Air India A320neo domestic Business Class review (DEL-BLR)
The second leg of my second segment took me on a flight from Delhi to Bangalore. This would be my first ever domestic flight outside the US in over 10 years. So yet another milestone checked off the list this trip! Overall, I was pretty impressed with the seat's comfort and liked the modern interior cabin. A far cry from East Asia's widebody short-haul flights, but on-par with US First Class.
Posts from this Trip Report:
- Introduction: A circle tour around Asia
- Swiss Air A330-300 Business Class review (BOS-ZRH)
- Swiss Air A350-900 Business Suites review (ZRH-ICN)
- When things go wrong on day of travel...
- ANA B787-900 Business Class review (HND-DEL)
- Air India A320neo domestic Business Class review (DEL-BLR)
- TBA
Air India Lounge DEL (T3 Domestic)
Business Class passengers and Star Alliance Gold members get access to their lounges in Delhi. The Domestic lounge in T3 is on the smaller size, but perfectly sufficient for the minimal number of first class passengers.
I also stopped by the Encalm Lounge, which you also access with priority pass or American Express. Both lounges were quite identical in terms of food and amenities, but the Encalm lounge was quite a bit busier.
I didn't take photos of the lounges themselves as I, admittedly, forgot. But I will admit the food in India is 10x better than any "Indian food" you might find in the US. It's nothing pretty, but I had 3 full plates of food - it was just THAT GOOD. Really reminded me of the lounge curry experience I had at the lounge in Bangkok.
Boarding & Seat
In sharp contrast to Japan, boarding was scheduled for a full hour before departure time. We even started boarding about 15 minutes after that: 18:15 for a 19:00 departure time. Always feels special to be the very first person on the plane:
Typically, 40-45 minutes is in line with that we're typically used to in the US. So I was fully expecting to still get boarded, serviced, and pushed back on time. That couldn't have been further from the truth. Boarding and servicing took a full hour, as scheduled. I couldn't tell you where exactly things went wrong, but it just took an obscenely long time to get everyone settled in. A A320neo taking 3x longer than a B787-9 with ANA...you do the math.
Ok, I got a little distracted here. Boarding aside, the Air India Business Class cabin uses Recaro seats, which is the same product that American Airlines uses for the Domestic First and International Premium Economy cabins. Really felt like I teleported back to the US for a second there.
The seats feature both a footrest under the seat in front and a legrest that comes out from the seat itself. There was a storage area to the right, in front of a universal plug socket to the right.
The tray table pops out from the little cubby on the left and expands to both both a half and full size table.
Food & Drink
While we settled in, the crew handed out water bottles and a choice between pomegranate juice or buttermilk. I opted for pomegranate juice - my first "healthy" choice this segment :)
You know what's NOT like flying Domestic First on AA? You still get a full meal service on a short 2-hour flight! The menu actually looked quite impressive:
But as the crew went around taking orders, they told everyone there were no prawns and no chicken curry meals. A little disappointing when half the menu presented wasn't catered (and no meat options, at that). There were also no alcohol options on this flight, only soft drinks. I don't know if that's the standard across all narrowbody flights or if there's a distance minimum.
Given I've already consumed basically 6 meals already that day, I opted not to steal a main dish away from anyone. But we all know dessert goes to the other stomach, so I couldn't say no to a piece of cheesecake. I also requested a glass of sparkling water, no ice and no lemon.
Being on the tail end of a great trip, I didn't want to chance it with any form of food poisoning. So I didn't touch the raw salad and didn't get ice on anything. I'm sure Delhi catering takes certain steps to make things safer than street food, but I took a very Draconian zero tolerance approach for now.
Also notice the Zoho CRM advertisement on the tray during the meal service? That made me chuckle. Crazy how far some companies go to plaster their ads, huh?
I did peek at my neighbor's Palak Paneer, which looked pretty solid. He finished every last bite - which is a compliment in and of itself.