#11 out of 94 Airlines A minimum of 10 flight-reports within the past two years is required to appear in the rankings.
62 reviews
Welcome to a quick report on VS from Mumbai. I didn't take a lot of pics inflight - as the flight was 100% full given the post New Year rush.
VS is one of the few International flights that have a decent departure time from Mumbai. I was well rested and headed to CSMIA at around 7.30 for my 10.05 departure. The airport was packed and cars where being throttled towards the departure bank one by one.
The check-in line was long, however I was able to use the Sky Priority line and was done checking in quickly. Agent was friendly, quick and mentioned the last few days the flight has been going 100% full - and they have to deny some passengers boarding today.
The Selfie point - which has been in the news last few days for its presence all over India seen here as well
Next - I had the opportunity to visit the command center for BOM airport - where they monitor all aircraft and vehicle movements, gate assignments etc. As an avgeek, I was fascinated to see this place. There were separate agents for departures and arrivals and domestic airlines had their dedicated staff to handle movement along with ATC. Arriving planes were in green, departing ones in blue, The plane on secondary runway 14-32 was just taxing as BOM uses 1 runway.
Security lines were long but moved quick. Immigration at this time was fast. I grabbed some quick breakfast in the Loyalty Lounge - which was about 75% full. The lounge is a sad space but the breakfast food was decent.
Next, I did some planespotting and was able to see the AI 747. I always seem to see the Vistara retro livery plane VT-ATV whenever I'm at BOM or DEL.
Next, I walked over to my gate -71. Boarding took long and was done strictly by group. It helped that the nearby gates were not in use. On the ramp, there was again an agent randomly taking some passenger's boarding pass and writing their names and seat numbers for "security". I was really annoyed with this as they were in no rush to complete boarding. I had a 1 hour transit in LHR and this flight has been reaching 20-30 minutes late everyday due to delayed departure from BOM.
Some scenes from the departure area.
I'm quite sure the Isha foundation store is new. Surprised to see Sadhguru's retail store at an airport!
As the flight was quite full, I didn't really take too many pictures. I find the VS Dreamliner a bit more comfortable in Y.
Lunch was served leisurely ~ reached me around 2 hours after takeoff, which was perfect as it was about my usual lunch time. The main was fine, but the starter and dessert were very sad. I love the small Fever Tree can's. About 3-4 hours after lunch a paneer sandwich was served to those who were awake.
I saw about 4 movies back to back. A snack was served about 90 minutes prior to landing.
Premium Economy cabin looked comfortable…I had grabbed a few snacks kept in the galley between PE and Economy cabins..
We circled outside of London for over 20 minutes. Since I had a 1 hour layover - connecting to a DL flight to JFK, I was getting a bit anxious now…finally we left the holding pattern and landed on runway 9L
I had about 40 minutes to clear transit security and make it to my connecting flight. VS/DL does a poor job here. I've had short connections at LHR before and BA/Heathrow staff were there to escort us through to our connection at T5. Here we were left to ourselves.
I'm familiar with LHR - ran towards transit security but the agent there didn't want to make any exceptions to allow us to cut lines. Some of the passengers allowed me and few others to move ahead of them. Made it to my gate with 12 minutes to departure time. The staff were all applauding as they thought the "Mumbai folks" won't make it - a story I'm sure they see everyday. They told us our bag will not make it on this flight. I debated a bit if I should take the next VS flight instead a couple hours later. In the end, I took the DL flight and thought I could always wait at JFK for the bag. Too bad the bag was not put on the next flight and instead came to JFK the next day (still waiting for it to be delivered, I see it has made it to US)
Flight was pleasant. Food in Y needs to be improved. VS should improve their on-time performance ex-BOM. They seem to be in no hurry to get the plane out on time causing a lot of missed connections. While I knew I was taking a risk when I booked this flight, I was okay with it as I prefer DL 767 in Y over VS for LHR-JFK and knew there are 2 more VS flights if I miss my connection.
2 Comments
Thanks for sharing!
Yeah the food (both meals) was very sad - which is surprising as food out of India is usually good.. I was hungry mid flight and picked up few snacks from galley between PE and Y (not sure if they were meant for us, I think was for PE folks) . I was on Etihad on my way to India in Dec and the food on both MAD-AUH and AUH-BOM was fantastic. for a Y meal.
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