We flew Qantas home, at least on paper - QF3954 DEL to SIN, then QF 292 SIN to MEL. Qantas is the national carrier, and is a reasonably good, full-service airline (recent industrial disputes notwithstanding).
However, we didn't actually fly Qantas, because both legs were codeshares - the first leg by Jet Airways (India), the excellent Indian airline, and the second by JetStar, the low-cost sister of Qantas.
We've flown Jetstar before, when nipping over the Tasman to NZ, mainly because they're the only ones that offer direct flights to Christchurch at vaguely reasonable hours. When you book Jetstar, you know it's a cheapie short flight (around 3hrs), and you plan accordingly. You pack snacks, make sure your iPad, iPhones and iPods are all fully charged and loaded, and you have at least one book each with a few hours reading left. And you only ever do carry-on luggage.
However, when you book Qantas but get Jetstar instead, you feel like you got bait-and-switched.
Jetstar's new plane has no seat-back "personal entertainment units" (which for a long-haul flight is pretty sucky). You can buy $7 earbuds with adaptor (you can't use your own earphones unless you have an adaptor) to listen to the inflight "audio presentations" - as a Qantas codeshare, we were given these headphone/adaptor sets. woo. hoo. To watch a movie or otherwise entertain your kids, you have to hire an iPad (preloaded with a very meagre selection of movies and games) for $15. JD did this, including paying $15, even though our iPad still had reasonable charge and had a bunch of movies the boys still hadn't watched. Eh, whatever.
Everyone mocks airline food, but given the substantial constraints imposed (a topic for a later post, perhaps), they generally aren't too awful. And playing "hmm, what do you think that's supposed to be?" makes it funner*. A standard full-service meal includes the hot dish, a bread roll and butter, a side dish of some sort (a salad-like thing, or yoghurt, if it's breakfast), some fruit or other dessert-majigger, and some juice or water. If you're hungry, you usually manage to eat it all, and feel sated (if not full) afterwards. This is not the Jetstar meal. The Jetstar meal ($15 if you haven't prepaid or aren't a Qantas codeshare) comprises only the hot dish. That's it. No dinky little tray - you get your plastic cutlery, napkin and S&P wrapped up in a disposable bag that's supposed to double as your placemat; no bread roll, no side dish, no dessert. If you ask nicely you might get a softdrink. But you have to ask really nicely and wait half an hour if you want milk, rather than powdered creamer, with your tea (or coffee). Alcoholic beverages are for purchase only, with an astonishingly limited selection (VB is the only beer offered).
The cabin was set at a remarkably low temperature - I was in jeans, thick socks, and a thermal top, and still needed a blanket around my legs and my jacket on. Thankfully, as a codeshare, I got a "blanket kit" - most the other freezing poor shlubs had to either buy one or wrap their jumpers around their legs. Compare this with the previous Jet Airways flight, which included a blanket and pillow on every seat.
But the real doozie was them losing one of our bags.
As you know, I am a very strong proponent of carry-on luggage only. No-one needs that much stuff, and the airline can't lose it if you don't entrust it to them. However, we were bringing home a few extra purchases and a bunch of Mum and Dad's stuff**, and the repercussions are less if they misplace a bag on the homeward leg. (We still carried essentials, like medicines and toiletries, and fragile items, in the carry-on bag.) Two of our three stowed bags made it. After waiting patiently at the carousel for three-quarters of an hour, and less patiently for another three-quarters of an hour at the Baggage Services counter to be served by the one woman serving half a dozen increasingly irate passengers. She was even snippier than me, and I had the hangries and the lost baggage.
"Don't worry - it happens all the time" is not what you want to hear from the people handling your lost luggage, even if the five people in front of you in the queue prove it to be true. To their credit, we did get a call from Jetstar three hours after we finally left the airport advising that our bag had been found, and that it would be couriered to us, as indeed it was. The fact that it only took three hours to locate confirms that it was Jetstar's baggage handlers/system/c*ck-up that was responsible for the loss. (That is, it didn't get left behind in Singapore, let alone Delhi.) When reporting our missing bag, they couldn't even give us a reference number or any other evidence of our claim - when pressed, the woman offered to text us the claim number in around half an hour (read hour and a half). I just really hope that they also located the specialised wheelchair required by a boy of around 10yrs they had also managed to lose.
TL:DR : When buying long haul flights, check whether it's a codeshare first. If it's Jetstar (or any other low-cost airline), choose another flight. And don't check luggage unless you really have to.
* funner: apparently a word, at least according to an English-language mobile phone ad I saw in India
** a statue of Shiva, four books, two tablecloths, a bunch of summer clothes, anda partridge in a pear tree Dad's sandals.
Post script: Jetstar is not the worst airline I've ever flown - that title goes to Alitalia, twenty-something years ago. The cabin crew smoked in the galleys in the middle of the non-smoking section of the plane, the service was surly tending to downright rude, and they permanently lost one of our bags and showed no interest in making any effort to find it.
However, we didn't actually fly Qantas, because both legs were codeshares - the first leg by Jet Airways (India), the excellent Indian airline, and the second by JetStar, the low-cost sister of Qantas.
We've flown Jetstar before, when nipping over the Tasman to NZ, mainly because they're the only ones that offer direct flights to Christchurch at vaguely reasonable hours. When you book Jetstar, you know it's a cheapie short flight (around 3hrs), and you plan accordingly. You pack snacks, make sure your iPad, iPhones and iPods are all fully charged and loaded, and you have at least one book each with a few hours reading left. And you only ever do carry-on luggage.
However, when you book Qantas but get Jetstar instead, you feel like you got bait-and-switched.
Jetstar's new plane has no seat-back "personal entertainment units" (which for a long-haul flight is pretty sucky). You can buy $7 earbuds with adaptor (you can't use your own earphones unless you have an adaptor) to listen to the inflight "audio presentations" - as a Qantas codeshare, we were given these headphone/adaptor sets. woo. hoo. To watch a movie or otherwise entertain your kids, you have to hire an iPad (preloaded with a very meagre selection of movies and games) for $15. JD did this, including paying $15, even though our iPad still had reasonable charge and had a bunch of movies the boys still hadn't watched. Eh, whatever.
Everyone mocks airline food, but given the substantial constraints imposed (a topic for a later post, perhaps), they generally aren't too awful. And playing "hmm, what do you think that's supposed to be?" makes it funner*. A standard full-service meal includes the hot dish, a bread roll and butter, a side dish of some sort (a salad-like thing, or yoghurt, if it's breakfast), some fruit or other dessert-majigger, and some juice or water. If you're hungry, you usually manage to eat it all, and feel sated (if not full) afterwards. This is not the Jetstar meal. The Jetstar meal ($15 if you haven't prepaid or aren't a Qantas codeshare) comprises only the hot dish. That's it. No dinky little tray - you get your plastic cutlery, napkin and S&P wrapped up in a disposable bag that's supposed to double as your placemat; no bread roll, no side dish, no dessert. If you ask nicely you might get a softdrink. But you have to ask really nicely and wait half an hour if you want milk, rather than powdered creamer, with your tea (or coffee). Alcoholic beverages are for purchase only, with an astonishingly limited selection (VB is the only beer offered).
The cabin was set at a remarkably low temperature - I was in jeans, thick socks, and a thermal top, and still needed a blanket around my legs and my jacket on. Thankfully, as a codeshare, I got a "blanket kit" - most the other freezing poor shlubs had to either buy one or wrap their jumpers around their legs. Compare this with the previous Jet Airways flight, which included a blanket and pillow on every seat.
But the real doozie was them losing one of our bags.
As you know, I am a very strong proponent of carry-on luggage only. No-one needs that much stuff, and the airline can't lose it if you don't entrust it to them. However, we were bringing home a few extra purchases and a bunch of Mum and Dad's stuff**, and the repercussions are less if they misplace a bag on the homeward leg. (We still carried essentials, like medicines and toiletries, and fragile items, in the carry-on bag.) Two of our three stowed bags made it. After waiting patiently at the carousel for three-quarters of an hour, and less patiently for another three-quarters of an hour at the Baggage Services counter to be served by the one woman serving half a dozen increasingly irate passengers. She was even snippier than me, and I had the hangries and the lost baggage.
"Don't worry - it happens all the time" is not what you want to hear from the people handling your lost luggage, even if the five people in front of you in the queue prove it to be true. To their credit, we did get a call from Jetstar three hours after we finally left the airport advising that our bag had been found, and that it would be couriered to us, as indeed it was. The fact that it only took three hours to locate confirms that it was Jetstar's baggage handlers/system/c*ck-up that was responsible for the loss. (That is, it didn't get left behind in Singapore, let alone Delhi.) When reporting our missing bag, they couldn't even give us a reference number or any other evidence of our claim - when pressed, the woman offered to text us the claim number in around half an hour (read hour and a half). I just really hope that they also located the specialised wheelchair required by a boy of around 10yrs they had also managed to lose.
TL:DR : When buying long haul flights, check whether it's a codeshare first. If it's Jetstar (or any other low-cost airline), choose another flight. And don't check luggage unless you really have to.
* funner: apparently a word, at least according to an English-language mobile phone ad I saw in India
** a statue of Shiva, four books, two tablecloths, a bunch of summer clothes, and
Post script: Jetstar is not the worst airline I've ever flown - that title goes to Alitalia, twenty-something years ago. The cabin crew smoked in the galleys in the middle of the non-smoking section of the plane, the service was surly tending to downright rude, and they permanently lost one of our bags and showed no interest in making any effort to find it.
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