How LOW is your cost of travelling by air?

Back in June of 2005, was the first time I flew a low cost airline. The concept of low cost air travel was fledgling at that time, and a lot was done to create an attraction for it. But since that journey I think most of my travel has used airplanes in part or whole( btw travelling to Pune from Mumbai is not counted as travel by me!!). Infact in recent times i remember having dropped travel plans altogether if I dont find good air connectivity to my desired destination. Not to forget, after my first low cost airline travel, I lived in Kanpur for a whole year and travel from Kanpur to Pune (my home town) was always partially done by air. Reasons were simple:

• Far too convenient: For the very short vacations that I used to get in IITK, it made very little sense to train from Kanpur to Mumbai and then change trains to pune ( there werent any direct kanpur -pune trains then). Travel time by using air partially, was reduced to one half. Thus increasing the time I spent with family at home!!
• Safety & Security: The sleepless nights that my parents incurred owing to my long( mumbai to kanpur by pushpak express was approx. 22 hr long journey) train travel to notrious UP, had no other solution except changing the mode of travel from train to plane - at leaset partially (though from Delhi I always had to take a train).
• Low cost wave: For middle lass families like mine air travel on the low cost airline could well be juxtaposed to AC 3 tier train travel, and hence had become warrantable.

Time passed and the last of the three reasons for choosing air travel just kept diminishing. The taxes on low cost airline when they started out was approx. Rs. 500, and today they are more than Rs. 2000. Which is clearly more than 3.5 times, even if I adjust for inflation in the 3 years, that have passed since the advent of the concept. But factor one clearly outdoes this 3.5 times increase in costs, so it doesnt bother someone like me to drop travel plans for the sheer limitation of available flights.

Am i only complaining about the increased taxes in airfares, or is there more??

Well, where I came from was that on Friday I happened to visit the Chhatrpati Shivaji international airports' domestic terminal. For all those, who have already begun to guess that it was another of my 4 am ventures, lemme tell u, how i wish it was, and infact the last time I did see-off someone there, I walked all the way back to my house (which must be a good 6-7 km from the domestic terminal) at 10 pm( only wishing had it been 4 am instead of 10 pm). Believe me, the 7 km stroll was extremely invigorating, introspective & inspiring; reason being i was all alone with myself, there was a relative lull on Mumbai roads that day & I did manage to make up for bunking gym & eating mysore masala dosa that day.

Coming back to why i was at CSIA on Friday, I had to pick up Dad & join him in his cab to Pune. Daddy was coming from Delhi, and since Pune airport is functional only between 11 am & 5 pm, his meeting which got over well past 4 pm, didnot permit him to catch a flight direct to Pune. He took a flight to Mumbai instead, and had wanted himself driven down to Pune. That was incidental expense #1 of those dependant too much on air travel. Here I would like to highlight another peril that too many airlines & low cost services have posed to smaller city airports like the one in Pune. Pune's airport orignally belonged to the IAF & wasnt used to the amount of wear-n-tear that it has undergone in recent times, so in order to keep its rigor under control, while preparing it for more rigor, the Pune airport doesnot function round the clock.

For the information of all those, who have never visited the CSIA domestic terminal or for those who had visited it more than a year ago. Mumbai dometic airport has broken all bounds of imagination in terms of the infrastructural poshness. The CSIA which was a once a near to ordeal experinece has now transformed into sheer delight!! However, that doesnt reduce the woes of air travellers who anyway pay the incidental expenses of airtravel.

So on Friday, i was one of those who was paying the incidental expense of my dad's travel by air. I took my office cab towards andheri station, which dropped me on the western express highway. I tried to hail an auto towards the airport, only to be told that he maynot be able to take me all the way into the airport area because then he will have to qeueue up in a long line to get his next passenger. So it was time to pay incidental expense #2. I thought to myself that the airport was only 2.5 kms from where I was standing, and I can never discount the idea of walking a km or two on days when I bunk gym. So I began to walk towards the airport, also relieved by my Dad's phone call which said that his flight had just landed. I made it just in time, when my Dad appeared at the arrival gate. As we walked through the spic n span pathways of the airport, my dad's attention was occupied in figuring out his cab driver's arrival status. When he informed us that he would take another 20 mins to make it to the airport, Dad & I decided to do petpooja at the pristine Balaji restaturant(though veg. restaurants are never our choice, we didnt have much choice then), right next to the arrivals. that is where we ended up paying incidental expense # 3. While most of the food felt slightly over-priced by the standards of the restaurant, the tandoori roti was just not acceptably priced. For Rs. 25 a roti, I thought we had the most average tandoori roti of our life. Anyway, that is what a "shanghai-style" city airports will charge u. And now i know why GMR doesnt advertise carrying lighter wallets, to those who are "getting ready for India", because they are "getting India ready for them" instead. ;)

From experiences on different occassions, I can tell that incidental expense #4 could well have been paying autowalas, more than the meter suggests. For all Delhites, who have done this all their life, and are thinking what is new about paying more than what the meter reads, or rather for the very typical delhites 'meter-ye kis chidiya ka naam hai', let me tell u, in mumbai except while travelling out of the airport, you shall never ever be asked for more than what reads on the meter. I pay autowala bhaiya a ten rupee bill every morning while coming to office, and he most sincerely returns the 1-rupee for my 9-rupee ride. i am often embaressed taking the 1-rupee from him, because what follows 'walking into an MNC bank's back-office' just doesnt justify it. But then thats Mumbai!! They say, you hate it as long as you are here, but you just dont stop missing it once you are gone from here.

Well, in my case the first line of the saying is for sure true, for the second i am desperately waiting for the opportunity to experience what happens when I am gone from here. Dont know when that would happen, but I know that there are quite a few incidental expenses associated with air travel, which is what this article was suppose to be about....sorry, i wandered a bit too much :P