Air Deccan -- Low cost airlines, are they really low cost?

I was traveling from Delhi to Bangalore on 14th May 06. My flight was scheduled for departure at 8pm.
After twice rescheduling, my flight was scheduled to depart at 9pm.

I reached airport well in time. There was no delay shown on indicators or there was no announcement of delay, I was happy that flight was on time.
There were more than 100 people standing in each queue for security check. Kingfisher and GO Air flights were delayed because their passengers were not done with their security check.
Suddenly there are so many low cost airlines introduced in Indian markets but there is no sufficient infrastructure provided to carry on their operations smooth.

Now a days Indian airports are not any better than railway stations. Why standard of traveling by Air has drastically reduced?
Making air travel available to masses doesn't mean to reduce the quality and standard of the service.

Coming back to my plight of air travel.... There were four flights of Air Deccan rescheduled for the same time or difference of maximum 5 minutes.
Flights from Delhi to Bangalore, Chennai , kolkata and Hyderabad were all scheduled between 9 and 9.15pm.
Imagine around 800-900 people waiting for boarding announcement. Forget about place to sit but there is not place to stand properly in the waiting hall.

The worst part of airdeccan is they don't give seat numbers on boarding pass, hence everybody is in hurry to get in first and get good seats.
There is only one boarding gate allocated to Air Deccan and all passengers are around that one gate as nobody has an idea which boarding is announced next.

At this point of time, Air port was worst than any most crowded railway station in India.
AC was not effective after so many people standing in same queue, no place to sit or stand properly.

In such a situation, there was no announcement for next half an hour.
Suddenly there is announcement for Hyderabad passengers. All but Hyderabad passengers are near the boarding gate.
And people were getting panic to get in and there was just scene of hay-wire.
I got to experience best example of worst management.

Funniest part is, one person came for boarding with a plate full of snack and a cold drink in a hand and asks " What do I do now?"
And a supervisor suggested him to finish that and then board. This person finishes his snacks leisurely, boards the flight and even after half an hour of that, there is still announcement of Hyderabad boarding.

Then there comes announcement for boarding of Chennai but not on same boarding gate.... Now people are running from one boarding gate to another with their bags, dragging their kids....
Kids are getting crashed and why all this?? to get a better seat. Isn't that pathetic?

I am not sure When Air Deccan will realize that they should provide Seat numbers on Boarding Pass.
I am still not able to figure out that what is the reason, that they don't provide the same.

Many people took out their frustration yelling at few Air Deccan representatives standing there.
Neither those representative had any answer, nor all this yelling helped in any way.

Finally I heard a boarding call for Bangalore flight to Boarding gate very far off. As all people were doing, I also started running towards that boarding gate.
There was already a big queue. All were trying to get in between a queue.
I was bearing all this. But one Foreigner could not bare all this and started shouting on people to respect queue.
And our Indian brothers rather than respecting his words started a fight with him.
That was most shameful incidence that A person outside our country is teaching discipline in our country.

Finally I was in the Bus which takes us to the flight. Hardly 10-15 passengers were inside, there was a loud cry outside.
One of the air Deccan representative got hurt by a bus because some other guy gave a wrong signal.
Then there is wonderful scene of big fight with slaps and punches etc among all air Deccan representatives.

Again all the boarding gates are closed. None of the flights are able to take off as boarding is stopped.
Now our bus driver gets a order to start. And he asks us... "Aap log kaha ja rahe hai? Aapko kaunsi flight mein chhodana hai??"
This poor guy has no idea that where to drop us as they were no instructions given to him as those representatives were busy fighting.

Finally I was in the flight. Though I was little doubtful if I was on correct flight or not.
It took almost an hour for all the passengers to board the flight after opening the boarding gate.

I felt relieved that finally the flight is going to take off. But that was not enough. Heavy rain with storm came from nowhere.
And we all waited till 3am in the morning in a locked flight hoping rain to stop.

Finally, the flight took off around 3.15am and after quite unstable flying, flight landed on Bangalore airport at 5am in the morning which was supposed to land at 10pm.
Thanks to Air Deccan!!!

PS: If the reader of this blog knows anybody in Air Deccan staff, please forward them this. I want to put my little contribution in improvement of Air Deccan services by giving them this feedback.

Mr. Gopinath, please read this blog!!! (And we hope some changes in services.....)