Book a Flight, not a Fight!

After a long gap of three years, John, and Leny along with their two children were looking forward to their trip back home to Kerala from London. John took the initiative to find a good deal with a travel agent to book tickets with one of the best-known airline brands in the world. He booked a flight from London to Kochi via Doha.

John was quite confident that it was going to be a fantastic journey, especially since they were travelling home after a long time. Everything was picture perfect till they landed in Doha. It was a lovely flight with all the comfort of a full carrier, and the experience was truly matching the airline brand.

Soon, they reached the transfer desk and were promptly directed to their connection flight. As soon as they arrived at the boarding gate, the world around them froze! To their surprise, they were getting into a narrow body aircraft, which was low-cost by design and obviously could not even compare to the facilities offered by a full carrier such as the one they arrived from London.

John was shocked! All what he did was to look at Leny once. She was fuming! The dead stare that he received from his sweetheart was akin to fire from a blast furnace. He was truly at a loss of words about what happened.

The ticket clearly showed the flight number for their entire journey, with two-letter code of the full carrier they took from London. No other flight number was seen on the ticket to depict that they will be transferred to a low-cost carrier. To make things worse, in the middle of scorching summer heat at Doha, their flight had to wait for a while to receive clearance to take-off. John had only one doubt. What was more on fire? The desert, or his darling? He continued to bear the brunt of anger from Leny throughout the flight, making the journey to Kochi one of his worst trips in his lifetime.

What really happened was, when John approached the travel agent for booking the ticket, he was provided with tickets for his entire journey. But those were tickets sold by the full carrier with a code share agreement with the low-cost carrier. In that case, the flight number remained the same. But on the ticket issued by the full carrier, for Kochi sector, there was a clear print below the flight number that said ‘operated by xyz airline’ which was the low-cost carrier. Unfortunately, poor John, did not know this difference and ended up being at the receiving end.

A codeshare flight is a commercial arrangement where an airline sells tickets for a flight, but the actual physical flight is provided by a partner airline. (Source: navan.com)

While booking a flight, just like any other service we avail, we need to have clarity on what we are paying for. Ask if you may so that you do not end up booking a fight instead of a flight.

Bon voyage. 

Gulf Air & Scissors

If you have read the title of this story, you may be wondering what has a scissors got to do with Gulf Air? For a ten-year-old boy in the early 90’s the airline played a critical role in a barter transaction for something important to him. The interesting fact was that the airline itself had no clue that it was going to be a party to a life changing decision the boy was about to make.

Before I took the story any further, I had to take you back to my tiny state of Kerala in India. While the state of Kerala is one fifth the size of state of Washington, even in early 90s we had a considerable number of expats from the state, especially in the Middle East. One of them was my uncle and family who used to visit us once in a year from Muscat, the capital of Oman.

Uncle and family used to take the most famous airline from Middle East during those times, Gulf Air. Emirates was still in its infancy then. One of the most awaited events for my brother who was four years elder than me and I, after uncle reached my home, was unpacking of the bags. Those were the days when gifts from abroad were attributed very high value. It was the era before liberalisation in India, and we were yet to have foreign merchandise freely available in our country.

Among the gifts uncle came home with that time, was a pair of beautiful stainless-steel scissors with a transparent brown handle. The best part was the cutting action by the scissors which was so perfect that it was altogether a new experience for my brother and me. I was a bit jealous when my uncle extended that scissors as a gift to my brother. While I do not remember what exactly the gift was, I received that year, I definitely remember that I got something priceless that day.

Uncle’s eldest son was just two years younger to me, and we used to share similar vibes on our interests. He clearly knew my love for aviation and I appreciated anything unique that came with a Tflight. In this case, it was the inflight magazine of Gulf Air. Every year when he arrived at our place, he showed me the latest edition of the prized possession from the flight that time. He was quite generous and allowed me to have the only copy he managed to get from the flight. Thirty-five years later, all these sounded silly. But during those days, the magazine meant the world to me. I wonder what the editorial team at Gulf Air would have thought if they knew they had a die-hard fan of their magazine across the Arabian Sea in the tiny coastal land of Kerala!

Days went by and my wish for the beautiful looking pair of scissors only got stronger. I pleaded with my brother to give me the scissors, and I told him I would give him anything in return. I saw a diabolic twinkle in his eyes. He looked at the magazine from Gulf Air I was carrying as if it was the first edition of The Bible itself! He then looked at me and the scissors. No words were exchanged. The message was loud and clear.

I was in a dilemma. An incredibly special piece of equipment on one side. An absolute rare specimen of a magazine on the other side. The choice was quite tough. I had to take a decision quickly, else if my brother changed his mind, I may lose the scissors for ever. I took a deep breath and did some quick calculation. I realized that the barter is not as bad as it looked.

Another year and I was sure I will get the next in-flight magazine, but there was no guarantee that I will get a scissors of that calibre even though India started talking more about liberalization from 1991 onwards. With great difficulty, I agreed with my brother and took the possession of one of the most beautiful and useful tools I ever had in my life.

Happy and proud to say the same pair of scissors is still a part of my life and works like a charm. I must also add that, since this incident I lost count of the number of in-flight magazines that went through my hands. In fact, we all have reached a point in our lives, where I now hardly see anyone yearning for an in-flight magazine anymore. Many other material things took the position of prized possessions.

Good old days!