{"id":10709,"date":"2015-01-17T18:49:08","date_gmt":"2015-01-17T13:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/travel.paintedstork.com\/blog\/?p=10709"},"modified":"2015-01-18T08:31:36","modified_gmt":"2015-01-18T03:01:36","slug":"air-costa-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.paintedstork.com\/blog\/2015\/01\/air-costa-review.html","title":{"rendered":"Air Costa Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Air<\/a>This December, I had a chance to fly Air Costa, one of the newer airlines to operate in India.\u00a0I\u00a0travelled from Jaipur<\/a> to Bangalore\u00a0and my first impressions are fairly positive. A year before, in December 2013, I had chosen a larger airline to fly on the same route although Air Costa’s prices were the lowest when I booked. But I was unsure about travelling with a small and new airline and decided to play safe. This time, when a flight search showed up low-fares on Air Costa again, I decided to take it.<\/p>\n

It has been more than a year\u00a0since Air Costa is\u00a0operating. They\u00a0are currently connecting nine cities across India, mostly in the south except Ahmedabad and Jaipur. Here is a quick look at my first impressions of the airline.<\/p>\n

Comfort<\/h3>\n

This is one area where Air Costa scores very high. With their smaller Brazilian made Embraer Aircraft, none of their flights\u00a0have middle seats. The 2+2 seating relieves the pain of\u00a0getting sandwiched between two other passengers in a cramped fuselage.\u00a0The interiors feel lot less claustrophobic and lot more comfortable than most long haul flights.<\/p>\n

The cabin is fairly clean and well-kept. They do not have an in-flight magazine to kill time, so\u00a0don’t forget to pack a\u00a0book or two for the way. I did not take a look at the luggage space above, since I almost always leave my bag under the seat. But with only 4 passengers per row instead of six, I expect there shouldn’t be\u00a0a need to rush and\u00a0board first to find enough space for your baggage.<\/p>\n

When it comes to space and legroom, it appeared\u00a0that Air Costa fares well. I haven’t felt particularly inconvenienced in any aircraft and same was true with my Air Costa flight too. But with just two seats instead of three,\u00a0I felt that I had a lot more space around me. Comfort level of the seats are on par with other airlines.<\/p>\n

On board experience<\/h3>\n

Air Costa is a low-cost\u00a0airline, so do not expect complementary refreshments or attentive service. The crew are fairly competent although I wouldn’t rate them best in class. The\u00a0captain of my aircraft made it a point to address the passengers at the beginning, mid-way and at the end, which seems to have become a standard practice for most domestic airlines now.<\/p>\n

There aren’t a lot of choices\u00a0in the on-board\u00a0menu. But prices are much less than other airlines.<\/p>\n

There wasn’t anything particularly exciting about the on board experience. There wasn’t anything to complain either.<\/p>\n

On time performance<\/h3>\n

My aircraft took off from Jaipur in good time. Being a smaller aircraft, boarding was complete much faster than what it would take for an A320 or B737.\u00a0Boarding was complete\u00a0well before departure and I wished they took off early too, but they didn’t. We flew out of Jaipur in the exact hour and arrived in Bangalore a few\u00a0minutes before the scheduled time.<\/p>\n

Just one on-time departure may not be a good indication of on time performance of an airline. So, I looked up DGCA data<\/a> for November 2014 for more information. DGCA doesn’t provide on time performance data for smaller airlines, but a few other statistics were interesting. In November 2014, Air Costa had –<\/p>\n