Air Deccan or Air Dhakkan?

Shankar's post on his Air Deccan misery prompted me to blog about my own horrible experience with Air Deccan. So, here goes...

My fateful flight, DN-603, from Delhi to Mumbai was scheduled to depart at 3:00 in the afternoon. At around 11:00 AM I get an SMS from Air Deccan that the flight was delayed and would now take off at 5:30 PM. At 4:00 PM, I get another SMS, flight late, departing at 7:30 now. At 6:30 PM we reached the airport and from the Air Deccan counter came to know that the flight was further delayed and would now depart at 8:00 PM. After some time another SMS, flight late (again?!), departure at 8:30!

One interesting thing that I noted at the airport was, that even though so many flights were getting delayed and/or cancelled, it was only Air Deccan check-in counters that had long winding queues, commotion, and total chaos. Just a sample of the cluelessness of tha Air Deccan officials:

Random DN-603 Passenger: Madam, yeh flight kitne baje take-off karegi?
Check-in counter lady: Aath baje. (8 O' Clock)
Me: Par mere ko toh SMS aaya hai ki sadhe-aath baje (8:30 PM) hai departure?!
Check-in counter lady: Hain?! Ek min zara SMS dikhaiye...
(I handed over my phone with the SMS on the screen, she scrolls through it).

Check-in counter lady: Haan 8:30 par depart karegi. SMS aaya hoga na aapko bhi?
(Random DN-603 passenger leaves with a confused, amused, bewildered, hairaan, pareshaan, look!)

After the check-in and security check was over, we were subject to an endless wait. 8:30 PM swooshed by. No announcement. No SMS. No information whatsoever.

And then, with a stupid magazine in hand (Men's Health! What the hell was I thinking?!) I slowly dozed off on the swanky new Delhi Airport chairs.

I was awoken suddenly to a lot of noise. In the few seconds between breaking out from my dream world and snapping back to reality, I realized that the noise actually was chants of "Air Deccan hai hai!" The entire airport lounge was taking out a morcha against the airlines! I was zapped! I mean, WTF?!

And today I realized that this kind of shit has happened before with Air Deccan!

Anyways, the flight finally took off at 10:30 PM amidst a lot of (sarcastic) applause from the passengeres and embarrased smiles from the air hostesses.

Primary moral of the story is, if the price difference is very little, dump Air Deccan. Secondary moral of the story is that at least these buggers SMS you well in time, that the flight is going to be late.