Taking a Vacation

If you have been working for last many years like me you know it leads to taking fewer and fewer vacations over time. I don’t know why it happens but chances are unless traveling is your religion it just happens.

Vacation Time!

The number one problem is the amount of leaves available and then my leaves coinciding with everyone in the family! I am lucky that I mostly like driving to the hills which are not very far away from Delhi. But sometimes I do like to go to other places, places which are a bit far off as well.

With cheap air travel becoming a reality in India my options to go for a vacation with those limited leaves increased. That is where I feel the more airlines we have the merrier as a traveler I am. Now with Kingfisher not in operation I felt the fares were already going up. Today I read that the Tata group is planning to invest in Air Asia and I hope that for the sake of customers the deal will go through.

Destinations like Goa, Kerala, Leh, Imphal all are now a few hours away with reasonable flights rather than being days away. With  IndiGo and Go Air on the budget side and Air India and Jet with full fares, they manage to service a lot of holiday destinations.

In that sense I wait for a time when either Air Asia expands its operations in North as well or Indigo starts flying more international destinations. After all if I do get a reasonable fare I may start exploring other countries as well.

Do I have a wish list? Not really, not a big one but sometimes I do feel that I should sit down and make one. Then when I can spot a few days which I can take off the decision making would be faster.

The Question of Access on Domestic Airlines in India

In my experiences airports are one of the best places for a person with disability and who needs wheelchair access or other assistance. I also admit access to me is what I can see, people in wheel chairs, people needing assistance etc. But I have not really given a thought what happens if a person is blind? Is there enough assistance for them on the airports? I also do not check my flight status these days I have become completely reliant on the airline SMS about delays. But I guess flight status would become very important for people who need assistance to get out of the airport safely.

Ramp is a necessity for persons with disabilities

The full fare airlines that fly from T3 in New Delhi have air bridges to the aircraft so wheel chair access is there. But at the domestic terminal 1D many planes have stairs for boarding and I wonder how do people on wheelchair manage?

In that sense I am a big fan of Indigo (I wonder why their website is called Goindigo though, causes some confusion for the first time user) as they use ramps for boarding on all their aircrafts. I know people who need wheelchair assistance and of course they choose to fly with Indigo. I wonder if other airlines like Goair, Spicejet etc would also follow with ramps?

In fact the question of access in general is such a low priority in India that it took a Stephen Hawking to get a ramp even at the Taj Mahal. When I compare this to my visits abroad I see so many people moving around in wheel chairs independently but then given the scope of issues we face as a nation, it is difficult to see things changing in a short while. And as I said before I admire Indigo therefore that they brought about ramps for all their planes.

How to Grab Cheap Air Tickets?

I wish there was a secret formula for grabbing cheap air tickets and only I knew about it! But unfortunately there is no such thing and I too have to rely on common sense to get cheap flight tickets.

One obvious way to get cheap tickets is to fly with low cost carries like SpiceJet, Indigo, GoAir, etc. But sometimes if you look on a comparison site you will be surprised to see that that even full service airlines like Indian Airlines (or should it be Air India only now?) also offer lower prices for their early morning and late night flights. So if you are flexible about timings and if service is important to you, you can try this out as well.

Arrivals Lounge at an International Airport

Another tested route is to book early, if we book closer to the date we are obviously going to pay more! Sometimes airlines offer promotional fares to certain destinations and they are really a good bargain! But the trouble is in keeping up with such offers!

Internationally sometimes it can be beneficial if we buy late as airlines offer discounts if they have been unable to sell their tickets but I am not sure how true this is of India!

If you could be flexible about your flight dates this can also result in cheaper price as weekend flights are more expensive than weekday flights! I remember flying back to T3 once on a Wednesday and not only had I paid less, the airport was also much less crowded.

And we all do compare the fares using search engines like Makemytrip.com. This one is so obvious that I left it for the last. But it is a bit conflicting because sometimes I see airlines claiming that the cheapest fares are available only from their websites! What do you think?