welch@osu-eddie.UUCP (Arun Welch) (02/08/85)
I just went to India for Christmas, and I flew a combination of TWA
and Air India. I flew TWA to New York from Columbus, then Air India
from New York to New Delhi. On the way back I flew Air India from
New Delhi to Frankfurt, and then TWA to New York to Columbus. It cost
about $1800 for the trip. My sister flew the from New Orleans to New
York to New Delhi, and then back the same way, flying Air India for the
international sections and Eastern for the domestic, but her ticket was
only ~$1300. I don't know why there was such a discrepancy between the
two, unless TWA is incredibly expensive. Personally, I much preferred
the service on Air India. It was the best service I've had in years, on
any airline!
One word of warning. New Delhi Airport is a real pain to fly out of
the country from. You have to pay an airport tax of Rs. 100, then stand
in line to check in (on a passenger list, no less, not a CRT terminal), then
stand in line for immigration, then stand in line for Customs (too leave the
country!), then stand in line to get your seat assignment, then stand in
line to go through security, then stand in line to get on a bus which drives
you out to your plane out on the apron. All this takes at least 2 hours,
and at each point your name gets checked off on a copy of a passenger list.
It gets really tiresome after a while. I suspect that you have to go through
the same thing in the other international airports, but I may be wrong.
Otherwise, I had a great trip, and the dollar being so strong, I came back
with full suitcases. The conversion rate was somewhere around Rs. 12.50 for
$1.00.
--
Arun Welch
Ohio State University
...!cbosgd!osu-eddie!welchjis1@ahuta.UUCP (j.mukerji) (02/10/85)
I travelled by SAS from New York to Calcutta via Copenhagen and back, including a one night stopover at Copenhagen on the way back, payed for by SAS. The fare was $1100 round-trip. I have heard rumors that the flight to Calcutta from Copenhagen has been replaced by a flight to Delhi since then. Yes, International travel from Airports in India are a pain in general. Too many lines, and too long waits. I try to arrive in India and depart from India through one of the lesser travelled international airports. The choices as they stand now are: Calcutta, Madras, Trivandrum and Amritsar. The delays in lines are considerably less at these airports. However, you do have to spend some time researching low fares to these airports. I did research some before going to India late last year. My first surprise was that Air-India is nowhere near the least expensive way of getting to India anymore. In particular, I researched going to Calcutta, and besides the SAS deal, which I took, I found three others. They are: 1) New York to Amsterdam by your favourite discount trans-atlantic and then Bangladesh Biman from there to Calcutta via Dacca. I am told that their service is pretty reasonable. The fare at that time worked out to about $1000. 2) New York to Copenhagen or Luxembourg by your favourite discount trans-atlantic, and then Aeroflot from there to Calcutta via Moscow. Again the fare worked out to about $1000+. 3) New York to Copenhagen via SAS and then Thai from there to Calcutta via Bangkok. Same fare as SAS all the way to Calcutta, but takes more time. I chose the SAS deal because it was the most attractive when fare, timings and other conveniences were concerned. If I were really pinching for the last penny, I would have taken the discount-trans-atlantic/Bangladesh-Biman deal. Fares, specially trans-atlantic fares change so frequently these days that nothing that I have mentioned may hold good any more! Jishnu Mukerji AT&T Information Systems Labs. Holmdel NJ
sohail@terak.UUCP (Sohail M. Hussain) (02/11/85)
> I just went to India for Christmas... > It cost about $1800 for the trip. My sister flew ... > but her ticket was only ~$1300. I think that the rates do vary quite a bit, but a even greater factor is finding a nice travel agent (from our part of the world) who will give you a better price. I think that now that we have this news group, we should be able to find such travel agents, and not spend so much money on our travels. sohail -- Sohail Hussain uucp: ...{decvax,hao,ihnp4,seismo}!noao!terak!sohail phone: 602 998 4800 us mail: Terak Corporation, 14151 N 76th street, Scottsdale, AZ 85260
murthy@uiucdcsb.UUCP (02/11/85)
I am rather surprised to see that the fare was as much as $1800. I traveled to India during the same time period. I paid $1350 for a return ticket from Chicago to Hyderabad (India), via New York, London, and Bombay. I traveled by TWA from Chicago to NY, by Air-India from NY to Bombay, and by the Indian Airlines the rest of the way. One should approach Indian Travel Agencies for bargain prices. This is the second time I traveled by Air-India. I liked it very much on my first trip, so I chose it the second time. My experience on flight from Bombay to NY was disturbing. There were two Americans sitting by my side. The cabin crew paid unnecessarily more attention to them than to me. Effectively my needs were ignored while the crew was trying to impress the Americans. I heard that this behavior is typical of Air-India. Non-Indians get better services. Next time I am flying British Airways or PanAm. (It costs the same amount). Getting out of India is now very time consuming and irritating because the Govt is trying to prevent the Sikh militants from leaving the country. At the `exit immigration' your name is fed into a computer. If it clears fine, otherwise you are doomed.
srini@ut-sally.UUCP (Srinivasan Sundararajan) (02/13/85)
A flight out of the west coast seems to be the most promising.
Singapore Airlines charged me $1075 for a round trip between
Los Angeles and Madras, and this included a 5-day stopover in Singapore
(hotel stay was on me, of course). The full price is around $1500/1600,
but my travel agency, Maharajah Travel's, Houston, gave me a sizeable
reduction.
Alok, the travel agent, is filled with a Punjabi's bonhomie, so be
careful not to get engaged in a "LONG" distance conversation.
The only problem of flying this route is the Madras Airport, which is
ablsolutely the MOST inefficient airport in India now.
( The other airports only vying for second place !). Be warned.
Bon Voyage
--
{ihnp4,harvard,seismo,gatech,ctvax}!ut-sally!srini
srini@ut-sally.ARPA