Air India "The Maharaja" the government airline of India. Reviews were always mixed for Air India. Onwards I came to delhi in India's new star Airline Vistara and they did standup to their name you can checkout my review of Air vistara below. So far my return journey I decided to try Air India. AI don't offer non veg meals in their domestic flights as a part of cost cutting but I got a good offer last minute for this flight.
After arriving at Delhi Airport just after 10AM , I made my way up to departures and Once inside, I walked over to Air india check-in It was little busy inside the terminal and a Air India staff took as to a separate gate and we were informed our flight will depart from the international terminal. Our boarding passes were stamped with a symbol D and we proceeded to the international departures where an AI official was waiting to help the Domestic passengers. AI is known for changing aircraft equipment until last minute so I was not sure what I will get. Our flight AI0142 call sign is used by Paris-Delhi and Delhi-Chennai flight.
International terminal in IGI delhi filled with lot of shops but unfortunately since our gate is little far away we couldn't explore much. On reaching gate 24A found out our flight is an Airbus A320 one of Air india's all economy flight.
Boarding started promptly with passengers seated at rows 15-30 were called out. Then it was our turn
Once onboard, I settled into my seat near the window. Seats in this Air India was very sleek almost reminding me of the seats indigo. Also surprised to see an all economy cabin in AI and it seems they have a fleet of 9 A320 with all economy cabin. The legroom was very good in this flight.
The seatback had no IFE's and the seat pocket had Safety card and magazine. No blankets or pillows will be provided in this flight. We pushed back on-time. After a short taxi to the active runway, we were airborne towards Chennai.
Take off was on time T3 was fully dominated by Air India in Delhi
AI offers complimentary Lunch in this flight but unfortunately there was no options just one type of meal offered to everyone which was slightly dissapointing.
30minutes into the flight lunch was distributed. Lunch was chapati, Jeera rice, Rajma Masala and some sweet. The Masala was average but rest all was fine. Meal was fine overall.
Then AI offered an option of tea or cofee which was ok.
I slept until we started our descent. The flight attendants started preparing for landing 20minutes before touchdown.
It was a smooth landing and we touched down almost 30mins ahead on schedule which was impressive on AI's part. We were taken to the old International terminal chennai which was completely empty and deserted around 3pm contrast to the scenes 2 months ago when I reached at midnight 2 months ago. We have to pass through a customs scanner like other International passengers.
Video report
Overall the flight was decent felt it was better than other LCC's Indigo or spicejet but vistara is certainly a notch above them interms of service and product. Although no complaints about this flight from AI it was smooth with no flashy things although I would have loved a non veg meal from AI. Thanks for reading the review.
1 Comments
Oh and feel free to check out mine in case you're interested in a typical domestic flight in Indonesia.
Cheers, Fabian
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