I traveled from Hyderabad to Vizag (Visakhapatnam) on Monday and returned back on Tuesday. Flight to Vizag is by Kingfisher Airlines. The plane is an ATR, but the interiors are very well done and the flight is very well maintained. The flight was longer by 30 minutes, but the in flight service is excellent. The food is great, especially the non-veg choice I had.
The Vizag airport is so small that may be around 150 people can sit in all lounges (checkin, security check etc.) combined together. If you consider airports like Bangalore and Hyderabad small, this one is tiny.
While coming back to Hyderabad, we are putup in Indian. We came to airport about 2 hours before the scheduled departure, only to find that the flight is delayed by 30 minutes. Further during the wait, the flight schedule kept on changing. Finally, we got thru the security check even before the flight arrived from its previous leg. The flight which is supposed to start at 11.15am finally arrived into the airport by 1.00pm and we are boarded by 1.20pm or so. This is a Boeing 737, supposed to be much better than the ATR we took a day ago.
What happened later is both scary, funny and irritating. We are taxied to the tarmac and are waited there, with no air-conditioning and all. It was so suffocating that I cursed myself for wearing a full sleeves shirt. On top of that, with engines on, the plane presented a scary picture, moving every part of the cabin. Well, me and my coworker Vardhini resorted to humor, to get past the scary scene presented by the suffocating flight. Finally we took off after about 30 minutes of roasting in the oven-like cabin.
The food was horrible. Looks like there is an attempt to shy away people from eating. They just have a veg-only choice, further killing my appetite. Finally, we reached Hyderabad by 2.50, about 2.5 hours beyond the expected arrival.
Two contrast flying experiences. Vardhini’s observation is that the ATR gave more confidence of reaching our destination than this aging 737.
What we did in Vizag is another blog entry.