Jet or Sahara

Among other things I experienced by virtue of my trip to Bangalore, I got a chance to fly Sahara Airlines to Bangalore and Jet Airlines on the way back. As the Jet vs Sahara debate rages on, the arguments for and against each party have been anything if not partisan. I'm going to try and present a more objective analysis of the experiences I had flying the 2 airlines. Here are my arguments, in what I think is a reasonably structured format:

Fares
This is the most important category given that I'm a budget traveller. There is only a marginal difference in the fares offered by both the airlines on the routes of my interest. The scores:
Jet - 5, Sahara - 5

Service
It is in this category that Jet nudges ahead of Sahara. The in-flight, check-in and ticketing crew are thorough professionals and extremely accommodating. By virtue of being the biggest private airline in India, Jet also has more counters, more personnel and the queues at its counters are therefore shorter. The scores:
Jet - 5, Sahara - 4

The Flying Experience
It in this category that Jet soars (no puns intended) over Sahara. The cabin is roomier, the food is better, the in-flight service is better, the choice of reading material during the flight is better, the announcements are clearer during the flight and barring technical difficulties, Jet flights are on-time. The scores:
Jet - 5, Sahara - 3

Website
I'm part of the Internet generation and hate going to an intermediary (also called an AGENT) to book tickets. So when I wanted to book my tickets, my first avenue of exploration was the airlines website. I really liked the Sahara website over the Jet website. The Sahara website was not pretentious and navigation was more intuitive - for instance, I knew exactly how to get to the auctions page for Sahara's flexi-fares offerings but I couldn't find the page for Jet at all. Overall, Sahara's website is neater and over my dial-up connection from home, it loaded up faster than did the site for Jet. A final note, Sahara's tie-up with Indiatimes auctions is a boon for its customers - Keep up the good work on the site. The scores:
Jet - 3, Sahara - 5

The Final Tally
Jet - 18, Sahara - 17

This analysis isn't scientific by any means even though you might be fooled into believing it is :) As you can see, very little separates the two airlines from each other. I haven't written about the excess baggage issue but I'm all for airlines charging customers for excess baggage - that's justice of some sorts for people like me who travel light when flying domestic.

And before I close, don't even think of flying Indian Airlines :) The National carrier really needs to wake up and smell the coffee or else, it'll be relegated to the fringes of the domestic flying market.

Sahara - http://www.airsahara.net/
Jet - http://www.jetairways.com/