___________

Update: New Indian Express reports that Air Deccan has plans to connect Bhubaneswar with Tirupati.

Kudos: I traveled several legs on Indigo (Bhubaneswar-Hydearabad-Bangalore, Bangalore-Kochi, Kochi-Goa, Goa-Hyderabad-Kolkata). All of its flights were in time and some reached destinations before time. Excellent service. Free food is not given but one can buy food on-board. Very happy with this airline and am  glad to see they will be connecting Bhubaneswar with Mumbai and Kolkata from Jan 29th. My best wishes to this airline.

mini-Kudos: Used the site http://www.ezeego1.co.in/ to book ticket two days before a flight. They were offering great deals.

Mega disaster: I had booked Bhubaneswar-Bangalore flight on Jetlite through a travel agent from Bhubaneswar, who I thought I knew well. When I called Jetlite the day before the travel (a) first they told me that my reservation was canceled because the travel agent did not do something in time. (b) later I found out that they had just canceled the Bhubaneswar -Bangalore flight altogether and neither the airlines nor the travel agent informed me about that.

So-so: I am familiar with three main travel sites for booking tickets in India.

• http://www.ezeego1.co.in/: Has great deals. Does not seem to accept international credit cards.
• http://makemytrip.co.in/makemytrip/MMTHome.do: Accepts international credit cards. Has software issues: When I booked a ticket with me as the booking person and my wife as the traveler it booked the ticket in my name and I ended up having two tickets on my name on the same flight. Great customer service over email and phone in correcting mistakes. It did not inform me about the cancellation of Kolkata-Bhubaneswar flight. But after I told them, they issued an immediate refund.
• http://www.cleartrip.com/: Does not seem to accept international credit cards.

Disappointment: Indian canceled Kolkata-Bhubaneswar flight that I was booked on  and I had to make alternative arrangements just 2-3 days before my travel date.

Dealing with a local Bhubaneswar travel agent with office in Jayadev Vihar: I thought since I knew this person well, he will give me better service. It was somewhat of a disappointment; but I am not sure how much I can blame the agent for this. Following are the good and bad parts.  (a)  Jetlite claims that  the main travel agent (Eastern travels) that this travel agent went through did not do some thing in time so they canceled my booking. The local travel agent (Orissa travels) responded that Jetlite often finds flimsy reasons to do such cancellation. I don’t know whom to believe. (b) His deals for a Kerala package was Rs 22000 (instead of the Rs 23,800 that I paid to the Bangalore agent)  but involved worse hotels. (c) Did not inform me about Jetlite flight being canceled; but did promptly inform me about the Indian flight that got canceled. (c) While makemytrip refunded me completely for the Indian flight that got canceled this travel agent says Indian only gave him a coupon to be used in 1 year. There is no way I can use this coupon.  (d) The tickets in Indigo that I bought from this agent were all fine. (e) Paying him for the tickets was convenient as his people came and picked up the money from my parents. They also refunded to my parents, albeit not so promptly.

Travel agents on the net: Came across two very good travel agents to arrange my Kerala trip and my Goa trip. (Did have to spend time in finding them. Also, may be I was lucky.) They both gave good deals and things went pretty well. I sent money to their ICICI account from mine; it was easy and quick. The two agents and the various companies involved in these trips were:

• http://www.malabarholidays.indiatourism.com: Mr. Shekar based in Bangalore 09448230450 / 09343835483 (Kerala Trip) is the agent I communicated with initially and Tours India International, Cochin, really took care of the reservations locally.
  • Avenue Regent Kochi: Wonderful hotel, will stay again here if I am in Kochi.
  • Backwater Resort, Kumarakom:  Decent resort in Kumarakom. Will stay here if in Kumarakom.
  • NAS group house boat: Not as great looking as the other house boats. (It may not have been a NAS group house boat, but a temporary rental.) Had a deck which many don’t have and view from the deck is even better. A/C control not in the room so the night spent was not as nice as it got cold and noisy and there was no way to turn it off. The overall experience was marvelous, but next time I will make sure about the particular boat I am in and solve the a/c issue beforehand.

• www.amchogoa.com and http://www.samsantravels.com: Summaiya.91-98694 25430 (Goa hotels)
  • Longuinhos Beach Resort Colva, Goa: Right on the beach. Nice people. Great restaurant. A/C in the room old style; one has to turn it off and on by hand.

Indian Railways: Was able to buy e-ticket on the net using International credit card. Could get 3 a/c Kolkata-Bhubaneswar  ticket in Coromondal 2 days before the trip. (A/C chair car tickets in Janashtabdi were not available. But as my wife told me, regular sleeper tickets are better than a/c chair car seats as one can sit as well as sleep on a sleeper ticket.)

Jet airways: Unlike the disastrous experience with its subsidiary Jetlite, the Bangkok-Kolkata-Bangkok flights in Jet airways were very good. The food was great, the entertainment available in the seat back sets were very good, the flights were on time and the tickets were the least expensive in that route. I hope they fix the problems with Jetlite asap; otherwise the negative impression that Jetlite will make will harm the overall brand name.

Lessons:

• Have an ICICI account. It is very useful in sending money to make reservations.
• Have access to rupee based credit card as many airlines in India do not accept international credit cards.
• Avoid small local travel agents for out-of-state travel. They have less clout, so they may not be able to do the best for you, even if they want to.
• Avoid Jetlite and Indian.
• Patronize Indigo.
• For Kolkata-Bhubaneswar leg, good old Indian Railways is the most reliable means.
• For hotel rooms make sure what kind of a/c it has. Does the a/c have an automatic temperature control or you have to manually turn it on and off.
• For visits to particular part of India look for travel agents in that part of India.  You may get lucky and come across good ones.
• For air travel within India check out the three sites http://www.ezeego1.co.in/, http://makemytrip.co.in/makemytrip/MMTHome.do and http://www.cleartrip.com/  and see who has the best deal.
• Airlines change their schedules frequently. Check often.

Its schedule is as follows:

The following is from http://203.94.240.226/iaschedule/iaschedule.xls.

The following is from http://www.flykingfisher.com/schedule.asp?tab=3.

KOLKATA TO

The following is from http://www.airdeccan.net/data/flightinfo/from_bhubaneshwar.html.

Bhubaneswar to

Bangalore to

Delhi to

Hyderabad to

Kolkata to

Mumbai to

From Nov 17th Indigo starts flights connecting BBSR to Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad. We wrote about this in http://www.orissalinks.com/orissagrowth/?p=818. Current reports mention plans beyond that. Following is an excerpt from a report on this in Tathya.in.

The airline is going to introduce new connectivity from Bhubaneswar to Mumbai & Kolkata in December and to Chennai in January 2008.

The current schedule is at http://book.goindigo.in/skylights/cgi-bin/skylights.cgi?module=c3&page=DESTINATIONSNEW.

The current schedule is:

6E 252 Bhubaneshwar Delhi 7:10 PM 9:20 PM Daily
6E 251 Delhi Bhubaneshwar 8:55 AM 11:00 AM Daily

6E 251 Bhubaneshwar Hyderabad 11:35 AM 12:55 PM Daily
6E 252 Hyderabad Bhubaneshwar 5:20 PM 6:40 PM Daily

6E 251 Bhubaneshwar Bangalore 11:35 AM 2:45 PM Daily Hyderabad
6E 252 Bangalore Bhubaneshwar 3:30 PM 6:40 PM Daily Hyderabad

Indigo airlines will connect Bhubaneswar with non-stop to Delhi and Hydearabad and one stop (via Hyderabad) to Bangalore from November 17th. The new schedule is at http://book.goindigo.in/skylights/cgi-bin/skylights.cgi?module=c3&page=DESTINATIONSNEW.

The schedule is:

6E 252 Bhubaneshwar Delhi 7:10 PM 9:20 PM Daily
6E 251 Delhi Bhubaneshwar 8:55 AM 11:00 AM Daily

6E 251 Bhubaneshwar Hyderabad 11:35 AM 12:55 PM Daily
6E 252 Hyderabad Bhubaneshwar 5:20 PM 6:40 PM Daily

6E 251 Bhubaneshwar Bangalore 11:35 AM 2:45 PM Daily Hyderabad
6E 252 Bangalore Bhubaneshwar 3:30 PM 6:40 PM Daily Hyderabad

Following are excerpts from a New Indian Express report by Samiran Sarangi. I talked to him on phone. He says that if everything goes well the expectation is that the flight from BBSR would start around mid-November or early December.

Is Orissa set to have its first international flight – and that too to Singapore? Air India has reportedly agreed to oblige, provided travel and tour operators here ensure a good number of passengers. Travel agents, on their part, are confident of making it possible. More so because the flight that Air India wants to operate via the city is its low cost carrier Air India Express. It would operate on the Kolkata-Singapore route from October 7. A round trip would cost a traveller just about Rs 14,500, as against the normal fare of Rs 24,000. A team from Air India, which visited the city sometime back to study the market here, has asked for at least 40 to 50 passengers on each flight. The 185-seater Boeing 737-800 would be operating thrice a week. "We firmly believe that with the present flow of travellers from the State to Singapore, we can achieve the target," said a confident Benjamin Simon, head of the city-based tour firm Travellink. According to him, roughly 30 to 40 persons head for the island country from Orissa every week as business and leisure travellers. A considerable number of them are from the Western belt of Sambalpur, Jharsuguda and Rourkela. … A section of the operators are designing packages that would also include board and lodging at the existing fare at Rs 24,000. It would basically be a three-night-two-day affair and include sightseeing.

As of today, Orissa has only one airport with commercial flights. That airport is in Bhubaneswar. Following is copied from my site “Orissalinks: Airports and air connectivity in Orissa.”

Bhubaneswar:

• Indian (schedule: daily flights to/from Kolkata [direct], Mumbai [Mumbai-Raipur-BBSR-Mumbai], Delhi [direct], Delhi-Ranchi-BBSR-Delhi, Bangalore [via-Chennai], and Chennai [direct], plus twice a week direct flight to-from Bangalore)
• Air Sahara (network, schedule: direct daily flights to/from Hyderabad, Kolkata and Delhi) – the Kolkata flight is no longer there in the current schedule,
• Air Deccan (schedule: two daily direct flights between BBSR and Kolkata and daily flights between BBSR and Delhi, BBSR and Mumbai, BBSR and Visakhapatnam, BBSR and Hyderabad, BBSR and Chennai and BBSR and Bangalore (via Chennai). A flight between Ranchi and BBSR is also in the offing.)
• Kingfisher (schedule: daily flights to Hyderabad and Delhi [via Hyderabad])
• Wonder air chopper service (chopper flights from Bhubaneswar to Keonjhar and on to Barbil from Feb 9th 2007)
• Spicejet (coming soon)
• Indigo (coming soon)
• Cities connected directly (non-stop or reachable with one-stop but without changing planes)
  
  • Delhi [3+2] (Indian: daily, Indian/Alliance Air: daily, Delhi-Ranchi-BBSR-Delhi, Air Sahara: daily, Kingfisher: daily via Hyderabad, Air Deccan: daily)
  • Kolkata [3] (Indian: daily, Air Sahara: no more, Air Deccan: twice daily)
  • Hyderabad [3] (Air Sahara: daily, Kingfisher: daily, Air Deccan: daily)
  • Mumbai [1+1] (Indian: daily, Mumbai-Raipur-BBSR-Mumbai; Air Deccan: daily)
  • Chennai [2] (Indian: daily, Air Deccan: daily)
  • Bangalore [.3+2] (Indian: daily via Chennai, Indian: 2/week direct, Air Deccan: daily via Chennai)
  • Visakhapatnam [1] (Air Deccan: daily)
  • Ranchi [1,0] (Air Deccan : in cards, details awaited, Indian/Alliance Air: Delhi-Ranchi-BBSR-Delhi)
    
  • Raipur [1,0] (Mumbai-Raipur-BBSR-Mumbai)
  • Keonjhar, Orissa (wonder air, chopper service from Feb 9th 2007)
  • Barbil, Orissa (wonder air, chopper service from Feb 9th 2007)

• More connectivity (planned connections):
  • Jet Airways (network): indications
  • Air India: AirIndia flights from Bhubaneswar to Bangkok or Malaysia in Winter 2006?
  • GoAir (schedule): has plans for Bhubaneswar
  • Airlines with no existing plans for BBSR: Paramount.
• New Indian budget airlines expected to launch during 2007: AirOne Feeder Airline (based in Bangalore); Magic Air; Indus Air; Easy Air; and Star Air. (more information)
• Connectivity wishlist (Oct 26, 2006)
  • BBSR-Rourkela
  • More BBSR-Bangalore (on the way to Goa)
  • BBSR-Pune (on the way to Mumbai)
  • BBSR-Jaipur (on the way to Delhi)
  • BBSR-Goa (with stop over in Bangalore)
  • BBSR-Varanasi (on the way to Srinagar/Delhi/Chandigarh)
  • BBSR-Kochi (with stop over in Chennai)
  • BBSR-Guwahati (with stop over in Kolkata)
  • BBSR-Bangkok/Kuala Lumpur/Seoul (Delhi/Mumbai-BBSR-Bangkok/KL/Seoul)
  • BBSR-London (Kolkata-BBSR-London)
• Airport plans: [Oct22-05-priority-BBSR-Shillong-Dimapur-Nagpur]
• Editor’s comment, Sept 20’05: The private colleges in Orissa should get together with Infosys, Satyam etc. to establish free public wi-fi in Bhubaneswar airport and Bhubaneswar railway station. At this point, it might be a first for the country. It will distinguish Bhubaneswar, generate a lot of publicity, with software companies and airline companies taking notice of it.
• Cities connected (direct or with a stopover), timings

• Rourkela: There is an airport to which Indian Airlines used to fly. Service to it needs to be reintroduced as soon as possible.
• Plans to develop Jharsuguda airstrip to a full-fledged airport: [1]
• Sites for flight news with respect to India: Aviation India; Indian A&D
• A site for flight tickets: http://cleartrip.com