Airliners-India.com

[sshank]

Had the opportunity to travel AI for the first time in a long time and also obviously for the first time post *A membership.

My return back to the US was via BAH (BAH-IAD-EWR) on UA as I was able to get a decent fare of first week of Jan with confirm able upgrade space available (and needless to say I consider all airports in spanning KWI to SIN my "home" airport).

So I needed to get to BAH (and interesting place if you have not visited - I ended up spending a day there and ended having a good time). And AI seemed like a good option especially given the new *A status. The itinerary was BLR-DEL-BAH (all narrow body Airbus operated unfortunately).

Check in at BLR was a painless not so much because of the the *Gold treatment but because noon just was not a busy time at the airport. I was given a lounge pass for BLR and told to collect the DEL lounge pass at DEL transfer desk. Fair enough.

The lounge in BLR was the "above ground" something lounge - there were hardly 4 people when I got there. The food options were OK - the best feature was an abundance of power ports (when was the last time you heard someone say that!).

The flight to DEL was on time - something of a surprise given the time of the year. There was a boarding call for *G somewhat belatedly after boarding was called (I guess this is still a work in progress). I boarded and settled down on my aisle seat. A few minutes later a dude shows up with the same seat assignment - and my first reaction this is either good news or a real screw up. So I flag down a FA, and she flags down the purser (or whatever AI calls a purser), who takes both our boarding passes and disappears for a few minutes. He comes back saying "since you are FF with us we have upgraded you" and hand writes new seat number on the card.

So the first *A segment on AI is turning out positive so far. It gets better - we push back 13 m before scheduled time! Wheels up at 1:08 PM 2 mts before scheduled departure.

The A320 however looks well worn and in desperate need of some new upholstery and carpets. The seats upfront are similar to the domestic first in the US - nothing to get excited about.

We are offered juice before take off pre dep beverage. They really need to get the alcohol restriction on domestic flights removed (at least upfront - it makes no sense, we are not Saudi Arabia).

Then a few announcements from the cabin crew including mention of star membership and a plug for the new AI ios / android app!

Somethings have not changed though - the IFE still sucks. The food (I chose Indian Veg) was OK - plentiful in quantity but rather sad when it came to taste. How can this be? Wasn't food supposedly one of AI's USPs? In fact UA our of EWR and even KWI served tastier AVML meals.

Pretty soon we are hovering over DEL and make an more or less on time arrival at DEL which again is impressive.

After a fairly painless transfer at DEL (which surely now ranks miles better than BOM for any transfer purposes), I show up at the gate for AI 941 to BAH.

Things don't go quite as smooth here. In bound is delayed and our 941 is eventually delayed by an hour. No upgrade on this segment - but I must say the seat pitch on the A319 us pretty decent and the airbus remains the best aircraft if you are stuck in Y.

The meals are again bit of a disappointment - I can only assume there has been significant cost cutting here. The FAs do one pass for meal service - no other services offered on this 4 plus hour sector.

Further, no announcement from cockpit crew regarding flight status or anything for that matter and this is a dark bird with no IFE of any sort (unless you could the newspaper an IFE).

I realize this is not a priority route - so perhaps we have service customized for the labor class? FAs offered absolute minimal service (the kind you see on UA where there is one pass through and then the FA goes to the galley to read people magazine).

We land in BAH about an hour 20 late (there are some strong headwinds as well).

Overall - I would say fairly positive experience, and I would rate AI as a viable option especially if you want the *A miles.

And the miles posted very quickly as well within 48 hours (my UA segments take longer!).

[sumantra]

It is nice to have a TR from you, Shashank. Nice descriptions well made up for the lack of pictures. The AI boarding experience: this was a gate upgrade, and AI messed up by not telling you about it. The food part not being tasty: AI would surely be having an off-day. This is still one of, as you rightly point out, AI's USPs. You didn't write about your flight number: but from the description, you got one of AI's four newest narrow-bodies, and seeing a tired look in the cabin was nothing unusual. Somehow, the older birds (double bogey IFE-less all-Y planes) based in DEL look much more sprightly from the inside, on an average. Your second bird looks like one of the older leased A319s, or the `fight' plane VT-SCF, the only `new' A319 in the new Flying Swan livery, without the PTVs. My major crib in the narrowbodies with the IFE is not the non-AVOD Thales i3000, but the fact that often, they do not load content onto the 12 audio channels: they only load the video channels (5, and sometimes, all 6). Miles: more often than not, the miles get posted quite quickly. Thanks for taking the time out to post this report!
Cheers, Sumantra.

[avbuff]

Thanks for jotting down your experiences sshank.

Predictable AI experience and good to know not many surprised down there!

Remind me, you flew BLR to USA not on Lufthansa

[sshank]

[sshank]

[sumantra]

[ameya]

thanks for the TR !
Nice read. .

Glad you got upgraded - I m surprised there was a double booking.

Did they give you lounge access at transfer desks at Delhi ?
_________________
www.networkthoughts.com

[sri_bom]

Thanks for the TR and great to hear more reports on Air India specially after it being welcomed into Star Alliance.

Bahrain is a beautiful place but it has in recent years seen lot of unrest, good to know you enjoyed the place. Although unusual to connect your flight via Bahrain.

Sri_Bom

[Nimish]

Hey Shashank - thanks for posting this TR - sounds like a decent set of flights to get to BAH from BLR (thought a bit of a detour). Was there drinks service on the DEL-BAH sector? Any thoughts on that?

I'm impressed that AI chose to upgrade you based on your being a *A FFP - pretty neat!
_________________
We miss you Nalini!

[avbuff]

[sshank]

[sshank]

[jbalonso777]

Great TR, thanks for sharing, sshank!

Looks like a pretty OK international transfer experience at DEL to me, now I hope they same can be said for BOM when the new T2 opens!
Lucky you with the upgrade! But unfortunate to hear about the food, that is surely AI's strong hand, and they need to keep it up!

I look forward to reading more TRs from you

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

[sshank]

[Spiderguy252]

Hi sshank,

Cheers for the quick read. Good to hear about the upgrade, and I would suspect you got trapped on one of the ex-IC 320s on the way out to DEL?

Also out of curiosity, what was the meal served on the UA 772 on BAH-KWI? If I recall correctly, that is the second 'short' hop it does in its overall routing of IAD-KWI-BAH-KWI-IAD.

[sumantra]

[stealthpilot]

Nice TR Shashank
Nice to get the upgrade, you would expect the FF chaps to get it but never expect it to be you hehehe. Too bad it wasn't a 787.
I've only heard good things about the DEL international transfer which is great. The flight to BAH seems blaahhh ... may as well have been a low cost.
_________________
eP007

[sshank]

[sshank]

[sumantra]