Airliners-India.com

JETFLY787 · Member Joined: 15 Aug 2007 Posts: 343 Location: LON,UK

Well before I start I just wanted to let you guys know this is my first trip report so please don’t be very harsh... Very Happy

BACKGROUND
Well my 2nd Semester exams at Edinburgh University were about to end and I thought of taking a much needed break from Edinburgh to start with as I hadn’t left the city for at least 5 months and I was kinda bored of it. So I needed some locational change. So I thought I'd go to London for 10-12 days to my sister’s place and enjoy my time over there but the problem was that she was leaving for Thailand so no place to stay. You don’t really expect me to stay in a hotel being a student. In fact I was actually bored of UK as I had practically seen every major city in the 3 years I have stayed here but I love London though this time I had nowhere to go. So just for fun I thought I'd check some airfares to Delhi. Not that I was expecting anything cheap since my journey had to start at Edinburgh. Well to be frank you do get some cheap fares like for example, on KLM, but then you have to book at least 45 days earlier.
I checked quite a number of websites for a flight out of EDI but there was nothing below £500 during that time. So i checked for flights out of LHR. To my absolute disbelief I found some amazing 1 week advance fares like from £269 on QR via DOHA to £890 on EK on the day I was looking for. Even the Direct flights on AI/9W were very cheap whereas BA/VS were in the £400 above range. Finally I bought an AI ticket for an amazing £294 return. Now this would be my first trip with AI ever and I thought that after hearing all the bad reviews over the years and then reading some amazing reports on A.net about AI's 77L service I thought why not and since they fly the 77W on the London route. But Before I could buy the air ticket i had to fix my EDI-LHR link. Flights on the particular day were not cheap to my surprise. Even BD was about £170 return. So I chucked the idea of flying to London and take the bus or train. Now the there is a direct bus to Heathrow on National Express the main bus operator of the UK but that takes 9 hrs to reach Heathrow and the fact that I had travelled by bus before to Central London from Edinburgh prompted me against it as it reminded me of my severe back aches on the days that followed the bus journey. So since the bus was out the last link was a train link. Now again to my bad luck even the train was expensive and I thought I’d probably chuck the idea of spending so much for a 10 days trip back home even though I really wanted it. So this time i check on the Virgin trains via Birmingham and as luck would have it I booked my return to London for a nice £26 with a 1 hr stop and connection at Birmingham both ways which wasn’t really bad at all. So finally I booked all the tickets and I was ready to rock and roll....well I mean fly.

TRAIN

Date: 20th May 09
Edinburgh-London via Birmingham (Train)
STD- 0644 Hrs/STA- 1354 Hrs including 1 hour wait in Birmingham
ATD-0644 Hrs/ATA- 1350 Hrs
Cross Country Trains

It’s a short 15 min walk to the station from my University accommodation and excited about my trip, I didn’t sleep the whole night. On reaching the station it seemed I had come to an abandoned station as i hardly saw anyone this early which is weird for a very busy station like Edinburgh. Reaching at least 30 minutes before the departure time i had enough time to buy breakfast which i did gladly waiting for my train to pull in at the station. Soon a brightly silver liveried 4 coach train pulled up at the station number 2 of the Edinburgh station but we were not allowed to board the train as of now. 10 minutes before departure the doors were opened and we boarded the train. I didn’t quite realise how fast the 10 minutes passed as i was still stacking my luggage on the luggage rack when the train started moving on schedule. My coach was absolutely empty and i was the only person on board which wasn’t really bad as i could choose any unreserved seat i wished. The next stop for the train came after about 1 hr known as ‘Alnwick’ which is a small station but it sure did have loads of travellers as the coach got filled to capacity. The next stop was Newcastle at about another 30 mins. At this station a lady boarded and sat next to me who was returning to ‘Reading’ after spending 3 weeks with her grand children in Newcastle. At first i thought she wouldn’t be very old looking at her she seemed no more than 55 but I was startled to hear she was 71 years old. Now generally old women love to talk and this one was no different. She in fact was actually quite sweet and showed me photographs of her grandchildren. Besides she also asked about me and where I was from and what I did. Talking with her actually made the train journey less boring and the remaining 4 hrs went by quite fast. An interesting topic of discussion with the lady was about the movie ‘Slumdog millionaire’ and she told me that she didn’t quite like the movie as she had seen India before and its much better than what was portrayed in the movie which was really good to hear. Finally, after passing many stations like York, Leeds and Sheffield, our train finally reached Birmingham. Now, I had to wait 1 Hr for my next train and i thought i go up to the waiting area for a cup of coffee. Now Birmingham station is like Delhi Airport before refurbishment. Too many people, too less space but now DEL T2 is very pleasant and much better than the tired structure it used to be when i left Delhi in 2005.
My next train was a Virgin Trains Pendolino service to London Euston station. I really like this trains and the tilting behaviour of these trains at curves. This journey was a short 1 hr 20 minute ride and we in fact reached 4 minutes Early which was sad as i enjoyed this train ride more. Now it was lunch time and since i had enough time to kill i thought i grab a quick lunch before going to the airport. Now the problem i faced was hauling my luggage in which i had got some stuff for home which made it very heavy. So I had a hard time taking it up and down the London underground stations which for some reason had faulty escalators waiting for me. But I soon reached the airport and I was at least 3 hrs early before check-in commenced at 6 pm.So I just kept wandering about the airport like a mad man. Anyway time soon passed and I was soon able to drop my bags as I had already checked in Online.

FLIGHT
LHR (T3)-DEL (T2)
Date: 20th May 09
AIR INDIA 112
Aircraft: Boeing 777-300ER
Registration: VT-ALJ (Bihar)
STD: 21:30 HRS/ STA 10:50+1 HRS
ATD: 21:15 Hrs/ATA 10:05+1 Hrs
SEAT: Economy 18K
Load factor: F: Unknown, J: 54%, Y: 61% (Approx.)
Runway: 27L

Now at check-in the desk was handled by staff which belonged to some contracted company and not AI. The check-in agent handling my case was new and was probably being trained on the job so thats why it took a while for her to check me in. My bags were tagged to DEL and my pre fixed seat assigned to me.
Since I had another 2 and a half hrs to kill i decided to have a cup of coffee at one of the coffee shops on the departures level of T3
In all the excitement of going home what i forgot at this point was to take out my camera lying in my rucksack and click photos of the terminal .So sorry guys no terminal photos.
At 730 pm i proceeded for security check which as expected took ages with me and everything that belonged to me coming under the scanner. Shoes off laptops out, but everything was handled very professionally. It was funny to see the security staff having a little hard time dealing with the hundreds of Indian Passengers on the 4 India bound flights, AI/VS/9W to Del and 9W BOM , all leaving within 30 minutes of each other. I was surprised to see the security staff asking women travellers to take off their bangles..dont know why. After security I checked out the duty free offers but didn’t spend much time there and I proceeded for boarding.
What followed was a looooong walk to departure gate 27 but I was there soon anyway. I finally remembered that I had a camera with me so i stopped and started clicking a few pics.

In fact now I was kinda excited to see the planes so i went further to the other departure gates and clicked more pics. Now boarding commenced at 2015 which was rather early for a flight which had more than an hour left to depart. I guess AI is taking its On time Performance really seriously this time but I wasn’t complaining. I was greeted by beautiful AI air hostess and flight steward who seemed to be in her early 30 and him in his early 40s. I was directed to my seat which was the 2nd row of the Economy section right next to the huge GE90-115BL power plants (I reckon that’s the one). Slowly the clock ticked 9 pm and to my surprise again i heard the captain ask the crew to arm the doors which meant that boarding was over and we were actually ready to get going 30 minutes prior to departure time. Meanwhile a mid aged air hostess came by to me and the girl sitting next to me and suggested that if we wished one of us could move to the centre seats and use them to sleep as they were empty . The girl decided to move and both of us had three full seats to us. Finally we pushed back at 21:15 hrs 15 minutes before schedule. After a rather short taxi we ended up on the runway and were soon charging down it. While the flight was marginally full the take off role was rather long. Could it that it was near its MTOW due to cargo. But anyway it was very cool climb to the west of London with the GE engines sound like music to the ears.
Soon we turned 180 degrees to the right and were soon near the dockland region which could be spotted at a distance.
Once we levelled out, the seat belt signs were switched off and the mood lighting was switched on which was very pleasant. The flight was generally uneventful with frequent rounds of water by the cabin crew.

Meanwhile i started exploring the IFE which was in fact quite good and sufficient for a 9+ hour flight to DEL. At about 2 hours into the flight dinner was served. I had an option of Indian Non-Veg and Veg and Continental Veg and I selected the Indian Non-Veg option. I was served Saag Chicken which was quite good but that was expected as AI has never been bad on the in-flight catering end as read in various reports.
Next I started watching some movies on the big 10.5 inches screen. The only thing missing was the air show and the external camera which didn’t work.
Tired of the long trip from Edinburgh I decided to doze off. Now, it was a bit sad to see the middle armrests were cracked and in fact loose and didn’t stand when lifted. In fact I could see white tapes on certain handles which was sad as this aircraft was only 2 years old I believe. I guess AI would remain AI on certain aspects.
I soon dozed off and the nice blue mood lighting was very soothing. In fact I managed to sleep a good 4 hours which was remarkable. A little later I thought I’d have look outside to check our position and I was delighted to see snow covered peaks which suggested we were somewhere over Afghanistan or Iran. Breakfast was soon served was nothing but tea and a sandwich which was quite disappointing. After about and hours time I heard the captain address the cabin that we were about to reach DEL shortly which was again surprising as we should technically be flying for at least 1 hour more but again I wasn’t complaining.The sooner i saw my parents the better.

At about 9 45am in the morning we touched down on the new runway 11. The landing was absolutely stunning. In fact it was so smooth that i had to actually look at the spoilers and reversers to activate to check if we had indeed touched down. We then started taxing and it took us almost 20 minutes to reach the gate at T2 passed the new T3. Soon the aerobridge was attached and I was on my way out. Now interestingly Delhi airport is really prepared for the Swine Flu outbreak. All they did was make me fill up a lousy form like the immigration form and that’s it. No temperature scanning and no checkups. Well after that immigration was a completed in 5 mins and I soon got my baggage and was out of the airport in no time. Waiting to see my parents at the waiting lounge i didn’t see them so i rang them up. But they hadn’t reached the airport yet as they didn’t expect me to reach DEL so early. Well i don’t blame them as Air India arrived 1 hr before scheduled time and all formalities were complete in no time. I had to wait for my parents for some 15 minutes. The sudden change of clime was drastic from the 10 degrees of EDI to the 40 degrees of DEL but I was looking forward to home food so all this was not withstanding.

The next 11 days in DEL were fun and I can see that i have actually gained a few kilos due to all the pampering by mom.
Well unfortunately the 11 days went by in a flash and it was time to head back to University and studies so it was back to DEL airport.

FLIGHT
DEL (T2)-LHR (T3)
Date: 31th May 09
AIR INDIA 111
Aircraft: Boeing 777-300ER
Registration: VT-ALJ (Bihar)
STD: 14:00 HRS/ STA 19:00 HRS
ATD: 14:35 Hrs/ATA 18:45 Hrs
SEAT: Economy 19A
Load factor: F: 75%, J: 80%, Y: 95% (Approx.)
Runway: 10

I started from my house and it took me a 1 hour to reach the airport. With all the flyovers and the Delhi Gurgaon expressway in place, the drive wasn’t bad at all. Hoping to take off from the new runway this time and catch a glimpse of the new terminal from the air, I was eager to check out the take of procedures in place but much to my dislike I noticed the aircraft taking off from runway 10 towards south Delhi, so my chances of viewing the new terminal were over. Well I should have known this before had, because of the heavy showers that hit the capital the preceding night I thought the wind would definitely play a role and so it did.
Anyway, moving on I reached the airport about 2hrs 30 minutes before departure and tried to enter from Gate 1. Unaware that Air India passengers need to enter from Gate 4 I was asked by the Friendly DIAL staff to proceed to gate 4 which I did. Hear another DIAL staff checked my ticket and asked me to proceed to ROW F for check-in. At gate 4 I finally bid good bye to my parents with my mother almost in tears. At the gate I was met with a CISF guy who demanded to see my ticket and passport which I gave him. Unfortunately, the moment I gave my documents to him he apparently got a call from someone, possibly senior and he ended up engaging in a 5 minute conversation with him. Well not that I could do anything I just waited for him to get off the phone. Next I proceeded to ROW F but to my surprise there was no AIR INDIA LONDON check- in counters instead Air India Check-In Counters for Kathmandu. This flight was full of students for some reason. I tried to find any Air India employee wandering around but i couldn’t find one. I instead waited and behind me were more London bound passengers on AI 111. Once I handed over my ticket to the agent he told me that AI 111 check-in was on ROW G and apologised for the inconvenience. I was again at the back of the queue at row G. It took me 30 minutes in total to get my bags tagged to London. The check-in guy was quite polite and tagged my bags with fragile tags as requested.
Next was immigration, which took some time due to the sheer number of people travelling from DEL at this time of the day. The immigration officer was quite friendly. Next up was security and i had to take out my Laptop but unfortunately my bag strap snapped and it fell down. Luckily my laptop didn’t break. I was kind of irritated by this because i had nothing to do but to carry it all the way to London. Once i cleared security I thought id check if they had bags at DEL duty free with the new duty free shops set up but they didn’t. I then thought I’d take some photographs of the terminal but i was stopped a staff member saying that it wasn’t allowed which I thought was allowed off late but anyway.
But you see I had to take some photographs so I still did but not of the terminal but of the aircraft standing at the bays. I was also a bit hungry by now and had an hour to depart. I still had 15 minutes for boarding to commence so I decided to grab a bite at the new eating joints inside the departure area like SUBWAY and Cafe Ritazza.

The departure area was full of people with 3 London bound flights and a couple of more to other destinations. It was good to see that both the 9W and VS flights were operating full with the two airlines operating the biggest of aircraft available to them. 9W was operating the 77W and the VS were operating the A346. On the other hand the AI flight departure gate was hardly busy so i thought it would be again a nearly empty flight as was the case on my way to DEL 12 days ago. I was soon proved wrong as the flight was nearly full.
Boarding started 45 minutes before departure which was OK considering I boarded at least 90 minutes before departure in London. The Air India staff here was very friendly and they directed me to Gate 10. The aircraft operating this flight was VT-ALJ (Bihar) which was the same aircraft I came to DEL on.
At the door I was greeted by a very nice ‘motherly Razz

’ AI crew but I didn’t really care as I think some of these AI Aunties really pamper you and I like being pampered so I didn’t really complain. Of course I would love to have the beautiful FAs of KF serving me...well who wouldn’t.

Soon boarding was over and we were ready to depart but for some reason we didn’t. The clock ticked by and I saw the Virgin Atlantic flight depart as per schedule but we didn’t. Finally after about a delay of about 35-40 minutes we pushed back. An interesting thing I noticed was that we were taxied a bit to not by engine power but by the pushback trucks...maybe an attempt to save fuel.

Soon we were on the way to runway 10 as expected and again after a long take off roll we were off heading east and then banking right somewhere over the Lotus temple in south Delhi and finally taking a 180 degree turn towards the Western India.
The sky was quite clear and it was quite warm due to the direct sun rays. Once the captain switched off the Seat belt signs the Drinks service began. AI being generous on drinks was quite evident as the Cabin crew handed over double drinks instead of single, like two glasses of Juice to me and 2-3 bottles of white wine to my co-passengers. One of the bright points of sitting in the forward section of the economy cabin was that the services started from here and it didn’t take long for me to get my drinks and food.

The cabin crew serving me seemed to be somewhere around her mid 40s which wasn’t really that bad as I have flown with BA who have had cabin crew who looked like they were old enough to retire.
After about 1 hour lunch was served and again I took the India Non-Veg option and I was given Chicken Korma, Rice, parantha and some vegetables full of carrots which were quite good.
Rest if the flight was pretty uneventful .This time I was busy with the IFE and I ended up watching 3 Films and 2 TV shows. 90 minutes before landing we were served a sandwich was again lousy as my previous flight along with tea. AI seriously needs to improve their sandwiches because they don’t match up to the main meal standards that they enjoy.
The scenes outside were quite nice and I managed to take some pictures. At about 17:40 hrs BST the captain announced that we would be landing shortly. This time I was somehow happy that we weren’t heading for normal Runway 27 landings but instead the runway 9 landings which would give me a chance of capturing the Windsor castle on the approach and I was lucky to do that.

AI's Beverage generosity

Thames Estuary

London City Airport

London Olympics Site

London with the St Pauls Cathedral visible

Heathrow

Some Air field..Any Ideas??

Another airfield specially for gliders so it seems with 3 runways

Interesting writeups

We soon touched down on runway 9L and taxied for at least 20 minutes to the other side of T3 to our assigned gate taxing parallel to runway 27L.
Once we docked at the gate i was out. Immigration took about 10 minutes but baggage to a while to come out. After a wait of about 25 minutes I was finally out of airport with my sister and brother in law waiting for me. Once in the car It took us nearly 45 minutes to get out of the parking of the terminal due to reasons unknown.

Just Before Landing

Windsor Castle

The M25

BA Hangars

2 Kingfisher A330 parked at T4

T5

Notice the SQ A380 landing

I wasn’t travelling to Edinburgh today but instead the next day so i had an overnight halt at my sister’s house. Next day I was lucky enough to be dropped off at London Euston by my Brother –in-law at about 1pm in time for my 1:23 pm train to Birmingham and then on the way to Edinburgh.
I finally reached Edinburgh at 9 pm after more than 6 hours of train rides and a 90 minutes stop at Birmingham due to the late arrival of my second train.

Cross country and Virgin Trains at Birmingham New Street Station

Overall this trip was very good and I got to enjoy every moment of it. AI seems to be very good but maybe I was lucky to have not faced the famous AI delays and rude staff. The IFE, the aircraft were very good with only thing missing were the Air shows and the external camera which were not working on both the legs of the journey even when they were supposed to. If AI can maintain such a good service I am pretty sure they can really make themselves as a worthy airline which offers excellent service unlike what is generally reported.
Overall Ratings
LHR-DEL: AI 112
1. Check-In :9.0
2. Boarding: 8.0
3. Seat: 8.0
4. Aircraft Condition: 9.0
5. Ambience: 10.0
6. IFE: 9.5
7. Cabin Crew : 10.0
8. Food and Beverages: 9.0
9. Kits and Freebies: N/A
10. On Time Record: 10.0

DEL-LHR: AI111
1. Check-In :8.0
2. Boarding: 9.0
3. Seat: 9.5
4. Aircraft Condition: 9.0
5. Ambience: 9.5
6. IFE: 9.5
7. Cabin Crew : 9.0
8. Food and Beverages: 9.5
9. Kits and Freebies: N/A
10. On Time Record: 10.0

Also took two videos of the take off and landing. See the gleeming new Domestic Terminal 1D at DEL.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdh4RJaGkrs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svGzakPugHg

Thanks for reading and I hope you Enjoyed reading it.

~JETFLY787
_________________
Lets Soar High....Feel the ultimate Joy

JETFLY787 · Member Joined: 15 Aug 2007 Posts: 343 Location: LON,UK

Hi can Anyone Suggest how to make these photographs visible
[img]http://s331.static.photobucket.com/albums/l449/gaurav_d2x/?action=view&current=IMG_1252.jpg[/img]
_________________
Lets Soar High....Feel the ultimate Joy

Aseem · Member Joined: 15 Dec 2006 Posts: 2841 Location: YYZ

avbuff · Member Joined: 22 Dec 2006 Posts: 5031

Make this correction

for example

here the beginning is s331. .... and it should be replaced by i331.....

check this out

BTW nice TR, I enjoyed reading it.

Aseem · Member Joined: 15 Dec 2006 Posts: 2841 Location: YYZ

ya works!

JETFLY787 · Member Joined: 15 Aug 2007 Posts: 343 Location: LON,UK

Thanks guys for helping me sort out displaying the pictures hope all of you enjoy reading it

Glad you liked it Avbuff.

~JETFLY787
_________________
Lets Soar High....Feel the ultimate Joy

Aseem · Member Joined: 15 Dec 2006 Posts: 2841 Location: YYZ

tried editing Gaurav's post and changing i to s, but didn't work....avbuff you are needed again.

JETFLY787 · Member Joined: 15 Aug 2007 Posts: 343 Location: LON,UK

karatecatman · Guest

Very nice TR with the pictures bringing it to life. Of these, the pictures over the Afghan-Iran border are great!

Too bad that duct tape is already making its appearance on a fairly new aircraft!

Nimish · Posted: Thu Jun 04, 2009 9:46 am Post subject:

Great report - thanks for posting!

Loved the pictures of the action at DEL and LHR...
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We miss you Nalini!

Spiderguy252 · Posted: Thu Jun 04, 2009 4:43 pm Post subject:

Excellent!

I loved that cruise ship pic as well as that of Windsor Castle.

Also noted that you flew on "Bihar" on the DEL-LHR flight.

One Question: Was that Oman Air 330 at LHR a 9W frame?
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Yeah.

JETFLY787 · Member Joined: 15 Aug 2007 Posts: 343 Location: LON,UK

JETFLY787 · Member Joined: 15 Aug 2007 Posts: 343 Location: LON,UK

karatecatman · Guest

Yes, The first LR isn't too great. Had a broken luggage bin sometime ago.

Spiderguy252 · Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2009 2:21 pm Post subject:

Hey - where's the tape? Which picture?
_________________
Yeah.

JETFLY787 · Member Joined: 15 Aug 2007 Posts: 343 Location: LON,UK

sri_bom · Member Joined: 22 Dec 2006 Posts: 2365 Location: Singapore

Good TR thanks for sharing you experience....

Sri_Bom

Manny · Member Joined: 10 Feb 2007 Posts: 292

Awesome TR dude!
There are some really interesting pics in this report. Great work!

JETFLY787 · Member Joined: 15 Aug 2007 Posts: 343 Location: LON,UK