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jbalonso777

I pick up from where I left off. I had a fantastic last flight out of Sri Lanka on board SriLankan Airlines, and I met up with Rakesh and Sheril....

We talked about everything from planes, to cricket, to Sri Lanka, to where we’ve spent a good part of our lives…meeting up with Rakesh and Sherill was good fun, and as always, a pleasure to meet like minded people, especially when they’re of this forum!

Rakesh pointed this out for me...find the mistake! Very Happy

CHECK IN
Before I knew it, it was time to check in for my flight to Mumbai. And all of this began exactly an hour before departure, something which I don’t usually do, but oh well! Abhijeeth, the other rotations expert of this house told me that VT-JFN would be taking me to Mumbai, fair enough, another new BSI registration! However, he did exercise caution: VT-JFP was around.
As is with Chennai and Kolkata, the luggage had to be screened prior to checking in, which was no issues for me due to the relatively light bags. I joined the Premieré Class line. As I waited, some people met up at the Jet Airways Check in line, after what sounded like a gap of ten years (they announced it pretty much…)

J class line

My turn to check in came. The nice lady there had asked the porter to check my ticket out first, but I showed it to her itself, and once she realized I was indeed flying in Priemeré, she had possibly one of the widest smiles I’ve ever seen! She tagged my bags with a priority tag, and at issued me a lounge pass. I headed straight for security which luckily was’t too crowded since most of the crowd had were in fact at the gates waiting for their flights: not one seat free. I however, had the privilege of heading for the TFS lounge.

Lounge invite with precise directions!

THE LOUNGE!
The lounge invite laid out the way to get to the lounge itself rather well. However, once I got there, the TFS lounge was absolutely full - overflowing with people, in fact! I asked a nice gentleman if I could sit around his table, to which he agreed to. I got myself a can of Thum’s Up and a Mango drink.

That's all for me!

Just when I was thinking about getting up and ordering a chaat (there was live chaat alongside the usual sandwiches, paratha, curry, idli, etc…), a lady came in calling for all passengers on 9W468 to Mumbai. Abhijeeth cautioned me - if the plane is already at the gate, its VT-JFP, if not, its VT-JFN.

I made my way towards the gate. I saw a Jet Airways Boeing 737 taxi in, and yep, that was VT-JFN. This would be my second flight on VT-JFP. Two flights in the day so far, not one new registration. I however, felt like I grew up, and Abhijeeth described this rather well: every time an avgeek gets a repeat registration, he or she would perhaps go ‘Oh f*ck no, not again!’ However, once an avgeek becomes mature, well, they won’t be bothered! I had just left my home for good, I honestly had nothing to be happy about, of course, set aside the four university years for a bit!

Hello again, JFP.

BOARDING
Boarding started as soon as I got to the gate, and well, Premiere passengers were called first, but I waited for a bit. That meant joining in with the Economy folk, and boy was it disorganized! I had to wait a good ten or fifteen minutes before actually stepping into JFP. While I waited, I had a good view of JFP's nose, and what might've been: VT-JFN.

What might've been...

Ever been up close and personal with a plane's nose? Fly from MAA then Smile

Once I did get onboard, I received a very warm welcome onboard by a very pretty flight attendant, who'd be serving us in Premiere class. I took my seat 3F. I had a pretty neat view of the CFM56-7B24 engine while the sunset. A nice pillow was placed on the plus leather seat. Of course, being a short flight I was clueless as to how I'd use the pillow so I kept it aside Razz

BLISS!

The very pretty flight attendant came around serving us a pre-departure drink, choices included water, tender coconut water and buttermilk.This was followed by a nice warm towel. Menu cards were already handed out, the late boarding premium passenger (me), didn't get that. Full loads in both class, but seat 3A was taken by a deadheading Captain. The plane filled up slowly, it was time for departure.

Butter milk for me!

DEPARTURE
Pushback commenced at 1816, as both CFM56-7B24 engines were brought into life. Curiously, I noted that some of the songs playing in the background sounded familiar: of course! I flew VT-JFP not too long ago and I made a video trip report, which recorded the songs and I played it over and over again - no wonder the songs sounded so familiar! Very Happy

Orders were taken - there were two vegetarian choices, and I went for the only non vegetarian option available. The flight attendant also asked me if I wanted a beverage with that, to which I asked him what was on offer. ‘I have Pepsi, 7Up, Mirinda, apple juice, and orange.’, he said. I went for a Pepsi. Taxiing was quite quick towards runway 7. At 1826 hours, both CFM56 engines were applied full throttle as we blasted down the runway into a beautiful dusk sky over Chennai. How did the CFM56 engines sound relative to JGR just 8 days ago? Not too loud. It was quite quiet. New plane, perhaps. A blue mood lighting was set for the flight as climbed towards the cruising altitude.

A livery no more to be seen on the ATRs!

Beautiful sunset awaits!

Away we go!

INFLIGHT

Preparing the tables

Meals were handed out on trays to all passengers one at a time, of course, tray tables were dressed first. A beautiful sunset occurred in front of me - changing from 9W470 to 9W468 was an absolute masterstroke! Very Happy

(of course, what might’ve been VT-JFY though…..)

I got my meal at 1853 hours. Other than the tacky tomato ketchup sachet, this meal was a fine domestic business class meal. The vegetarian kebab was OK, but the chicken tikka and mutton kebab were done simply beautifully. Absolutely awesome from Jet. I must however, once again, commend the dessert because as I’ve seen on most of my Jet Airways flights, the dessert was the clear winner in the meal. Mouthwatering stuff.

As I finished my meal, the flight attendant offered me a hot beverage - I went for a decaf cappuccino, and it was done just to my liking, exactly how I love it!

I was feeling overly pampered already, but that wasn’t the end yet. The nice flight attendants came out offering the typical Jet Airways tamarind toffee, and after mint in a lovely decorated basket.

I asked for a menu card for the purposes of writing this trip report, and the lovely crew member got it to me in jiffy. And before I knew it, the skies got darker, the sun was close to disappearing. It was almost arrival time into Mumbai!

DESCENT AND ARRIVAL

Obligatory winglet shot...nope, I didn't forget. Very Happy

JFP began its initial descent at around 1935 hours, however, as is with the Mumbai airspace at this time of the day, we had to circle over and around the airspace for quite sometime! Seatbelt signs weren’t turned on yet. It got completely dark by 1946 hours, a rapid sunset clearly! However, we still had to hold in some pretty weird pattern. Ah, I was returning to Mumbai after a week - and the weather was exactly the same! Rains, heavy rains everywhere.

Negotiating through those heavy clouds was as usual, pure joy. We landed at 2017 hours, two minutes after scheduled arrival. Yep, we had to hold short for THAT long! A very smooth landing was made in the torrential rain, as usual on runway 27.
As we were taxiing to, rather annoyingly, a remote stand, I switched my phone on, only to receive a phone call from my hosts for the evening, our in-house awesome super cool itinerary expert, Karan! We had this meeting planned for a long time, and I sure was looking forward! Arnabh would also be joining us, of course another #avgeek and pretty much Karan’s neighbor. Karan gave me very precise instructions to get to his car - opposite the Balaji Restaurant, a Blue Volkswagen Vento. The priority bus (with 14 people onboard: 11 business class passengers, the one pilot, the ground agent and the bus driver. Negotiating through the heavy rains, there really was nothing much I could see.

Being a J class passenger (FOR ONCE) the bags came out first and second - pole position! Very Happy

I walked through the slippery parts just outside Terminal 1B - and it possibly was the last time I’d see the arrivals section of T1B (unless I fly that other blue airline…..). Getting off the curb to get to the car was tricker than I thought - no breaks in between! However, Karan and Arnabh assisted me with the same (and later joking, they could’ve just taken the bags and drove away, leaving me stranded alone in the rain! Laughing

)
It was now when I realized the real type of avgeeks that exist in the world. Arnabh saw a SpiceJet Boeing 737-800 take off and from there he could figure out that the plane had the Sky Interior! How? The strobe lights - the newer Boeing 737s have a strobe light that blinks for much longer than the usual ‘old’ Boeing 737s. I honestly cannot be more thankful to you Karan, for the magazines you gave to me…especially because it F1 in them: F1 in an inflight magazine? My life’s made! Karan took us to the MIG Cricket Club, where we had quite a lot of Indian food (good for me, heck I don’t get anything close to Indian food here…), and chatted mostly about planes. A bit of non-aviation topics here and there, but of course, mostly planes…and how much of it I could relate it to! Most of it because I remember reading many old trip reports that Karan wrote…reading them back in 2006 or 2007…little did I know I would be meeting the man himself! And of course, Arnabh and his love for rave lighting..both at a DJ concert, and his love for mood lighting on the bigger jets (and 737s with BSI). It truly was a great distraction from harsh reality - I had just left 4 years of memories back in Colombo and aviation talks was just what I needed! Lets not forget the remarkable turnaround Mumbai Indians made in the 2015 IPL season - that drove us nuts! I hate to admit, I struggled to finish a pint of Kingfisher Draught beer, that’s how nicely Karan fed us two Bengali circular objects.

What a great day of aviation it had been! Meeting four aviation geeks in completely different cities from completely different backgrounds…but all of this without registering a single new registration…but oh well! I was feeling tired, and I still had another flight to go…..

Regards
Jish
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sumantra · Member Joined: 28 Oct 2007 Posts: 4685 Location: New Delhi

Sir, thank you for posting a lovely second part soon enough!
This is one leg I have done just once, but it was a memorable trip for me, way back in 2003. It was my last trip on the IC A300B4. I do not remember the registration, or the names of the crew. I do remember the Sanjeev Kapoor food festival on Indian Airlines way back then (which was the other reason for opting for this flight Smile

). I also remember some extremely pleasant members of the cabin crew.
I guess you must be the one AI.net member who has met the largest number of fellow members! It is great that you could meet Rakesh and Sherill, and Karan-ji and Arnabh, all over the course of one flight.
Lovely pictures, again: including the winglet shots. I also liked the cloud formation shot: not just do the NASA Mars photos show a mouse, there is one in the clouds as well!
The B737 has one of the loveliest noses among all aircraft. Cleopatra-like chiselled nose Smile

Jet's Rosenthal crockery does not somehow look nice in these images.
Decaf coffee ain't, but it is nice that Jet had this option. It is of course nice to see the Tamarind candy again.
The menu card mentions `fresh seasonal fruits'. Did I (or Jet, for that matter) miss something here?
Here's looking forward to the next installment!
Cheers, Sumantra.

ameya · Posted: Thu Dec 03, 2015 3:15 pm Post subject:

Nice TR JiB !

Nice to see the apron at MAA which as I type is flooded Sad

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abhijith16 · Posted: Thu Dec 03, 2015 4:54 pm Post subject:

Nice TR, Jish!

MAA apron looks so calm now. Crying or Very sad

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stealthpilot · Member Joined: 19 Dec 2006 Posts: 2325 Location: BLR, DXB

Great TR, fun flight + catching up with anutters Cool

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eP007

Karan69 · Member Joined: 22 Dec 2006 Posts: 1334

Nice TR JiB, good to see in print what you described to me ealrier when we met,

Thanks for putting me on a pedestial Very Happy

Just for that i have another edition of the F1 inflight magazine "Ignition" for you from my recent trip in November

Safe travels

Karan

Spiderguy252 · Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2015 12:00 am Post subject:

Super stuff! That's a very competitive domestic J product from 9W.

This frame didn't have IFE, but if you had gotten one, would the screens have been turned on? Or not a la AI?
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Yeah.

jbalonso777 · Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2015 7:21 am Post subject:

Sumantra sir
I do not think I have met the most number of people - that crown would surely go to some of the pilots in this forum! Lovely memories you have from the A300 flights! Smile

Were these Rosenthal..? Or are they only on the Mumbai - Delhi - Mumbai flights? Anyway, I should've paid more attention, yeah Sad

I didn't exactly see what fruits were on offer since I knew Jet's desserts are classy no matter what, and that having that would be a great choice.

Ameya, Abhijeeth, Nikhil
Thanks for reading guys! Glad to see MAA back in full swing now, for the most part.

Karan,
Awesome! Another F1 magazine to read yay! Very Happy

I look forward! Smile

Varun,
Its more of Jet never having their IFE on. They've never had it on for years on domestic flights, but AI have had them on up until off recent Sad

Regards
Wish
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http://www.youtube.com/c/JishnuBasu777

jbalonso777 · Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2016 2:45 pm Post subject:

Here are the videos:

Take off: https://youtu.be/ICkb1c8rPkA
Landing in crazy rain: https://youtu.be/7-nFMlu51s0

And the video trip report: https://youtu.be/Kyt78TPe6Lg

Regards
Jish
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http://www.youtube.com/c/JishnuBasu777

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

Nice detailed report Jish.

The coffee looks tempting and all other aspects of the premire class seems perfect.

I wish Jet get their act together quickly and be the premier airline of India that they were known to be.

Thanks for posting

Sri_Bom

rakesh959 · Member Joined: 28 Aug 2012 Posts: 58 Location: Chennai

Nice One Jish!The J product does look good!Yes It was awesome catching up with you for us Smile

I still remember abt the JFP/JFN confusion Razz

jbalonso777 · Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2016 8:38 pm Post subject:

Thanks guys!

Sri sir - there's been too many flashes of old times brilliance on Jet. What is a bit sad is that none of the flights keep it together for a perfect flight, but I do hope Jet gets over this soon enough. The J class experience was decent!

Rakesh - unfortunate day that was Sad

A day when the rotations were swapped ugh. I just hoped that it was JFN...ah well...will catch up next time I'm in MAA!

Regards
Jish
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http://www.youtube.com/c/JishnuBasu777