Jet Airways Review – Domestic Trips During 2016

Jet Airways Review

Jet Airways Review

Flights from:

Mumbai – Delhi (Stopover) – Amritsar (Cancelled) £91 – Was paid 10,000 Indian Rupees compensation and flown to Delhi via Jodhpur.

Mumbai – Jodhpur (Stopover) – Delhi  – Compensation for above flight. (915 Miles)

Amritsar – Delhi (Stopover) – Mumbai – £91 (969 Miles)

Mumbai – Rajkot – £50 (247 Miles)

Rajkot – Mumbai – £35 (247 Miles)

Total Miles Flown: 2,378 Miles

All Flights on Boeing 737-800

Welcome to my review of Jet Airways review, for those of you who haven’t heard of Jet Airways it is an Indian based airline co-owned by Etihad. During my November 2016 trip to India, I attempted to fly my domestic flights using Jet Airways, due to both their network within India and the fact that I would accumulate Virgin Atlantic miles.

Booking Procedure

I used the Jet Airways app to book all of my flights, it was a simple process and easy to use. I did double check the fares against what was available using a laptop and several different suppliers but there was no difference.

Ground Crew/Service

This is where they seem to let themselves down, a good example would be during what was meant to be my first flight. I was due to fly from Mumbai to Amritsar with what they call a technical stopover in Delhi. The flight was at 6.30am and I arrived at the airport at 4.30am – lots of time before my flight and only when I got to the check-in desk, I was informed that my flight was cancelled and I was told to come back tomorrow for it. Given the fact that I was on holiday and had a tour/hotel booked at my destination this was not an option.

Jet Airways Review
This is what the Jet Airways queue felt like at times…. Credit: Matt Impey

I then proceeded to the customer service desk where no one had a clue – what to do, as for the queue – I’m used to an orderly queue being born and bred in Britain, this looked more like a collapsed rugby scrum. Four hours later (by now I should have landed at my destination), I finally find a route that I can take to get me half-way (surely they could have done this) and they spent another 70 minutes arranging my revised flight from Mumbai to Delhi via Jodhpur, and my 10,000 rupees compensation. I also purchased a Delhi to Amritsar flight with Air India to be able to make my destination.

The above was something that could have been sorted out easily – if I hadn’t thrown my toys out of the pram I’d have missed incurred a big dent to the pocket, losing out on a prepaid tour and accommodation in Amritsar alongside incurring costs of accommodation in Mumbai.

The reason behind the cancelled flight? A pilot hadn’t turned up..…surely if a pilot doesn’t turn up to one of your main-hubs you have backups right? I wouldn’t expect BA, Easyjet or Ryanair to have staffing issues at their main-hubs. If it was at a regional airport I’d have understood but at a main hub…. Sorry I’m ranting, but it did really annoy me, I eventually arrived in Amritsar many hours later than I was due to, wasting a day flying around India.

Alongside the above, generally the attitude and interaction with customers at check-in, the boarding gates was poor. It was as if they didn’t want to be there.

Jet Airways Review
Jet Airways Cabin. Credit: LiveFromALounge.com

On-Board

This is where it all changes, first things first most of the fleet is relatively new or has been refurbished in recent years – some planes even have on board entertainment that they stream directly to your smartphones, tablets and phablets.

The team on board, I have a lot of respect for – they have gruelling schedules and on board they manage to constantly smile and provide great service to passengers. All domestic flights in Business and Economy they provide a meal service (generally snacks), on one of my flights I received a chicken tikka Subway as the snack. It was actually not bad either. Both Neil my travel companion and I ordered ‘bland’ meals in advance for our Mumbai to Rajkot and the return, the flight is only 55 minutes and not only did the crew manage a full food service on such a short flight our special ordered meals were provided to us too.

Jet Airways Review
Jet Airways Snacks – I only received a Subway or some for of Kati Roll, I didn’t see any Krispy Kreme donuts!

Conclusion

Apologies all, this was meant to be a Jet Airways review but has turned into a Jet Airways rant! The team on the ground do the airline no justice, but the team on board who have such stressful jobs especially on short flights do make up for it. My parents fly Jet Airways when they fly from London to India every year, they’ve said a similar thing the ground staff can be lacking, however, the Heathrow based team are a delight and attentive.

Given the fact that Jet Airways tend to have a monopoly on some routes in India, I’m stuck using them, I did file a customer complaint on the 13th of November but have not heard anything back two months on*…… It’s times like this I wish the flights were covered by EU 261/2004, something us Brits may lose post Brexit.

* Since posting this on social media Jet have contacted me and replied, ignoring everything in my post and my original complaint.

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