12 hours in the mighty Lufthansa B748i to Mexico

This is continuation of my trip from Pune to Mexico and the previous part can be found at this link

Having made our way to gate Z58 clearing security from the regular lane, since the flight did not yet feature on the fast lane yet, we were 10 mins away from boarding time, still ample to click some pictures and the first obviously was to be of our ride to MEX. As I neared the glass, I was stunned and surprised to see “Fanhansa“at the gate! The same one which ferried the winning German football team from Brazil to Germany. 

Boarding started late, long lines were formed, and soon we were settled on our seats. The pilot came on PA to announce that we would wait for connecting passengers and the FA around said that 30 seats are empty as we hoped the one between my colleague and me is one of those 30. Also onboard was the Mexican youth Olympic team which got a rousing welcome at MEX.

Soon doors were closed as we awaited information, the pilot came on PA and said that we have lost our slot & the next one could be an hour away and that he would brief us later, which he did, saying that we are now scheduled for push back at 1420 local time. The crew sprang into action, starting with water and juice and later distributing immigration forms to keep the passengers occupied.

                                                    (1500th B747 was next to us)

The entire bank of flights on both sides left as we waited and waited some more. Finally the engines came to life as we pushed back and made our way to take off from runway 18.

(A phenomena I saw for the first time) 

 The flight was uneventful except for the grouse I have that the flight info wasn’t working for the entire duration & the Indian audio channel was missing on this flight, there was none. A drinks run, in which I opted for Finlanda, along with the meal – Ravioli, followed by another one 4 hours later which was a tea coffee juice and biscuits and then another one -  light 
snacks with drinks.

All along juice and water was available in the galley and crew helpful to offer some light snacks as and when somebody asked for it.

 

 We overflew the ocean all along and descent started as soon as there was landfall over Mexico. The weather changed for the worst as we neared MEX and amidst clouds, we banked multiple times to land on runway 05R at Benito Juarez International Airport, Mexico City followed by a long taxi back to our gate. 

There were long lines for immigration after a long walk, but immigration process was fast and hassle free. My US visa was checked and the number noted down on the form, along with questions like “How long in Mexico?” , “Business or Tourism?” nothing else was asked.

Baggage was already rolling on the belt and we proceeded to customs, which was a total lucky draw and here is why I say so. There was a button and two lights above that, Red and Green and each person had to press the button, if the red light glows, you go ahead and put your baggage in the scanner and wait for officers who would ask you to open baggage and if it’s green, you just walk off. In case of my colleague and me, it was green. But looks like Mexico believes more on statistics to find out who is evading customs duty!

Mexico City airport has two terminals, and we were at Terminal 2. Our next flight was from Terminal 1 but the day after and we made a long walk to our shuttle which was to come at Gate 4 and checked in at Ramada Aeropuerto which gave me a room with a view of the airport! 

I got up to a view of A320s lined up for takeoff and a lot of new airlines – Interjet, Viva Aerobus, Volaris, Iberia, AeroMexico and the standard ones American Airlines, DHL, Delta, United amongst others.

The dinner was a challenge, due to language but we got Quesadillas, and the breakfast which I thought would not be a challenge turned out to be a challenge too.

Flight Summary

Aircraft Registration: D-ABYI Named Potsdam

B747-800, MSN 37833, delivered to Lufthansa in May 2013

STD/ATD: 1325/1425

STA/ATA: 1825/1835

(All times local)

On-Time: 3/5

Website &Check-in: 5/5

Check-in & airport experience: 3/5 (Boarding needed better management)

Aircraft Cleanliness: 4/5

In-flight experience: 3/5 (Flight Info not working)

Food: 5/5

Alighting & Arrival experience: 4/5 

                                               ( The route LH 498 took from FRA to MEX)

Is Vistara's rumored seating configuration the right mix ?

A few days ago I tweeted about what will matter most for the TATA-SIA venture, now named Vistara, the configuration of the aircraft. There are more opinions online than the seats in that aircraft and I have my own about how premium can an airline get in India?

Just before its demise, Kingfisher did an internal assessment and analysis of what should be the offering and concluded with a 164 seater A320 with 8J and 156Y. Sad that only few birds were converted to this configuration before the airline went bust. The market surely has grown leaps and bounds since then, but one must never forget that the Indian market is cost sensitive. The same people, who are going to Goa and Kochi on cheap Air Asia fares, will quickly switch to trains and busses when the fares cross a certain threshold.

Kingfisher, which operated a 32J + 119Y configured A321 in Indian skies, had to keep them on ground during the off peak times, since they couldn’t even fill up half of those seats even between Mumbai & Delhi, the busiest air corridor in India with maximum business class seats.

Jet Airways has played around time and again with the configurations and service patterns and beginning October will shift back to FSC again & have anywhere between 8 and 28 J seats depending on the aircraft. Air India operates their A319, A320 and A321s with a mix of business class configurations across routes.

There was a time when FSC started behaving like LCC, and soon the LCCs started behaving like FSC. With Kingfisher, Jet Airways, Air India, cutting down on food, cutlery, PTV, and also starting to charge for it on one end, so FSC giving premium seats, providing food along and some even having a European style business class with empty middle seat.

Vistara, as per news reports, will have a premium configuration of 16J (4 rows), 36Y+ (6 rows) and 96Y (16 rows). Yes these are talks and mostly speculations of how they will target mid managers who will not take Business but Premium Economy and so on. Of all the big and small companies that I know off, majority of the bookings happen with cheapest options along with airline+timing combination.

Doing some research on fares for this blog post was challenging for me since Indian aviation companies these days have an eternal sale going on. However, I did a search for D+21 days with a Monday/Friday combination for peak traffic tariff. The fare varied between 4000(SG) – 9110(9W) with an average of 5500 for most of the flights. For the same dates, business class fare on Air India or Jet Airways ranged from 26000 to 42000!! Go - Business with its European style middle seat empty business class was available at 10000, less than a 1000Rs more than the highest in economy.

SpiceFlex which comes with meal, baggage allowance, no change fee and priority check-in was availableat roughly 9000rs and an IndiGo ticket with meal and first row seat was costing similar. IndiGo seems to have got their offering like a true LCC – Fast Forward services separate, Meal & Seat separate and so on, unlike SpiceFlex which combines all into one. I haven’t had the time to check sector wise or flight wise, which of this is cheaper but a bundled option and an unbundled one to be compared from an LCC perspective, the unbundled is the way forward in true LCC philosophy.

With all these details, where are we heading to? What will be Vistara’s premium economy pricing and will people occupy those 36 seats or opt for one of the 30 seats on SpiceFlex or one of the 24 premium seats on IndiGo?

I was hoping that Vistara sticks to a 12J configuration, which is easy to fill up even during mid-day and gives a lot of economy seats which can be filled up at leisure destinations to be operated during the non-peak times. The configuration of 12J & 144Y would have given them enough capacity on the metro routes, and had a fair chance on the non-metro routes. There is no making money in the morning and losing that in the afternoons. With aggressive Jet airways, the market for the front cabin will only get more competitive from here on. Premium Economy is a new concept and will take time to sync in. To make money, Vistara will have to price it minimum 1.5 times the economy fare and finding clientele for that definitely is a challenge.

In India, there is no cost attached for the novelty factor and one such example was how the Meh Air planes from Mumbai to Lonavala were full at 3000Rs each way, while the Mumbai – Pune service goes empty at fares below that. And hence Vistara should expect a lot of traffic in the initial days who will say, “full service wapis aa gaya”, “ purine dino ki yaad aa gae”, “ achi service thi” But will this lot be loyal or it will still be swayed by aggressive pricing of LCCs is what only time can answer. As for me, I think I will opt for the cheaper option and so would my office to send people between two cities.

As always, wishing all airlines in India – Good Luck !

Privat Air Lufthansa service to Frankfurt from Pune via Bucharest

Of all those who have been in the loop on how this trip was being planned, I am sure half of them would have wondered what an idiot I am. What was planned in July/Aug and later spilled over to September was a trip to Singapore, a follow on visit of my trip in April, which was to be on the SQ A380. However, out of nowhere, 10 days ago came this news that I may have to visit Kansas City. Options explored, it would have to be a two stop, with an option to try out EK for the first time. This soon changed to Mexico City and the options narrowed down. As the options started dwindling, so did the seats available due to the peak season. Things took a new turn almost on the eve of the trip as the final destination was changed to Monterrey, Mexico.

Keeping the plethora of options apart, this is how the final trip would look like

Pune-Frankfurt with a technical stop at Bucharest on the Privat Air B738, Frankfurt – Mexico City on Lufthansa B748i, AeroMexicoE-190 on Mexico City – Monterrey, American Airlines MD83 on Monterrey – Dallas, and back to India on Lufthansa with Dallas – Frankfurt on A343 and Frankfurt – Mumbai on B744. 

A dream trip so to say, because I would land at Bucharest, Mexico City, Monterrey, Dallas for the first time and travel in Embraer and MD series for the first time with B748 and A343 being new sub types. Again, how many flights these days have technical stops! 

Tickets, insurance, hotel bookings, all was a mess till the last minute. And the trip finally started on the day after the Ganpati festival began. With all the stories about Mexico, it was good to have a colleague along as we left early morning on 30^th Aug to this two and a half weeks trip.

Arriving at Pune Airport at 0330hours, it was nice to notice that the canopy is now complete and the old parking area has a new building, which looks like ticketing offices and if they indeed are, it will help free up space in the existing terminal and wonder how they will be put to use.

With no rush, we made our way to check-in after two CISF checks. The baggage screening was done by Jet Airways. The whole drama started at the check-in counter with the check-in agent saying that we will not be allowed to go to Mexico on this visa. Both passports, invitation letter and other details were taken and somebody started checking on the other computer at the last counter about the possibility of going to Mexico on the visa we had. I joined them and showed them the websites I knew and after a while they were convinced. I had already blocked 11A/C for PNQ – FRA and 38A/C for FRA – MEX leg and got both the boarding passes. 

Within minutes, immigration was announced and a LH staff guided us through the connector area from LH check in section to the old check in area used by AI / 9W/ 6E – where the immigration counters are. A look at the line, made it clear that this was a full flight and it indeed was, 32J, 60Y all occupied.

Immigration & security was a breeze and in no time we were on first floor SHA where VT-INZ , VT-IEZ & VT-SZK with crew livery were parked for the night. D-APBC arrived at 0405 hours, this being the only aircraft in this configuration; it’s a no brainer to guess the aircraft.

Around 0430 domestic pax started trickling in, with a mix of IndiGo and Jet passengers with Jet being the first domestic departure at 0535 to BLR. Boarding for our flight was called at 0505 hours with priority boarding, wheel chair pax, row 16 onwards, row 10 to 15 and then business class. The regular sight of fully fit and fine Indians asking for wheel chairs continued here as well, with the main reason being it’s their first time abroad. 

Long queue was formed but LH staff enforced the zone wise boarding. Privat Air was parked at Bay 2 and since international boarding was to take place, Jet Airways – which was parked at Bay 1 was normal boarding from the ground floor.

I boarded at 0515 and took few magazines since hardly any English material was available. Settled in 11A in this full flight and doors were closed at 0525 when we pushed back behind jet airways at 0530. 

The pilot came on PA and announced our flight path, first in German and then in English, with takeoff in westerly direction overflying Pakistani airspace near Karachi and then over Iran and Turkey before landing at Bucharest estimated in 6hours 10 mins.

The lead FA announced that breakfast and light lunch will be served, and it started with one of the best meals I have ever had about 40 mins in the flight. Ever since I missed chicken pasta on FRA-IAH sector last September, because I had booked AVML, I had decided that I will not book a meal and take my chances and it all paid off well. An Omlete with Sausage and potato – with the omlette being the best I have ever had inflight ! This came along with a choice of Juice, Fruits, Yogurt, Cake & Bun.

I slept off soon as trays were cleared and woke up over Iran, we were already about 5hours and 30 minutes into the flight. The galley had ample glasses with juice and water in the tray next to it. Lunch service started soon and the options were a chicken sub or a veg sub. I opted for the chicken option and it was fantastic again! The IFE was unresponsive but we had started our descend into Bucharest where we landed 15 mins ahead of schedule on runway 08R which reminded me of the Bengaluru runway full of patches before resurfacing. I told the crew about the IFE and it was promptly reset.

We parked at a remote bay as refueling started & standard instructions were given regarding seat belt and the purser took a count of people on board, since doors were open and step ladder attached. 

Before landing at Bucharest, the flight was somewhere between Tbilisi, Yeravan, Tehran & Ankara – the places which figure high on my wife and my list of places to visit.

At Bucharest, Tarom and Globeground did the ground handling. Saw Tarom, Olympic Air for the first time. Turkish was around and so was Wizz. Exactly 25 mins later, I told my friend that we are good to go and so did the FA, to the astonishment of my friend. We had a long taxi to runway 26R and a powerful and long take off roll after which we turned right and set course to FRA. Also saw the C27 and C130 of Romanian Air Force.

Service started again! And now it was chicken puff or two paneer rolls. For a foodie, a normal choice was 2 over 1, but I chose the chicken option which was decent, not as good as the previous ones. This came with coke or Beer, and I opted for beer.

1) Lake Balaton, 2) Balchik Airstrip in Bulgaria, 3) Just after take off from Bucharest

Europe is always fun with a window seat, because of the sheer number of aircraft you see and today was no different.  

 We landed on runway 25 L at FRA and taxied to remote bay. This meant that we would take longer for transfer and with transfer time being just 1:20. The bus dropped us at a gate and we came up to security after a short walk, which meant the train ride wasn’t required. Security had long lines but was brisk and within minutes we were on other side, near the Z gates and soon near our revised gate Z58 for a surprise in store which will be covered in next part.

Aircraft Details

D-APBC / MSN 33016

B737-800(WL) modified with special configuration and assigned code BBJ2 by Privat Air

Previous Operators : Sun Country Airlines, Transavia

With Privat Air since April 2009

Operates 4x weekly to FRA-PNQ-OTP-FRA route and 3x weekly on FRA-DMM-FRA

Flight Summary

PNQ: STD/ATD: 0525 / 0530

OTP: STA/ATA: 1010 / 1000

OTP: STD/ATD: 1040 / 1025 

FRA: STA/ATA: 1205 / 1150

*All times local

On-Time: 5/5

Website &Checkin: 5/5

Check-in & airport experience: 2/5 (The staff could have handled the visa issue better)

Aircraft Cleanliness: 4/5

In-flight experience: 4/5 (Always found the Privat Air crew better than LH crew)

Food: 4/5

Alighting & Arrival experience: 4/5

  

More thoughts on rivalry between IndiGo and Air Asia India

Last week I wrote how IndiGo is going all out to take on Air Asia India. Yes it is right, that competition has to be contained at early stages and some bit of sentimental expansion like announcing a Bengaluru – Chandigarh but tagging along Srinagar to make it more successful makes a lot of sense.

Over the weekend, I thought more on this, and some interesting facts came up. When Air Asia India launches its second rotation, it would do 16 flights a day with its 2 aircraft and would deploy 2880 seats in the market, while IndiGo with its roughly 516 daily flights, deploys 92880 seats. So 2 bad flights for Air Asia means 12.5% of their capacity for the day is sold on lower yields or that’s not sold as per expectation, while for IndiGo – it means just 0.38% !!

What next – Will Air Asia start the battle and mount a second daily to Chandigarh? And if that is followed by IndiGo? Too bad, it would still mean, not more than 1% of capacity of IndiGo, while it could mean a lot more for Air Asia India.

As the biggest player it makes sense for IndiGo to go after the newbies who are in with the same model as theirs and a more established brand in the region owing to their presence in multiple locations.

Air Asia India, has not done their homework well. I remember reading a supplement of Business Standard in 2006, and I think that was the first supplement which used to cover aviation exclusively. If I remember correctly, Nusli Wadia was quoted as saying “If we fill up the planes, it is at lower costs, and if we increase the fare, there are no passengers”. I will not really quote him here, because I don’t remember the exact words, but the meaning was this and that continues in Indian skies, even today.

Announcing sale as a measure of increasing revenue is a good way abroad, but not in India, because it hardly simulates the market, it only ensures that the person who was supposed to fly, books early. No extra bums on the seats. What more, the airline announcing the sale, thinks that they can fill up seats last minute at very high costs, but some other airline announces the sale for the same period, and you are forced to match it.

Thinking from a Network Planners perspective, I keep thinking if IndiGo will launch a new station to take on Air Asia, or will it launch frequencies to guard its own fort? Will Air Asia be better off launching flights to Mangalore, Calicut, Madurai, Trichy from Bengaluru where I presume that chances of IndiGo following them are marginal or does Air Asia think that there is no market at these places because IndiGo does not operate at these stations!

I am told there are some interesting routes coming up for AirAsia, and most of them are routes where IndiGo already operates non-stop flights. It’s a lost battle for Air Asia India, if they are going to keep chasing IndiGo. Why am I complaining? It’s eventually for the better of consumers! Yes, I am complaining because the industry will not sustain and because I am in Pune and not benefitting out of this J

Creating Ripples before taking to the air - Vistara the latest airline in India

Vistara – the new kid on the block was unveiled in a grand ceremony yesterday in Delhi. People rightly have a lot of expectations from this airline; because it is backed by the iconic Singapore Airlines which holds 49% and the rest owned by TATA’s which I am sure will give better service than their telecom arm – TATA Communications / Docomo.

While the airline is yet to launch, and the first aircraft, to be registered as VT-TTB is in the paint shop, it has already created ripples in the skies, with Jet Airways announcing moving to a single brand strategy the same evening. These two may not be related, but certainly a lot of thought would have gone into moving to one brand strategy at Jet due to the expected, then un-named, venture of TATA’s with SIA.

Jet Airways for a long time, had confused people and themselves with 3 brands – Mainline, Konnect and Lite and later with two, yet, they continued to believe that was the right strategy. While KFA inherited a functional LCC and rebranded it, Jet inherited a functional FSC and went in for a rebranding and a change in service type.

I happened to see some bits of the press conference yesterday, and Mr. Goyal wasn’t reinventing the wheel, but just going back to basics. I wonder why he and his airline moved away from the basics! On-Time performance, Clean Aircraft, Large Network, Good Connections – all these at decent fares… That’s all the passengers want anyways. Jet should have taken the decision to move to single brand FSC model long back, the right time probably was immediately after the demise of KFA.

Back to Vistara – now that the name is firmed up, along with the lively crew uniforms, it’s time to gear up and be battle ready. A lot is being expected because India lacks a true Full Service Carrier. While Kingfisher in the later days, decided to have a particular sector as mainline or LCC, Jet airways never even did that, having all sorts of flights on Metro as well as tier-2 cities. Air India losing out on its On Time performance, and Jet Airways service, aircraft and food becoming a lucky draw with every flight being a different one, it was time for some airline to capture the FSC space.

The success of Vistara will depend a lot on the configuration they choose. Yesterday’s ceremony talked about Premium Economy, and no First class, but it will be Premium economy / European Business or will it be Business, Premium Economy and Economy like what United has in USA, only time will tell. The most optimum mix in Indian skies is probably 8/156, which Kingfisher was trying to achieve before they went kaput and the best that can be achieved is 12/144 but filling up those 12 seats is a challenge for afternoon flights between metros and a day long challenge for leisure routes. The number of seats in the front cabin will also dictate the number of inflight crew on board.

Wishing good luck and long innings to the new airline!

Let the battle begin. . IndiGo launches non-stop Bengaluru - Chandigarh service to counter Air Asia India

For last few days, I was itching to get back to Network Planning – a hobby I have pursued for over 15 years now, and started in the days when I would ask anybody flying around – mostly my father, to get the printed schedule of the airline and then break it down into rotations, aircraft by aircraft. It also was a great way to kill time on the flights whenever I traveled then.

The advent of technology, my stint in Network Planning with Kingfisher and later with Go Air, only increased my knowledge, understanding and interest. While today, I work in the transportation gamut as a whole, the hobby continues.

The itch stopped yesterday, as IndiGo announced a non-stop service on Bengaluru – Chandigarh route, because I think the expansion and capacity induction for the next year or so will be sentimental and not based on analysis, traffic patterns and sustainable growth. Nonetheless,  as an avid Network Planning enthusiast, I have the best seat – on the fence , to see how things turn up.

As tweets started trickling in about IndiGo’s pullout from Delhi – Bangkok sector (I think IndiGo has not yet confirmed this but flights are not open for sale), I checked the timings of those flights and realized that one aircraft would be free, which I was sure, would be deployed on domestic routes, and wrote about this on my blog  post 

IndiGo yesterday opened up reservation on Bengaluru – Chandigarh non-stop service  effective 1^st September. The entire rotation is designed to take on Air Asia.

6E498 BLR0630 – 0745GOI D (Eff. 3^rd Sept)

6E499 GOI0815 – 0930BLR D (Eff. 3^rd Sept)

6E477 BLR1000 – 1255IXC D (Eff. 1^st Sept)

6E477 IXC1325 – 1425SXR D (Eff. 1^st Sept)

6E478 SXR1455 – 1555IXC D (Eff. 1^st Sept)

6E478 IXC1625 – 1930BLR D (Eff. 1^st Sept)

6E561 BLR2000 – 2110TRV D (Eff. 1^st Sept)

6E562 TRV2140 – 2250BLR D (Eff. 1^st Sept)

Am I reading too much or is Trivandrum the next destination for Air Asia?

Jet Airways and the least expected – Air India, have jumped into this game of capacity and frequency with Jet Airways, currently 3x Daily on Bengaluru – Kochi, will be 5x Daily. The afternoon frequency will operate on all days except Tuesday owning to closure in Bengaluru.

Jet Airways flights are effective 11^thAugust and Air India, will have additional utilization of their ATR-42 based in Bengaluru, effective 1^st September.

The flight count on this sector is now 13 each way, which obviously changes depending on day of the week. For a random check which I did while writing this piece, Air Asia flights were available for Rs.990/- each way for September first week, cheaper than the Volvo between the two cities and if Air Asia can break even by December at these fares, I wonder how their financials and aircraft leases are structured!

Only sane news which has come in the last week is that of Air India increasing frequency on the Amritsar – Delhi – Birmingham route to Daily from its current 4x weekly. Glad to know how Delhi as a hub is working for Air India and how B787 DreamLiner is turning a new page and opening up new routes which are successful

As for the domestic scenario – The player with deeper pockets will win again and the consumer will be the winner, sadly only the consumer based on Bengaluru seems to be the winner right now. What more, the over all winner could well be Spicejet, who has so far not shown any inclination to jump in this battle and is busy consolidating its position and salvaging its situation in the market. 

Aviation Weekly -1#Aug

Air Costa increases flights to Madurai

Regional carrier Air Costa has increased flights on the Chennai – Madurai – Chennai sector. The new flights will be effective 6^th August and operate as below

LB640 MAA1040 – 1135IXM D

LB641 IXM1155 – 1250MAA D

SpiceJet pulls out of Mysore

Spicejet, which is the sole carrier to Mysore, operating 5x weekly from Bengaluru with a one stop from Chennai, is pulling out flights effective 1^st September.

Spicejet has tried different routings for this route, including a direct flight from Chennai.

Spicejet increases frequency for limited period on select sectors

Spicejet is adding limited period flights to Bengaluru, Hyderabad and onwards to Tirupati. The aircraft would operate Delhi – Hyderabad – Tirupati – Hyderabad – Delhi – Bengaluru – Delhi from Friday to Monday, and run till 8^th September

IndiGo stops booking for flights on Delhi – Bangkok sector

Domestic leader IndiGo, has stopped bookings for its flights to crisis ridden Thailand’s capital Bangkok from Delhi effective 1^st September. Flights on Kolkata – Bangkok sector are open for sale.

IndiGo has yet not pulled out of a station completely, having launched Chennai – Singapore flights, when it cancelled flights to Singapore from Mumbai and Delhi.

The cancellation of Delhi – Bangkok double daily flights will free up one aircraft which could well be deployed on the domestic route to take on Air Asia India.

Air India re-times Singapore – Delhi flight to offer more connections

Effective 21^st August, Air India will re-time its Singapore – Delhi departure to help connect passengers boarding in Singapore to Frankfurt, Paris, Rome & Milan via its Delhi Hub. The advancement is being done by swapping aircrafts in Singapore, with the Mumbai – Chennai – Singapore flight being shifted from A330 to B787. Delhi – Singapore operated with B787. This will result in delayed departure to Chennai and onwards to Mumbai

Air India re-times flights to Moscow to offer more connections

Air India which recently launched 4x weekly flights to Moscow, will re-time their flights effective Winter schedule to have better connections. I have been arguing that the late night departure is not helping get connections at Russia end. However, this re-time is more to get connections to Australia.

The revised timings would be as below, effective 26^th October

AI155 DEL1940 – 2320DME

AI156 DME0100 – 0855DEL