Review of Air India Express flight from Surat to New Delhi in Economy

Background

After rushing off to Mumbai with no plans of where to go, I eventually ended up in Surat in the state of Gujarat. Air India Express has a nonstop flight from Surat to Kolkata but I wanted to fly Vistara one last time before the merger on November 12th. After a lot of searching, the final itinerary was Ahmedabad-Delhi-Kolkata, with the DEL-CCU leg booked with Vistara miles. But after a bunch of complications the AMD-DEL flight had to be cancelled and, in the spirit of continuing last minute bookings, this flight was booked just five hours before departure which might be a record breaker for me.
As you can see, STV-DEL-CCU is kind of a strange routing, but it was the best way to fly Vistara…

The cost was around ₹5.1k/$60 for the Value fare which includes checked bags; Lite was a little over ₹400/around $5, cheaper but with a checked bag it was cheaper to just book the higher fare. Not a terrible price for such a last minute ticket, and cheaper than IndiGo, the only other option on this route (although anyway I'd do pretty much anything to avoid IndiGo). More than the Vistara premium eco flight from AMD though.
Interestingly, this flight was on the first day after AIX Connect was fully merged into Air India Express and the last "I5" flights ended.

Surat Airport & Boarding

I think this is the first review of STV on this site.
There is some nice architecture on the outside of the airport.

Near the entrance there is a sign for AIX passengers:

Which is unfortunately pointing the wrong way, towards the exit instead of check-in

Check-in bags needed to be put through a scanner, then ties were put through the zips.

There was no line at check-in, STV is a very small and peaceful airport.

There are some designs on the check-in counters.

And throughout the airport.

Everything had the new colors and designs. Air India Express has already been using these for almost a year - the AirAsia India/AIX merger was far more smooth and quick than the AI/Vistara one.

Check-in counter for Ventura AirConnect, an intra-state operator that I'd never heard of before. It has an interesting history spanning almost a decade and a half and has gone through many different phases and business models. These days it's based in Surat and apparently uses the code "VA"… just like Virgin Australia!

I believe the "diamond in the sky" motto comes from its (maybe former?) parent company, Diamond Aeronautics, founded by a group of diamond merchants including Rajya Sabha (Indian parliament's upper house) member Govind Dholakia who lives in Surat.
Very interestingly, I'd actually met him a few days ago, and one of his family members was on this flight to Delhi!

Even the chairs have fancy designs.

Security was very fast, no lines and liquids were allowed through. Overall STV was a very efficient airport, it's small but I really like it, it's nice and small and fast.
More nice chairs:

Today, flight IX1996 departs from an airbridge gate upstairs.
First view of the plane:

While Air India Express has a decent domestic presence in STV, and operates international flights to Sharjah and Dubai (alongside IndiGo's Dubai service), IndiGo is still the dominant carrier here, as in most Indian airports.

Getting closer to the gate…

Boarding was early and fast, not much of a line at the gate.

IndiGo ATR 72-600 pushing off to Diu Airport in the Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (yes, that's the real name of the territory).

Welcome onboard!

Seat

Today's aircraft is a 737 MAX 8, VT-BXC. It is 5.5 years old but has only flown for Air India Express since January 2024, since it was originally destined for Shanghai Airlines but never got delivered.
The interior is very Shanghai Airlines, it even has business class.

I don't think the screens actually have any content though.

These seats are also Shanghai Airlines seats.

Headrests are adjustable.

Good seatback design with plenty of storage, a tray table, and a cupholder. No device holders strangely.

My tray table had some Mandarin and some Hindi, the next one had only Mandarin (and English)

Once boarding was complete the crew handed out full bottles of water, which is rare even on full service carriers and unheard of on most LCCs.

Let's have a look at the contents of the seatback pocket and literature storage area: a menu, safety card, and sickness bag.

While the safety card has the new colors, strangely it still has the old logo.

There are actually two seatback pockets.

There are individual lights and air vents.

A hook which I actually noticed later. 

And finally, charging ports that were hiding under the seat and most people probably didn't notice.

Departure

We pushed back a bit early.

Orange lighting was turned on.

There were a few small planes on the tarmac. A Diamond DA-62 registered VT-BJP. The BJP happens to be the ruling party in Indian and across many states across India, including its stronghold in Gujarat.

There were no aircraft at the terminal.

Strangely the lights were turned off soon.

And we're off!

In-Flight

The person in front of me didn't waste any time demonstrating the excellent recline.

Let's have a look at the menu/list of ads.
(the pictures aren't going in order which seems to happen every time I try to insert a long gallery)

Now, since the flight was booked five hours before departure it wasn't possible to pre-buy a meal.
As for the IFE, in very, very small print it says:

This, along with (as far as I know) all other 737 flights did not have streaming IFE. I believe it's only the A320s which have it from the AirAsia days.

There was some kind of lake or something that we flew over.

Service was pretty slow but eventually I managed to buy a sprite and coke, none of the buy-on-board items looked great.
The drinks were ₹300/$3.5 total, not too bad.

Finally the cupholder can be put to use!

Since the service took so long, by the time I was done we were already over Delhi.

Arrival & Delhi Indira Gandhi Airport

View of the airport from the air.

I saw two planes from the air, it might be a bit hard to make them out in the picture though.

Some random pictures I took:

Yamuna River

A sea of green that ended very abruptly.

Almost 34 million people live in metropolitan Delhi, a number which seems more realistic when you see how densely built up some of it is.

Very, very interesting plane on the ground under us: YA-KMN, a 26.7 year old Kabul-bound 737-500 flying for Kam Air, painted in the 20 Years in the Sky livery and operating flight RQ4402 to its home in the Afghan capital.

Once, a few years ago I saw an Ariana Afghan Airlines aircraft in DEL that taxied pretty much right up to my hotel room, so it was very cool to now see Kam Air.

Welcome to Delhi!

The Air India A350 and then a lot of the standard A320 family planes.

We sat waiting for quite a while, so I used that time very well by balancing the bottle on the can.

Eventually we started moving again.

Nice little designs on the gates.

And then a whole bunch of planespotting pictures, including an A320 in the Star Alliance livery.

I was really impressed that everyone waited patiently for the seatbelt sign to turn off, and even when it did, it took a little while for everyone to get up. A nice contrast from the usual mad rush to leave.

I quickly used the bathroom since nothing was happening. It was a bit dirty, with a lot of toilet paper on the ground.

A couple more pictures while we wait for the bus, including a UPS 747 arriving.

Last view of the seats.

And of business class.

Some pictures of our plane.

Vistara A320s

And a lot of pictures from the bus ride.

I don't think I've ever entered DEL this way.

The famous hands.

A look at the T3 arrivals:

We were so early that bags arrived around the time the flight was meant to land.
As you can see this flight was a codeshare with Air India.

Time to go to the hotel, until the Vistara flight tomorrow!
Thanks for reading.