 2019

Chennai-Auckland return for 55k, November 2019

I checked for Chennai, Kolkata and few cities. You can check for more dates and cities. Available for early 2020 also if you can't travel immediately.

Kolkata-Wellington 55k Return- November 2019

 Chennai-Wellington 54k, November 2019

The catch: These low prices seem to be on 3rd party websites. Seems genuine but do exercise caution. When I checked on Cathay and Air New Zealand website for same dates, prices were much higher.

Last year I had flown to New Zealand for mere 23k on Air Asia. That was without meals and baggage and a non refundable ticket booked an year+ in advance. But now Air Asia has stopped flying to Auckland. No other low cost carrier flies to Auckland from Asia.

Given the current circumstances, 53-55k return ticket on full service airline is not bad, considering travel date is just a few months away and price includes bags, meals, entertainment etc and the airlines involved- Cathay Pacific, Qantas or Singapore Air/Air New Zealand are pretty reputed as well. So if you are thinking of visiting New Zealand, plan and book now. It will be 2 stop flight in most cases- if you are lucky you might find a one stop flight to Auckland via Singapore or Malaysia.

Related New Zealand Posts:
1. New Zealand tourist visa for Indians
2. Driving in New Zealand- Experience and tips
3. New Zealand travel story in DT Next
4. Auckland Domain
5  New Zealand trip on extreme budget 
6. Muriwai
7. Rangitoto Volcanic island day trip
8. Auckland Sky tower views

Air Asia Premium flatbed from Chennai to Jaipur via KUL

Air Asia website is selling India domestic destinations via KUL...

This sounds strange as airlines are usually not allowed to serve domestic destinations via international transit point.

Of course there's a cheaper option via Bengaluru which is fully legal and any sensible person would book that. But what if one wants to try Premium flatbed (available only on A330 fleet served by Air Asia X)? Air Asia X operates those between KUL and few Indian cities Jaipur n Amritsar etc.

I tried few other destinations like Chennai-Amritsar etc but couldn't get this via KUL option. May be it is a technical glitch? Earlier Air Asia wasn't selling one stop tickets within India- like it was not possible to book Chennai-Pune via BLR. Now they seem to be allowing that.

Malindo air also sells similar tickets- not sure anyone ever booked such a ticket and flew successfully from India to India via Kuala Lumpur... If they are priced at par with domestic flights some might give a try but since these tickets are more expensive than any domestic flight, no one has any incentive to book.

Air India Cheaper than train flight tickets explained

Air India is running a campaign claiming some of their flights are cheaper than train tickets.

The claim is that their flight fares are as low as Rs 990 and cheaper than train tickets. I had spotted it earlier but ignored it as it was for Air India subsidiary alliance air who only operate short haul flights.

Note: Above poster is bit old- says book by 8th July, but the offer is still on as per this Mint News report published 2nd August evening- so the topic is still relevant and prices should still be cheap as claimed in the ad. Though it was hard to find a reference to this offer on Air India's website under offers section.

I wasn't very keen on this offer as I would take overnight sleeper train for short distances, but I got a request on twitter to analyse and write about it. So I thought let me do a comparison and check.

@enidhi Sirr please search on Google--Air India's Alliance Air offers fares lower than train tickets.Looking for a blog from you on this offer.

— SAMIR AHMAD (@samirahmad46) August 3, 2019

Thus I checked a few destination fares to assess if they are really cheap. Below are some quick screen grabs:

Chennai-Coimbatore- INR 2000

Bikaner-Delhi: Rs 1400 - not bad

Shirdi- Mumbai: INR 1600

Bengaluru-Mysuru: INR 1600

Gwalior-Delhi: INR 2000

Gorakhpur-Delhi: 5500+

Below table compares above with train fares and time for above routes

#	Origin-Destination	Distance Kms	Alliance Air Fare	Air travel time*	Train tr time	Sleeper train fare	3rd AC fare	2nd AC fare	First AC	Remarks
1	Chennai-Coimbatore	520	1940	3 hours	7 hours	315	815	1150	1980
2	Delhi-Bikaner	470	1400	3 hours	8 hours	300	770	1080	1850
3	Mumbai-Shirdi	250	1600	3 hours	6 hours	250	630	880
4	Delhi-Gorakhpur	800	5500+	4 hours	12-13 hours	430	1140	1650	2750
5	Gwalior-Delhi	350	2000	3 hours	4 hours	240	600	850	1420
6	Bengaluru-Mysuru	150	1600	5 hours	2.5 hours		540	700

* Air travel time= Flight time + 2 hours for airport formalities. For BLR additional 2 hours added to reach airport from city.

Prices taken from IRCTC for a random train and flight price from Air India website for a random date few months from now. Exact price may vary based on date, train name etc.

Takeaways from above analysis:

1. The Air India's cheaper than train scheme is only for its Alliance Air subsidiary, which only operates super short haul flights between nearby cities. Offer is not valid for metros like Chennai-Delhi, Mumbai-Kolkata etc on Air India network.
2. There's no beating sleeper class and 3rd AC fares. Lot cheaper than flight ticket any day.
3. Air India's advertised Rs 990 ticket- not sure for which sector, but clearly that is not available for any of the sectors I tried.
4. Most instances Air India fare was NOT cheaper than train ticket, even if 1st AC fare is considered. Only in some scenarios it is similar to 1st AC fare
5. Do check Air India prices- for some routes the fare is very good- like Delhi -Bikaner as it saves lots of time.
6. Note that an overnight train though takes more time, is often more productive- you can board the train and sleep, get up fresh and spend full day productively. A day time flight can take away half a day of your productivity.
7. Flights are more prone to major delays. Trains are often on time or delay is very minor.
8. Train journey is more freedom- no need to report 2 hours prior, can carry lot more luggage, food and other purchases are cheaper, offers more space to relax. 
9. Train stations are in heart of city- easy, quicker and cheaper to reach than airports in most cases
10. Airlines sell only few seats at discounted fare, rest of the seats will cost more. While Railways will sell all seats at same price, excluding some Tatkal quota and concession quota.

Read about my ultra long sleeper class train journey experience 

Overall, I don't find Air India's "cheaper than train" campaign true. Still, if you have a travel plan, no harm checking Air India fare- if it sounds reasonable you can book.

Do share your thoughts!

Similar: Air India flight from Mysuru to Goa, Cochi, Hyd * Air India Chennai-Port Blair 5200 rs  * Air India overstaffed? * Air India loses every year what Kingfisher/Jet own over their lifetime * 

Malaysia KLIA2 airport tax hike-Support AirAsia

AirAsia has sought support from public in its fight against raised airport tax at KLIA 2, Kuala Lumpur's low cost airport and home base for Air Asia. Prima-facie Air Asia has taken a stand for its passengers and their reasoning feels justified. Hence I am doing my bit to spread awareness- do give this post a read and let us know what you think.

What is the issue?
Malaysia Airports, operator of KLIA and KLIA2, raised airport tax per passenger from 50 MYR to 73 MYR, almost 50% hike for all passengers leaving to non Asean destinations. (ASEAN Destinations are select south east asian countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Brunei and Thailand).  The hike was effective from July 1 2018- almost an year now.

Airlines operating out of KLIA2- mostly AirAsia were supposed to pass this fee to passengers and pay the increased fee to airport operator.

What happened?
AirAsia resisted this price hike, didn't pass on the increased fare to passengers and didn't pay the increased rate to airport operator.

Why Air Asia was resisting?
KLIA 2 is a low cost airport. It doesn't have fancy facilities available in KLIA 1. Read my detailed comparison between KLIA1 and KLIA2 here. The increased airport tax for KLIA2 makes it at par with KLIA1 in terms of airport tax, which is unjustified given the lack of facilities and luxury in KLIA2 and the basis that KLIA2 is supposed to be cheaper, low cost airport. I believe this reasoning is fair.

Why raise issue now?
Looks like both Airport Operator and Air Asia have gone to court over the matter and recently court has ruled in favor of the airport operator. This means Air Asia now has to pay millions of dollars to Malaysia Airports- Around 6 USD extra per passenger * number of passengers flown to non ASEAN Countries since past 1 year. This report pegs the total payable amount at around USD 10 million.

AirAsia's CEO has taken to social media repeatedly over the issue. Airport Operator imposing a "take it or leave it" stand completing ignoring the concerns of its largest customer- AirAsia which probably operates more than 95% of flights in and out of KLIA2- is naturally unfair. Tony Fernandes also compained about airport's issues- honey bee nests, poor condition of toilets among other things.

In a mail sent to its customers, Air Asia recently sought public help on the matter, by talking about the issue on social media, raising any complaints about poor experience at KLIA 2 etc. Read AirAsia's complete statement here .

You can help by tweeting on this concern, sharing this post etc. Use #FairAirportTax hashtag. If AirAsia wins this battle, eventually we passengers will benefit. Else we'll have to pay more per flight, without any additional facilities.

From an airport operator's point of view:
Airport operator also needs to increase their revenue and make more profit, so periodic price hikes are not uncommon. KLIA2 was like a bus stop when I first visited Malaysia in 2011. Now the building is much better, bearable. But price hike should be reasonable- charging same fee for KLIA2 as KLIA1 is not fair. If their largest customer has some concerns, I feel both parties should discuss and find a way out. May be some cost can be cut or some additional revenue opportunities can be identified to avoid increasing tax that affects every passenger.

What can Air Asia do?
AirAsia'a lawyers are currently planning to appeal against the court decision.

Apart from that, AirAsia can do following changes:
Option 1: Focus more on other hubs and airports- like DMK in Thailand, Manila in Philippines, BLR in India etc- operate more flights from these hubs instead of KLIA2, reducing dependency on KLIA2

Option 2: Ask to shift to KLIA1 if airport fee is same for both airports. KLIA1 has a mini forest, inter terminal train service and many nice features not available in KLIA 2. At least passengers can enjoy better facilities. If KLIA2 is left abandoned, airport operator may be forced to reduce fee.

Option 3: Take controlling stake in some other airport in Malaysia, move majority operations to there.

Option 4: Accept the new tax, pay 10 million USD from pocket for already flown flights, increase fare for future flights.