Flight review: On Board Go First A320 Bengaluru – Mumbai

BENGALURU – After the Government of India lifted price cap airfares seems to have reduced drastically on certain routes. I found an amazing deal on Go First airlines on their BLR-BOM sector, so I decided to take it up as it had been long since I flew with them.

Go First – Bengaluru to Mumbai

Flight Details:

Flight Number – G8 395
Departure Airport – Kempegowda International Airport (Bengaluru)
Arrival Airport – Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (Mumbai)
Registration – VT-WGV, 4.1 Years old during the time of flight
Aircraft Type – Airbus A320 NEO

Pre-Check-in Experience

Go First has website and apps which are full of bugs, for starters I tried to “Web Check-in” on their App during which I wanted to pay and select a seat of my choice but for some reason the website was charging me Rs.100 for seat No.22E (Middle seat) and when I tried to edit and select a seat of my choice but then the app displayed “Forbidden”.

I then decided to close the app and use their website, to my shock when I entered my PNR and last name on “Web Check-in” page it displayed as “Error: Trip does not exist”. I was horrified at this time as I had another connecting flight to catch with different airline so I went ahead and dialled up Go First customer support team.

Once the agent was assigned and I explained the issue, he said that he would do check-in from his end and for some reason he said only 15A is available for window seat (whereas later next day at counter they said they have other seats at the back available).

Arrival at Bengaluru Airport

Kempegowda International Airport (Bengaluru) is quite far from city (around 45km from my house), and sometimes the cab charges are almost half the fare of one’s flight, so I always leave early and use the public transport it gets me to airport in around 45-60 minutes and doesn’t cost much ($2 to be precise).

Bengaluru Airport is one of the most spacious airports in the country, I had arrived almost 4 hours prior to my departure time as I had meeting to attend, and I did not want to take any chance with the city’s traffic.

The Departures terminal at Bengaluru airport

Check-in at Bengaluru Airport

Go First had only 5-6 counters and it was quite empty so no hassle here, when I reached the counter I found the check-in agents to be not so friendly after dropping my bag I asked for a print out of boarding card for which he rudely shooed me away to a self-check-in KIOSK.

Once again I had some error, so I went back and explained to him, for which he rudely told me to wait as he was out of paper – I mean like there is a way agents deal with such situation here, but I felt like he blamed me for it. After 10 minutes wait I was finally able to proceed towards the security check.

Go First airline check-in counter at Bengaluru Airport.

Security Check at Bengaluru Airport

The security check area was big enough and had enough counters so that passengers could be processed quickly and efficiently. Always happy to finish this section of the travel quickly.

Lounge at Bengaluru Airport

Plaza Premium is one of the lounge operators in Bengaluru Domestic Airport, as I always mention everyone in India has access to lounge by using their credit/debit cards. Luckily today it wasn’t much crowded, and I was easily able to find a spot. I sat there and enjoyed my cup of coffee and spent almost 3 hours.

Boarding Experience

I reached my gate and found out that flight is delayed by around 30 minutes due to in late arrival of the inbound flight. After a delay of 40 minutes, they finally started boarding, once again boarding was a total chaos (unlike IndiGo), and somehow I got on board. The crew greeted us and was very active throughout the journey. More on this in the next section.

The Seat

The seat is as you would expect it to be on an LCC – leg room was decent for a guy of my size, though I did notice that the seat belt was worn out and had to be replaced. There was a in-flight menu (I had already pre-ordered my meal for this flight), and a Go First magazine along with the safety card.

In-flight Service

Soon after take-off the cabin crew started meal service, I had pre-ordered “Samosa with masala chai” combo. When I received my ordered I opened the box only to find it to be full of oil dripping on the food was so bad like I cannot even explain. I felt any road side eatery would have prepared better food than this.

It was totally not worth it – such disgusting food I have never had on-board any flight in India. I decided to just not eat it (better to stay hungry than have a bad stomach the entire day!)

Arrival at Mumbai

We arrived after a delay of nearly 60 minutes, Mumbai’s T1 has nothing much to be spoken about as it is old and very outdated as well as overcrowded. I had to exit and catch a bus to go to T2 from where I had next flight to Delhi on-board SpiceJet (Review for the same will uploaded soon)

Conclusion

Go First definitely needs to improve a lot overall. Except for an amazing crew, everything was wrong in this trip from check-in to pre-booked meal everything was a disappointment. I definitely think with a young fleet of Airbus aircraft, this airline has a lot of potential but it needs to get its services in order to be back in competition with airlines like Indigo.

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