My last flight on Kingfisher Airlines April 2, 2012
Posted by Arun Rajagopal in Airlines, Aviation, Branding, India, Marketing, Social Media, Travel, UAE.Tags: Airlines, Dubai, Kingfisher Airlines, Mumbai, Social Media
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I’m a loyal customer of India’s Kingfisher Airlines. I first flew Kingfisher in Jan 2011 but since then I have flown them 15 times. I fly them as much as possible. I often pay a premium to fly them even when I have cheaper or non-stop flights available. I even recommend it to those who are looking for flights to India. The only time I flew another airline to India instead of Kingfisher I felt like I was cheating on a partner.
What I like the most about Kingfisher is how they make me feel special when I fly with them. Another reason I love to fly them is their social media engagement. I became a loyal Kingfisher customer because of how they engaged with me on social media the first time I flew with them and have been connected to me since then.
I have watched with growing unhappiness the decline of the airline over the last few months. In my mind, Kingfisher has been one of the finest airlines in the skies, truly deserving its 5-star rating by Skytrax.
So when Kingfisher announced that they would be pulling out of Dubai, I knew I had to be on the last flight, just for the sake of good old times. So I flew Dubai-Mumbai-Dubai, leaving on Friday, 23rd of March and returning on Saturday, 24th of March.
On Friday evening as I was getting ready to leave for the airport, I got a call from the Guest Relations Manager based at Dubai. When he introduced himself, my first fear was that he was calling to tell me that my flight was canceled. Thankfully not. What he told me blew my mind away. “Sir, I’m calling to let you know that your favorite seat 9A has been booked by another passenger. I have blocked 9F for you. I have also kept aside Row 12 for you should you like to sit there. We will try to talk to the passenger who has taken 9A and try to get it back for you.” I said in my mind “Whoa, you really didn’t have to do this. Especially not in a difficult time such as this.”
So, this is the deal, whenever I’m flying Kingfisher, they know what my favorite seat is and always block it for me, no matter what the aircraft type. If it is an all-economy Airbus A320, it is 9A. At airports across the world, I have walked up to Kingfisher check-in counters and asked for my favorite seat, only to be told that they have already been pre-assigned for me. Score.
Jeffrey, the Guest Relations Manager who had called me earlier, was waiting with a complimentary lounge access card for me at the check-in counter. We spoke about the current state of affairs at Kingfisher and his words to me were ‘We are hoping for a miracle’, ‘pray for us’ and ‘we wish we had more passengers like you’. I got my boarding pass, shopped at the Duty Free and ambled to the Marhaba Lounge were I downed Chardonnay. Soon it was time for boarding and Jeffrey walked me to the waiting plane and ensured I was comfortably settled down.
IT044 flown by Airbus A320, registered VT-KFF had 50 odd passengers and was soon up in the air. The in-seat screen videos were conspicuous by the absence of Kingfisher chairman Vijay Mallya’s cheerful address. The captain made an announcement highlighting that the safety of passengers was Kingfisher’s priority and wouldn’t be compromised, perhaps an allusion to the negative press about the airline’s operational concerns.
Dinner was soon served by the Kingfisher damsels in red. I went for Chicken Biryani with Kheer. I’m usually not a huge fan of Kingfisher’s in-flight meals but this dish was gobsmackingly delicious. Dinner was followed by a drink of Whyte & Mackay Scotch Whiskey with club soda and ice. Soon we commenced our descent into Mumbai and upon landing I was on a bus to Mumbai CSI Airport Terminal. I then proceeded to kill a day in Mumbai.
I reported for my return flight IT043 to Dubai at 530pm. The once buzzing Kingfisher check-in counters at International Departures bore the look of a deserted ghost town. IT043 was Kingfisher’s last outbound flight to Dubai. I walked up to the counter and gave my passport to Avilon, the Guest Relations Manager whose face lit up on seeing my passport. “I saw you standing in the line and knew that would be you, Mr Rajagopal.” I’m often told that I’m bit of a celeb flyer among Kingfisher staff.
He then went on to hand me a bag with a beautifully wrapped gift. I just remembered that I had tweeted to Kingfisher the previous day before booking my journey about where I could get a Kingfisher plane model to keep as a souvenir of my travels with them. That was the plane. He then gave me a complimentary access to the Celebrations Lounge. My preferred row was already blocked on the plane. I think my eyes welled up at this point.
He then walked with me to Immigration where we again spoke about the airline and its declining fortunes. I knew my words of solace would not have been of any help.
My flight was delayed by more than an hour, but I wasn’t complaining at all. I ambled around the expansive duty free at Mumbai Airport. There were around 50 odd passengers on the last flight, Airbus A320, registered VT-KFV. We took off and the crew went around with their business in a nonchalant manner trying hard not to show the worries of their carrier. Dinner was a repeat of the yummy Biryani and Whiskey fare. I was exhausted and dozed off, only waking up as my flight touched down at Dubai International.
I boarded the bus to Terminal 1 and thought of all the good times. When they held back a plane once at Bengaluru so that I could board after running late. The time I got a special tour of an Airbus A321 cockpit. When they chased me down at Chennai Airport to ensure that I had lounge access while waiting for my connecting flight. When the charming guest relations agent at Kochi told me how I was famous among them and then added that ‘we would have never left without you’ (another running late incident). When I discovered at Bangkok that they had my fav seat blocked without even me asking for it. When they served me first in the cabin on my first flight with them and asked me ‘Mr Rajagopal, what would you like to have for your meal?’, probably the first time the crew of any airline addressed me by name in 28 years of flying. About the numerous times I have been personally dropped off or fetched from a plane by their guest relations agents. About the times I have never had to stand in long security lines because I would always be escorted by a staff. All while flying Economy.
Thank you, Kingfisher for all the good times. You will be dearly missed. Thank you to all the Kingfisher staff who have served me well over a year. You have been truly exceptional in both the good times and the not so good times. I hope it works out for you. Safe travels!
Seattle Ahoy on the Emirates Inaugural March 9, 2012
Posted by Arun Rajagopal in Airlines, Aviation, Travel, UAE.Tags: avgeek, B777, Boeing, Dubai, Emirates, Inaugural Flight, Seattle, Water Cannon Salute
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So I lost control of my #avgeek senses and flew off to Seattle for a weekend on the inaugural Emirates flight out of Dubai.
I’ve always wanted to go to Seattle, visit Boeing and the Future of Flight Museum, catch up with #avgeek friends in the Puget Sound and most importantly, get on an inaugural flight and experience a water cannon salute. So I HAD to be on the inaugural EK229 on 1 March 2012 and tick off a couple of items on the bucket list.
Seattle is an amazing place and I don’t say that just because it is the home of Boeing. I will be back soon with more stories on Seattle but till then, enjoy these 2 videos!
Click here to read a travelogue of my trip featured on ArabianSupplyChain.com.
My secrets to air travel on a budget June 10, 2011
Posted by Arun Rajagopal in Airlines, Aviation, Social Media, Travel, UAE.Tags: budget travel, Cheap flights, Cleartrip, Expedia, flights
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I’m a budget conscious traveler who takes a lot of pride in unearthing the best travel deals. I’m usually the guy my friends come up to because I always lead them to the best travel deals in the market. What’s my secret sauce?
Today, there are a plethora of online resources available that help you unearth great bargains no matter where you are flying to. These tools are my lifeline.
In today’s post, I’m going to put out some of my secrets as well as some cool tips that can help you discover great deals when it comes to flights. Fasten your seat belts, folks!
For this exercise, we need an itinerary. So let’s say you would like to fly between Dubai (DXB) and Kochi (COK), round trip, outbound on Wed, 22 June and inbound on Wed, 29 June.
Tip 1: Consider traveling on weekdays instead of weekends (Thu-Sat) if you are in the Middle East. Ticket fares on weekdays are way cheaper than weekend travel.
Tip 2: If you are flying solo or if you are not in a rush to reach your destination, consider connecting flights over non-stop flights. Usually, flying direct and non-stop costs more than flying via another destination. The exception to this rule is if you have a low-cost carrier operating on your selected route.
Step 1: Investigate if a low-cost airline or budget airline is flying your desired route. Typically, low-cost carriers or budget airlines are cheaper than full-service airlines, especially if you book your ticket at least 3 months before your departure. Sometimes, up to 3 weeks before your departure. However, you will find budget airline fares at par with full-service airlines as you get very close to your journey dates. Sometimes, you might even find seats on budget airlines sold out.
Step 2: Google now offers you a cool feature where you can enter a destination and it will show you all the non-stop flights that are operated from your departure city to your destination of the choice. Go to Google and enter “flights from DXB to COK” and it will show you that there are 3 daily non-stop flights on the route, 2 operated by Emirates and 1 operated by Air India Express
Step 3: Now run a search on a travel website. Most online travel websites such as Expedia and Travelocity do not list low-cost airlines or budget carriers. However, checking out prices on them is always useful as:
- You get more options if you are willing to take connecting flights.
- You can get cheaper deals if you are willing to do the above.
- You get to check out both non-stop as well as connecting itineraries in a single window.
- You can experience multiple airlines and layovers especially if you are a travel freak like me.
- You can unearth last minute deals on certain routes if you are lucky.
- You will always get a good idea of the price range you need to pay that you can use to make an informed travel decision.
- Travel websites give you the unmatched ability to compare between itineraries on the basis of multiple parameters such as fares, total journey time, number of connecting flights, arrival time, departing time etc. which you won’t gain by visiting a single airline website.
My three most recommended travel websites are Kayak.com, Expedia.com and Cleartrip.ae. You can never go wrong with them.
Step 4: Run the search on Kayak.com – entering all the details like destinations and dates and Kayak shows you that best fare is $110 on Bahrain Air. Unbelievable, ha? But there’s a catch – the outbound flight is 16hrs long because of a long layover in Bahrain while the inbound flight is 6hrs30mins. The next best deal is Gulf Air with $409 with 6 hrs of travel time each on both inbound and outbound legs. I wouldn’t recommend the long itinerary on Bahrain Air unless you are that price conscious!
Step 5: Run the same search on Cleartrip.ae – Cleartrip is quick to tell me that my best option is again Gulf Air with AED 1,553 ($422.7). Cleartrip is also sharp in telling me that I have an option of flying non-stop on Air India Express on the same route with the fare coming up to AED 1,563 ($425.5). 3 Dollars more and I get to save 2 hours because I fly non-stop, and my decision is made. Air India Express, it will be.
However, Cleartrip has a special cash back offer if I use a VISA credit card to book my ticket. In this itinerary, I get a discount of AED 75 ($20.4) bringing my final fare on Air India Express to AED 1488 ($405.1).
Step 6: Run the same search on Expedia.com – Expedia tells me my best fare is again the Gulf Air deal that Cleartrip.ae recommended. But, they are giving me a price of $409 instead of Cleartrip’s $422.7. Expedia does not list Air India Express on its itineraries.
However, Expedia shows me another result, another connecting flight option on Kingfisher Airlines, costing $417. What if you wanted to fly on Kingfisher? Just out of curiosity I looked at the same Kingfisher deal over at Cleartrip. There it costs AED 1799 which is $489.7 – $62 more than Expedia. If you apply the Cleartrip Visa offer deal, the fare comes to AED 1724 ($469.3), still $42 more than what Expedia is offering.
See how intriguing this gets with same deals on different websites throwing up different prices. This is why comparison is important.
Step 7: Now run the same search on Gulf Air.com & AirIndiaExpress.in (this is just a value-added search to see the fare difference between the airline website and the travel website). You will be surprised sometimes at what you get out of this search.
So here are the prices for our final consideration, following Steps 5, 6 and 7.
| DXB-COK-DXB | Gulf Air Via Bahrain |
Air India Express Non-Stop |
| Expedia | AED 1,502.28 ($409) | Unlisted |
| Cleartrip.ae without offer | AED 1,553 ($422.7) | AED 1,563 ($425.5) |
| Cleartrip.ae with VISA offer | AED 1,478 ($402.3) | AED 1,488 ($405.1) (The Winner) |
| Airline Website | AED 1,515 ($412.4) | AED 1,522.22 ($414.4) (The Runner-Up) |
So if you wish to fly non-stop, the clear winner is Cleartrip.ae, if you have a VISA credit card. This fare is cheaper than the airline website itself which is such a great steal. Had you gone straight to the airline, you would have ended up paying $9.3 more.
I made the searches between 5pm and 6pm (GMT +4) on Fri, 10 Jun. The pricing dynamics are always fluctuating, but stick to this approach of smart online searching and you should still get better travel deals. Also, try being flexible with your travel dates. Had I decided to make my date of inbound travel as Tuesday, 28 June instead of Wednesday, 29 June, I would have saved AED 70 ($19) with Gulf Air. Also, note that this is work in beta and I’ll be adding more tips in the future.
To recap, my magic formula:
- Identify key budget airlines & full-service airlines on your route.
- Run searches on Kayak, Expedia and Cleartrip. Watch out for special offers.
- Match fares.
- Cross-check and confirm on the respective airline website. See where you save more.
- Make your decision. Happy flying!
This post was brought to you by eezeer, another cool online travel tool I’m excited about. Eezeer is a new web and mobile social network that features tweets and location-verified reviews related to travel. How eezeer works is interesting. By gathering thousands of tweets and through members’ travel reviews via a mobile app, eezeer quantifies reliable opinions to create an overall picture of how a particular travel brand is viewed in the public eye through social media. This quantity is called “Karma”. By checking out the reputation score and reviews of airlines, hotels and airports you can make informed travel decisions. eezeer currently moderates tweets from 391 airlines, 692 hotels, 152 airports and has verified 291154 users from twitter. For more information on eezeer, click here.
25 fast facts on the 25th anniversary of Emirates October 25, 2010
Posted by Arun Rajagopal in Airlines, Aviation, Marketing, UAE.Tags: Airbus, Airlines, Aviation, Boeing, Dubai, Emirates
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Emirates, the national airline of Dubai, United Arab Emirates celebrates its 25th anniversary today. With a capital of $10 million (AED 36.7 million) and 2 used Boeing 727-200 aircraft in 1985, Emirates has come a long way to be one of the world’s leading airlines.
Here are 25 fast facts on Emirates.
- Emirates operates over 2,400 passenger flights per week from Dubai International Airport Terminal 3, to 105 cities in 62 countries across 6 continents.
- Emirates is one of the only nine airlines in the world to operate an all wide-body aircraft fleet. They don’t do small, baby!
- Emirates has 151 aircraft in its fleet including 7 freighters and is among the youngest in the skies, with an average age of 69 months.
- Emirates is the world’s largest operator of Boeing 777s with 86 aircraft in fleet & 55 on order.
- Emirates is the world’s largest operator of Airbus A380s with 13 aircraft in fleet & a whopping 77 on order.
- Emirates generates 36.5% of its revenue from Europe & Americas & spends 35.1% of its revenue on fuel.
- Emirates operates three of the ten world’s longest non-stop commercial flights from Dubai to Los Angeles, San Francisco and Houston.
- Emirates is the largest airline in the Middle East in terms of revenue, fleet size, and passengers carried.
- In 2010, Emirates was the sixth-largest airline in the world in terms of international passengers carried and largest in the world in terms of scheduled international passenger-kilometres flown.
- In 2010, Emirates was voted the eighth best airline in the world by Skytrax.
- On 8 June 2010, at the Berlin Air show, Emirates ordered 32 A380s worth $11.5 billion. The deal was the biggest single order for the world’s largest passenger aircraft.
- Emirates currently flies A380s to 11 cities around the world and resumes its A380 service to New York JFK on 31 October 2010.
- Dubai International Airport’s Terminal 3 was built exclusively for the use of Emirates at a cost of $4.5 billion and officially opened 14 October 2008. Terminal 3 is the largest building in the world by floor space, with over 1,500,000 sq. m. (370 acres) of space.
- Emirates ranks as the largest airline in the world by international seating capacity, according to the latest annual report by IATA.
- Emirates plans to have over 320 aircraft by 2018.
- In 2009, Emirates was voted the second best First Class by Skytrax.
- Emirates became the first airline in the world to introduce a personal entertainment system on a commercial aircraft after introducing the world’s first seat-back screens in 1992.
- ICE (Information, Communication, Entertainment) is the in-flight entertainment system operated by Emirates, and features between 600 and 1000 channels, the largest offering in the world.
- Skywards, the frequent flyer programme of Emirates has 5.72 million members.
- Emirates has been involved in two of the largest football sponsorship deals ever seen. Its 2004 agreement with Arsenal, which included stadium naming rights, was worth around US $170 million. Its seven year deal with FIFA, signed in 2007, cost a reported US $195 million.
- Emirates has only had 3 incidents in its 25 years of history and has never had a casualty. Hope the exemplary record remains.
- Emirates employs 10,785 cabin crew from over 120 countries speaking over 80 languages. Their uniforms are designed by Simon Jersey plc.
- You can buy an Emirates A380 1:50 Scale Solid Aircraft Model from the official Emirates Online Store for $3300 here.
- According to a Wharton article, Maurice Flanagan, the current Executive Vice-Chairman of Emirates so hates the word “marketing” that he essentially banned the use of the term at Emirates. One time when he found that 11 of the firm’s 20,000 employees had the word “marketing” in their job title, he moved them to other positions.
- In the year of its 25th anniversary, Emirates announced revenues of US$11.8 billion and net profit up a massive 416% to $964 million.
