Review of Kuwait Airways flight from Kuwait City to Mumbai in Economy

I am pleased to present the first report of the A330-800 on the English site!

Background

The entire Middle Eastern trip was built around this flight. There was also the incredibly cheap $367 Thai Airways International and Royal Jordanian Kolkata-Bangkok-Amman business ticket, but this was really the most important flight, as it gave me the chance to fly on the A330-800neo, which is one of the rarest aircraft in the skies with only seven planes flying: Four with Kuwait Airways, two with Uganda Airlines, and one with Air Greenland.
This would actually be my first flight on the A330neo, as I've never even flown the A330-900.
The flight was booked on Orbitz for $185, it was a similar price on the Kuwait Airways website (which, by the way, is one of the most slow and frustrating airline websites to use). It had been $129 earlier but had unfortunately gone up. The price is fairly high, as tickets can be booked for under $100 on Akasa Air or Air India Express.

Day of departure & Kuwait International Airport

Since booking the flight I had been checking the aircraft every now and then to see if something else got scheduled instead, but the A330-800 remained on the schedule for this flight the whole time. After arriving from Dubai on Emirates I checked flightradar to see if we had an aircraft assigned, but there was nothing.
The next day I checked several times throughout the day, but there was still no specific aircraft assigned.
(If you're curious, Kuwait isn't much of a tourist destination and there's not a whole lot to do)
The time to leave for the airport drew closer and there was still no aircraft assigned. I went through the schedules of the four KU A330-800s: one was undergoing maintenance, one was in Geneva and wouldn't get back in time, one was scheduled to arrive from Istanbul-Sabiha Gökçen shortly before departure to Mumbai, and one arrived from Kochi in the morning.
There were two A330-800 flights departing that evening: 19:00 to Mumbai, and 19:10 to Delhi. There were only two A330-800s that could in theory operate either of those flights, and with one arriving late from SAW, possibly there was only one.
But soon it was time to head from the hotel to the airport, whether or not I would get the A330neo.
A cargo 747 flew by during the drive to the airport.

A Kuwait Airways 777-300ER and A320neo were on the ground in KWI.

And a Kuwaiti government plane.

Terminal 4 in KWI is the home of the flag carrier.

I was expecting the chaos and poor conditions of Terminal 1, but T4 was nice, quiet, and modern. I'm not entirely sure why but somehow it reminded me of MRU.
There was a short line for check in and it was quite fast overall, although there was enough time for me to check (multiples times) if we had an aircraft assigned yet… I was pretty worried about a switch as you can probably tell by now.

Immigration and security were also very efficient and within around 20 minutes from arrival at the airport I was through everything.

Departures this evening were almost all to South Asia.

T4 was a small place, two floors with most of the shops on the bottom. Plenty of seating, which was a good thing since there would be a long wait with how fast getting through was.
A prayer was played from speakers soon after I cleared security.
KU301 would depart from a gate downstairs but I headed up to wait, it was very empty.

The second A330-800 arrived from Sabiha Gökçen less than an hour before departure. I didn't think it would be enough time for turnaround so I concluded that at least one between the Bombay and Delhi flights would either be delayed or not get an A330. I checked so many times but nowhere I looked had an aircraft assigned, so I was a bit terrified that there wouldn't be an A330.

Boarding & Aircraft

Finally it was time to head downstairs to board the flight, still without knowing for sure that there hadn't been a switch. There was a long line for boarding but it seemed like the number of passengers could have fit on an A320…

Boarding was by a very crowded bus.
I was very stressed at this point about the aircraft, especially when the bus drove right up to an A320 but luckily continued on. We passed a few other aircraft along the way.

The bus then drove towards an A330 parked far away from the terminal, but then continued on. Luckily a few seconds later it circled back and finally I could confirm that there was no switch.
Our aircraft was 9K-APF, a 4.6 year old A330-800neo named البوم (Al Boom), which apparently means owls. It was the plane that had returned from Kochi in the morning.

Seat & Departure

I got a couple of pictures of the business cabin, which was in a 1-2-1 configuration (better than Emirates!).

And of economy.

I love the dark blue color scheme.

There was a pillow at each seat, as you can see.

And an IFE screen with USB charging ports.

Personal lights and air vents.

Folding tray table… all very standard.

The headrest was very adjustable and comfortable.

The seatback pocket had a safety card and sickness bag - no magazine.

Earbuds were handed out after boarding.

Before take off an Islamic prayer related to safe traveling was played on every screen (This is the prayer, which I found after a bit of searching online).

Next was the safety video, after which we pushed back, passing mostly Kuwait and Jazeera Airways aircraft.

This one was a visitor from mainland China, unfortunately I don't remember which airline it was… looks like Chengdu or Capital Airlines.

Soon we left Kuwait behind to fly over the Gulf.

IFE & and pre-meal

KU's IFE content is a bit limited. It was plenty for this flight but if I flew them round trip to their long-haul destination of New York then there wouldn't be much to do on the way back.

The boutique catalogue, menu, news, weather, and Quran app didn't work. Early on in the flight it was a bit difficult to hear anything when watching a movie as the noise all blurred together for some reason. There was some strange background noise in the movie itself and it was almost impossible to hear what anyone was saying. I tried several movies and the issue was there in all of them so the problem was with the IFE system. It cleared up after a few minutes.
One thing I really appreciated was that there were no ads before the movies, unlike on Emirates, Thai, or Royal Jordanian. While you can skip them anyway it was nicer to not have them at all.
Also, as I discovered later, a warning came up if you opened a movie that was longer than the remainder of the flight. This would have been quite useful on the short Emirates flights.

Red lighting was turned on soon after takeoff.

The crew handed out blankets to everyone, also right after takeoff.

The crew also handed out arrival cards. Almost everyone else on the flight was an Indian citizen and didn't need one.

Shortly after that, an Indian customs video was played.

Dinner

Meal service finally began around an hour after departure. This is my pre-ordered special meal.

The main dish was rice with paneer (on the left) and… something else, I'm not sure what.

There was also a salad with feta cheese and a dessert, as well as a breadroll on the side, which came with butter and cheese, and water.

Kuwait Airways provides branded metal cutlery.

Beverage service took place during the meal and I got pineapple juice.

The meal was great, other than the dessert which was a bit tasteless, I didn't finish that. The main course tasted much, much better than it looked and the salad was nice. The addition of cheese with the breadroll improved that too.

In-flight

The lavatory was clean but had no additional amenities.
After coming out I was going to take a picture of the cabin. A FA who was there asked if I wanted to take a photo and I said yes. I was unsure about whether that would be a problem. She just smiled and moved away to let me take my pictures. The crew were generally a bit more friendly than on Emirates.

A little while later I used the call button to request a 7up. I was given the whole can.

As we got closer to arrival the lights were switched to pink, then orange, and later a milder pink.

Then, rather frustratingly, an India tourism video was played from all the screens. The video had a child with a paper fortune teller toy that had different colors on it, and a whole section on different parts of India for each color, so it took some time to get through!

During this time I discovered more in-seat power.

The video ended with this declaration.

Within a few minutes lights were dimmed for landing.

Arrival & Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Airport (and a lot of planespotting)

The camera was useful for watching the landing.

Welcome to Mumbai!

Lines of IndiGo planes, confirming that we have indeed arrived in India.

A Vistara Air India A320.

Air India, Air India Express, and SpiceJet planes.

Malaysia Airlines A330-200 heading back home to Kuala Lumpur.

SWISS International Airlines A330-300, which is what I flew on my last international arrival into Mumbai and a flight that I would like to never take again.

Air India, KLM, and British Airways widebodies.

The Swiss and Malaysia A330s together.

Air Canada 777 which I only saw with the camera.

Swiss heading back to Zürich.

Some more pictures of the KLM, BA, and AI aircraft.

And it was the BA A350 we parked next to.

It was only then that I noticed the KU logo on the winglets.

The map confirms our arrival.

Deplaning was through the business cabin, allowing me to get a few more pictures of it.

I noticed this design next to the door.

Last photo of our plane.

It was a long walk to immigration, with a partial view of this interesting display along the way.

The immigration hall had its own display.

A similar display after immigration, which was quite efficient despite this being the time for a lot of international arrivals.

Bags arrived fairly quickly.

The line to go through the green zone in customs was very long, I had a look at a screen showing international arrivals during the wait.

There were some Christmas displays outside the airport.

Sorry for the blurry picture

Outside the airport it was utter chaos, there were long lines for the lifts with people pushing and maneuvering trolleys through the crowd to get on first and everyone trying to stuff themselves in. Uber and Ola pick up was on a lower level but everything was mixed up and there were crowds everywhere. The actual Uber pick up was somewhere else, but the system was that there was a line and you just had to go through the line and could only actually get into a car once you got to the front (as opposed to booking a ride and getting into your designated car). The line was fast, luckily, but despite being the middle of winter and the middle of the night it was quite hot and very crowded, it would have been painful during a summer day.

I'll end this report here, thanks for reading.