Domestic air travel tools – my choices
With hordes of airlines invading the Indian skies, it is no wonder that a bunch of travel-related sites (yatra, makemytrip, ghumo,mobissimo,travelguru, …) have sprung up in recent times. After going through most of the sites soon after they were launched, I have chosen two for their simplicity and user-friendliness.
The first is a travel agent Clear Trip http://cleartrip.com/ run by very experienced people. I ended up on the site courtesy a typo. But the choice was instant. It is quite similar to an US portal Kayak http://www.kayak.com/, a fact pointed out by my cousin. I booked a Jet ticket cheaper than on the Jet site! I had to cancel the ticket and though it involved quite a laborious process, ClearTrip was very helpful and I could get back the money quite quickly. Maybe, my expectations were low. I still remember their first letter where the CEO wrote to me, me being one of their early shoppers. One glitch with them is that they don’t have Air Deccan on their rolls yet. Now they have also expanded to hotels in India.
23 Dec Update: Hrush from ClearTrip comments that now they have included Air Deccan. Way to go!
Jan 2007 update: cleartrip has special offers from airlines like Indian, Deccan, Sahara and more, making it a clear choice! My wish is that it includes all airlines in its list soon.
The second is a travel search bot, called Zoomtra (still in Beta) http://www.zoomtra.com/. It is not a travel agent and just fetches you the cheapest deals on at the moment. The site is simple and is an instant hit with me too. It is quite intuitive too. The best thing about it is it includes almost all the airlines I would use (Air Deccan, Indigo, Go Air, Paramount, Spice Jet) and the others too (Jet, Air India, Indian, Sahara, Kingfisher). My friend has used the site and is quite pleased that she doesn’t have to search through all these 10 different sites.
PS: I am still looking for a good and cheap site for international travel to and from India. I guess, the ‘real’ travel agents would still be the best bets for them.
Jan 2007 Update: I try Flightraja (http://www.flightraja.com) and find that it is decent. As its CEO Vinay comments here, it has all the airlines. But I haven’t used the site to book any tickets and so I have no idea about its service delivery. Also, I just found a lens on Squidoo found here, which extensively analyses most of these websites save ghumo and ixigo. This lens also led me to the Indian travel deal site, TravelMela (http://www.tripmela.com/).
sparkworks 
Hi,
Have you tried Trabber? It is a search engine that aggregate air fares directly from online travel agencies and airlines’ websites. Here is the address: http://www.trabber.com
oh dan,
Trabber is not very relevant to Indian local flights. It could be useful for international flights, I suppose. A lot of Spanish! 🙂
Hi,
We hope to create a Indian version of Trabber.com in the future. Any feedback to improve the site will be welcomed.
Regards.
Hi Sparkie,
Nice revamp to the webpage, looks cool!
Never travelled/booked tickets to flights within India. So no clue. :–(
I heard from friends that Air Deccan was like a rickety rockety bus. And that Kingfisher is a classy one to take. :–D
well sk,
thanks for the appreciation. i love it.
well, i have used air deccan once and everything was right with it. the service, the punctuality, … i liked it. even i’ve heard tales from lotsa folks about it. but from personal experience, it was good. in any case, deccan’s fares are cheaper than kingfisher’s. the clincher is that deccan is the only airline having a flight to thoothukudi.
dan,
hope you have an indian version soon. 🙂
for domestic travel you should also give yatra.com flightraja.com and travelguru.com a shot. I also like rediff.com farecast model where it tells you next 1 month which is the best day to fly and cheapest airline to fly
hi sid,
thanks for your comment. yatra and travelguru are not simple interfaces. yet to see flightraja. of course, rediff farecast serves a different purpose if you are flexible with the dates!
Hey,
Just FYI, Cleartrip features Air Deccan now:
http://blog.cleartrip.com
cheers,
Hrush
hey hrush,
that is simply awesome. thank you very much. keep them coming!
Your search for the travel portal of your choice starts and ends here. Every airline flying in India.
Regards,
Vinay
CEO
http://www.flightraja.com — We have all airlines since March, this year, the others are trying very Hard, to catch up. The race has just begun….
Hi Vinay,
I went through your site as well. Flightraja is cool, that’s my second option now! The choices it offers are the most from my limited tries.
Hi there,
iXiGO is launching in private beta very soon. We will have all airlines in India from day 1 🙂
– Aloke
http://www.ixigo.com
Hi Aloke,
I’m waiting to try iXiGo 🙂
hi,
the demo of ixigo at the proto was remarkable. waiting for them to go live
cheers
Badri
hi,
the demo of ixigo at the proto was remarkable. waiting for them to go live
I have some questions for them check out http://blog.nrichsoft.in/2007/01/22/ixigo-the-way-to-go/
Badri
Thanks Badri for your comments. I’m eagerly anticipating ixigo now. I’ve subscribed to its mailing list and hope to get a chance to test it quickly. It definitely looks exciting!
Make sure you get a look at the latest Air Travel Rules too, this will save you a lot of grief and hassle at the check-in…
I Liked the Post and I Must say the site http://www.zoomtra.com is doing a commendable job. They search out the best deal and show non biased listing. They do search for hotels also. I belive their revenue model is pure advertising.Thanks for introducing the site.
Good Inputs.
Dear Spark,
You are invited to try out the beta version of iXiGO at http://www.ixigo.com – the travel search engine India has been waiting for.
iXiGO.com
Hi, I’d like to know if I can use any of these sites to book a flight within India, while i am still in the US.(i am a US resident)
Thanks