Vistara flights from 9 January 2015, and all that you need to know about flying them

Air Vistara, the joint venture between the Tatas and Singapore Airlines, will kick off flights from 9 January 2015, after proving flights were completed over the last couple of weeks and their Air Operator Permit was granted. Vistara flights are now available for booking on www.airvistara.com, and with travel portals and aggregators. Here's a low-down on what you need to know, based on information as of date.

Flight schedules

The first Vistara flight will be UK890 from DEL to BOM at 12:30 pm, and tickets are available for booking if you're interested in being on that first flight. The rest of the flight schedule, which covers DEL, AMD and BOM, is valid till 15 February 2014, and is as follows:

Travel class

Interestingly, Vistara promises a 3-class configuration that comprises business, premium economy and economy classes. No pictures are available yet, so here's a bit about each of these, (and you can find more here):

In business class

• 42 inches seat pitch and 7 inches seat recline
• extendable leg rest, foot rest, and height-adjustable headrest with wings​
• soft and cuddly cushion on every seat to provide additional back support
• personal storage space at the side of the seat, for small items such as glasses, a tablet, etc.

In premium economy class

• 33 to 36 inches seat pitch
• 4.5 inches seat recline (except for the row with 36 inches seat pitch)
• specially designed seat with improved seat-bottom and seatback cushion
• height adjustable winged headrests with longer armrest and larger tray table
• improved seat bottom cushion for support
• personal coat hook

In economy class

• 30 inches seat pitch with 18.1 inch seat-width
• 3.5 inches seat recline with longer armrests, winged headrests and larger tray table
• improved seat bottom cushion for support
• personal coat hook

Baggage allowances

Standard hand baggage rules apply. For checked in baggage, Business class will has a free allowance of 30 kgs, while premium economy and economy class will have 20 kgs and 15 kgs respectively. Naturally, there are charges for excess baggage, though a single piece of baggage cannot exceed 32 kgs.

In-flight dining

There was a bit of an early scare that suggested that economy class may not have on-board meals. However, that seems to have been clarified now, and economy class will indeed include meals. Expect fine linen and bone china tableware in business class (not unlike Jet, I suppose).

Checking in

Interestingly, Vistara's website suggests a 48-hour online check-in window for all passengers. Other airlines, eg Jet, allow a 48-hour window only for loyalty program elites and business class. There's also a Vistara app on the way, which will aid mobile check-in, but expect this to take a few weeks.

There's also a great option for checking in for your return flight if it is within 48 hours of the onward flight. Jet will allow you to do this (again, for elites and biz class only) but online. At the airport, return boarding passes aren't issued for flights more than 24 hours out. That's a plus-one for Vistara.

Finally, there's an interesting option called auto check in, which applies to bookings made on their website, by their Customer Service Centre or by agents using the Amadeus reservations system. If your booking is compatible with this feature and you have not done a self check-in by 4 hours to scheduled departure time, Vistara will auto check you on the flight and send your boarding pass via SMS or email. I am not sure if I'd like this, because I won't have control over seat selection. But let's wait and see.

Loyalty program

I'm sure this is one of the more interesting things that people are waiting for. There will indeed be a loyalty program from the get go, called Club Vistara. 

The program will have 3 levels - Club (base), Silver and Gold. Initial enrolment is at the Club level, and it will take 25,000 and 50,000 points from Club, to get to Silver and Gold levels respectively.

Importantly, Club Vistara will be a revenue-based program (loyalty points are accrued based on actual spend on the ticket fare rather than miles travelled), making it a first in Indian aviation. Having said that, Jet has made some recent changes to their program that move in quite the opposite direction. So I'm not sure if a revenue-based program will find many followers.

There is currently a 500-bonus points offer for sign-ups before 31 January 2015, which every good miles collector should latch on to! These will be credited once you take a flight within a month of enrolment, so please do watch your timing!

There's also an offer of 200 bonus points for bookings done on the airline's website. Again, this is valid for bookings made till 31 January 2015.

Personally, I don't think I'll be considering Vistara for my flights till I get to see what the award options are going to be.

In conclusion

I'm looking forward to better competition in the full-service carrier space, and Vistara will bring exactly that into the picture. In that space, I see competition for them coming more from Jet than from Air India. However, Indigo with its efficient operations and on-time performance is as good a competitor as anyone else, so I'd like to see how efficient Vistara's operations are. Also, Vistara will need to expand their operations beyond AMD, BOM and DEL, to be a truly pan-Indian airline. So in summary, there's a lot of action to be expected. I'll be updating stuff here on milesandevenmore, so keep watching this space.