India Air

India has many domestic airline companies: Air India (a.k.a. Indian Airlines), Jet Airways, Kingfisher, IndiGo, Jet Lite, Deccan, SpiceJet, Paramount, Go Air, and others. Starting from when we started our initial searches for flights for California-Hyderabad, I've heard all terrible things about mostly government-run Air India, especially from experienced flyers to India. One of the exchange students even got his luggage lost during his transfer from Delhi and had to spend his first couple days with no clothes (he borrowed from other students and bought an "Entreprenerd" shirt from the student store to get by).

So I was very curious when we booked it for our flight from Hyderabad to Chennai this past weekend. I think this picture of my food tray being held up by a piece of tape pretty much sums it up:
The whole plane just seemed to be old and patched up, fraying at all edges. We got a cookie and tea, which I thought was no problem, especially since it was a 1 hour flight. But on the Kingfisher flight back (1.5 hrs), we got lots of free goodies AND a meal! Not that that is the standard either, but it just seemed to show the kind of competition India Air has. Kingfisher Airlines, by the way, is kind of like Virgin Air - it was founded by a Indian beer magnet and is known for its flight attendants in short skirts and five star customer service.

Anyways, now I can say I have firsthand experience on India Air. I'm also curious to eventually check out Jet Airways because I've heard they have really new airplanes and great customer service too. And SpiceJet, just because the name sounds funny.