Low budget all the way

Air Deccan can help book low frills hotels to maximise your savings.

What is it?
Looking for budget hotels? You can book them along with your low fare tickets. How? Well, log on to Air Deccan's website or dial up their call centres, select your destination city and make your hotel bookings.

Why are we writing about it?
Low fare air tickets and Air Deccan were synonymous for a while before the low cost bug bit the other airlines in India. Then the low cost carrier decided to not just offer low fares, but also went on to add destinations to the aviation map. Now, they are looking to offer low cost hotels as well. And not too far in the future the airline will offer low cost holiday packages and cheap car rental services.

What's in it for me?
As Air Deccan has tied up with the travel portal Travelguru, you have access to the travel website's database of nearly 3,000 hotels across the country of which about 1,500 are budget hotels. We did a rough search to give you an idea of the prices they offer. A day-long stay in a deluxe room in central Delhi would cost you about Rs 1,500, while a family room could cost you approximately Rs 3,500. In comparison, a deluxe room will cost nearly Rs 6,000 in Kolkata.

However, if one were to go by what the airline says, budget hotels are available for as low as Rs 375. So there is no way to avoid trawling the website. But to sweeten the deal, the airline now offers a free air ticket for every hotel booking made before June-end.

Where do I book?
Log on to Air Deccan's website www.flyairdeccan.net or call up their 24/7 call centre at (080) 39008888.

Take it or leave it?
Well, Travelguru claims to have the largest database of hotels among all the travel portals in the country "" others like Makemytrip and Yatra have about 2,000 hotels. Also, the portal has user reviews and photographs of most of the hotels. So you can get a review of the hotels. And last but not the least, the convenience of booking both your flight and stay at one go.

However, this is not a first. Jet Airways has joined hands with another online travel agency, Travelocity (www. travelocity.co.in) so that you can now make hotel bookings on the Jet website (www.jetairways.com). Take your pick!

SNIPPETS

Celebrations!
GoAir has announced its special GoCelebrate Offer, a unique offering that allows customers to plan and book tickets to celebrate the upcoming festive season beginning July to September 2007 for tickets priced as low as Rs 225 across all GoAir destinations.

GoCelebrate offer has prices starting at Rs 225 for short haul flights between Mumbai-Goa, Ahmedabad-Delhi and Rs 525 for long haul flights like Mumbai-Delhi, Mumbai-Jaipur, Bangalore-Mumbai, Mumbai-Chennai.

More exciting are 20,000 tickets at Rs 0 fare for flights between Mumbai-Ahmedabad, Delhi-Jaipur, Bangalore-Cochin, Hyderabad-Chennai and Srinagar-Jammu. The offer for booking tickets will be valid from May 21-25 for travel between July to September 2007, and passengers can log on to www.goair.in to avail the offer.

Shopper's start
Nok Air, the Thai low fare airline, announced its first international flight, with the launch of the first Thai budget carrier to fly to Bangalore by June. Tagged the "shopper's airline", Nok Air flies to Bangkok, a shopper's paradise. It plans to give the Indian flying public an opportunity to experience shopping at South-east Asia's biggest shopping complex, Siam Paragon, to the vibrant Chatuchak weekend market, and everywhere between, all over the city and beyond. Nok Air will operate daily flights from Bangkok to Bangalore, using a Boeing 737-400.

Parking lots
The new Hyderabad International Airport in Shamshabad is all set to bring in world-beating services. The first step towards it is an automated parking management system at the airport premises. This will facilitate quick entry and exit from the parking points and reduce dwell time, streamline the entire traffic movement around the parking area and build MIS systems to support future planning and development.

The Parking Management System will be managed by Tenaga Parking (India), a part of the Malaysia-based Tenaga Group, for three years, which can be extended further on mutual agreement. Currently, Tenaga Group manages the parking facilities across Malaysia, Sri Lanka and India.

View finder
Kingfisher Airlines has announced its plans to introduce a landscape camera system onboard all its Aairbus aircraft. Kingfisher Airlines' third A321 aircraft will come with this special feature already installed onboard.

The modification involves installation of two cameras near the nose landing gear. Each of the cameras weighs about 4.5 kilos and will enable guests onboard to see the scenic view on-ground on their personalised screens.