Air India B787-800 Business Class review (BLR-LHR)
For the third and final segment of my journey, two more long-haul flights stand between Bangalore and home. The first one is a daytime flight between BLR and LHR, where sleep and a lie-flat Business Class normally isn't the most important. I've heard some pretty negative things about Air India's legacy B787 product, so this won't be the most exciting and cutting-edge review.
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)
- Air India B787-800 Business Class Review (BLR-LHR)
- TBA
Prelude: Bangalore's BEAUTIFUL airport terminal
Singapore Changi might take the crown for most amenities and world-class connectivity, but Bangalore's airport is also just stunning. Because its not very busy, it adds just that much more to its charm! I'll let the pictures speak for themselves here:
080 Lounge BLR Airport Terminal 2 International
As Bangalore isn't really a hub airport, Air India doesn't operate its own dedicated Business Class lounge. Instead, they invite guests to use the contract 080 Lounge, located just past security and duty free. I'm not certain if Star Alliance Gold members are also invited to use this lounge or if it's only Business and First passengers. The lounge is an open-air concept on the second floor overlooking the concourse, and is just as beautiful as the terminal itself.
I helped myself to yet another heaping plate of tasty food and a 1PM beer (I see you judging me...)
Check In
About 24 hours before the flight, I got a notification that the flight would leave about an hour behind schedule. Quite an impressive lead time for a delay notification!
Now let me walk you through the whole check-in and ticketing process at BLR - it's quite a doozy:
- To even access the terminal, you need a passport/ID and a boarding pass or reservation and go through a turnstile gate
- Then you check in to your flight and scan your boarding pass at another turnstile gate
- Once you go through passport control and security, you then have to present your passport and boarding pass yet a third time at the boarding gate
- During boarding, you scan your boarding pass at the turnstile gates like normal
- A staff member scan your boarding pass one final time on the jetbridge
Talk about intense and duplicative security. Indian airport security might very well be crazier than even Ben Gurion Airport!
But here's the funniest part of my whole experience. At check-in, the staff were just misinformed and confused on many things about my reservation. They were nice and cordial, but just didn't seem to know what was going on.
- First, they said that my UK eTA needed time to process because I applied for it just a few minutes ago. I showed them my email from UK eTA that showed I received it about 2 weeks prior.
- They then claimed it wasn't possible to short-check my luggage and pick it up on LHR for my overnight layover.
- Then they said I couldn't even check-in anyways because the United leg was outside of 24 hours and I had to wait 25 minutes for the clock to tick over (by this logic, multi-day itineraries just can't ever check in). When I asked to just check in for my first leg today, they said that also couldn't be done (HA!).
- And the cherry on top: the staff said that they need to verify my passport under a UV light because US passports should only have 26 pages. This is just comically incorrect - US passports can come with 28 pages or 52 pages, and additional pages can be appended on top of that if you run out of space. 26 pages isn't even an option! I think the staff lowered their stance once they saw the number of stamps I already had on my passport.
So in the end after about 10 minutes, the ticket went through without additional eTA verification, I checked in for just the first leg, my bags were tagged only to LHR, and they confirmed 52-page passport contained all the security features of a real passport. What a wrestle!
Boarding & Seat
Similar to my previous flight in Delhi, the "boarding" time is about an hour before departure. But in reality, this time would only start with the last ticket, visa, and passport check. Passengers were then directed to a holding area before boarding (similar to how Singapore handles their airport security). When boarding of the actual aircraft finally started about 15 minutes later, everything else was pretty smooth sailing from there.
The legacy B787-800 cabin on Air Canada is overall tired and worn. Air India is currently in the process of retrofitting all their aircraft, but it's definitely not done yet. Even the livery was the legacy one from many years ago.
Three rows of Business Class seats are arranged in a 2-2-2 configuration. Window seats don't have direct aisle access and need to climb over their neighbors if they want to use the restroom. I assigned myself seat 2J and luckily didn't have a seatmate (in fact, only 10 of the 18 seats were occupied).
Each seat features a universal socket port, a remote control, an oversized legrest, coat hook, and reading light. Between each seat was a privacy partition that could be raised (mine didn't work).
The seats have definitely done some time. My headphones were damaged, seat buttons were broken, the seat cushion wasn't secured properly, and the tray table took some wrestling to get out. The seat remote and entertainment systems felt old, the audio port wasn't working, and my power plug only worked intermittently. Thank GOD I didn't have a seatmate - otherwise I think I would've gone insane.
Now one positive note, I found these seats to be pretty comfortable in the lie-flat position. As a side sleeper that likes to bend his knees, I found these seats to be perfectly adequate for my ideal sleeping position. But unfortunately, that's pretty much the only good thing.
Upon boarding, waiting at each seat was a pair of slippers, a day throw blanket, sleeping blanket, sleeping pad, pillow, amenity kit, noise-cancelling headphones, and a bottle of water. Staff then later came around and offered a set of loungewear pajamas (I still use the one I got last year all the time). I was pretty impressed with just how many soft product amenities they offered.
That is, until I found hair on my day blanket, blood stains on my sleeping pad, the aforementioned broken headphones, and a water bottle that was already opened... Air India gets a big fat F grade in the Quality Check department for this trip. Shame, really, because the A350 from last year had none of these issues.
Food & Drink
Also waiting at each seat was a food menu card and a beverage menu card. These were basic menu cards but had quite a variety of options (especially beverages!).
For my main meal, I chose the smoked chicken salad with avocado as my appetizer. This was presented pretty nicely, but was a little bit bland in terms of flavor.
For the entree, I opted for Murgh Mussallam, which is a chicken dish served with lentils, laita, gravy, biryani rice, and bread. The dish overall was very flavorful! I've seen some people get a basic economy meal tray before, so at least this wasn't that.
The flight attendant insisted that I try out Shahi Moong Dal Halwa. It's a sweet lentil-based dessert that I would equate to a rice-pudding like texture. A little too sweet for my taste, but I wouldn't be against having it again.
The flight crew was pretty efficient and completed the meal service within about 1.5 hours. I finished up Idris Elba's Pacific Rim movie and turned in for a short 3-hour nap. Funny enough, the flight crew did a similar stunt and used unoccupied business class seats as crew rest areas.
I woke up somewhere over the Mediterranean Sea with a little over 3 hours left in the flight. The flight attendants were preparing for the second meal service and I opted for the Homestyle Masala Dal Khichdi.
Final Thoughts
The overall product gets a ton of hate, and I fully understand this. Because it was a daytime flight and I didn't have a seat neighbor, this was still a pretty decent flight overall for me. But personally, I wouldn't choose this product for a long-haul overnight flight. Buyer beware - go for Air India's A350 over the B787 if available!