Review of Air India flight Amsterdam → New Delhi in Economy

Introduction

Hello,

Given that my wife and me usually plan a separate trip every year, I decided to go ahead to my usual destination down in Southeast Asia, while my wife fancied a trip to the Mediterranean for herself. As competition becomes fiercer by the year down to Thailand from Europe, it opens a lot of possibilities and cheap prices. 

Given that there are plentiful of direct flights to Bangkok from Amsterdam both flown by KLM & EVA Air, you also have plentiful of one stop connections with many airliners and given that Air India, which I was skeptical to book at first, offered a very cheap one-way fare to Bangkok with an excellent stopover time in New Delhi, I couldn't ignore this ticket. The return was with THAI via Stockholm and resulted in a total fare of 950 EUR in both directions with luggage (without domestic flights). KLM was charging 1000 EUR without cabin luggage and EVA Air unfortunately did not fly on the days I needed them to.

Flight

On the day of travel I decided to go to the airport by train as it was the cheapest and probably the quickest option to travel as I had to leave home around rush hour. The other option was probably the most convenient one, but I didn't really fancy to pay 200 EUR for 8/9 days of Parking, while the train would only cost me 30 EUR as a return ticket.

Arriving at Schiphol around 2 hours prior to departure, I made my way to terminal three, which was being used by Air India for their flights to New Delhi. Usually I prefer to arrive a bit earlier than two hours, however given that I previously obtained my privium membership with Schiphol Airport, I knew this was not going to be any issue for me anymore with border control and security.

Terminal three wasn't that particularly busy as there were only a handful of longhaul flights departing here. Air India was definitely one of the busier lines.

My privium membership also made me eligible to use Air India's business class check-in counter which made me able to skip about 100 people in line who were also checking in for our flight. The annoying part is that business class check-in was pretty slow as the chap, who was very hospitable and chatty, took quite a while to check in a person. Three other counters were used by Air India for economy and they did not bother to give priority to business class. As a minor comparison to the pace of check-in, each economy counter checked three persons in for the same amount of time the business class chap used for a single person ;).

Check-in took about 25 minutes to clear which was pretty terrible given that there were only three people ahead of me when I joined the line, I made my way up to security and border control, which took no time at all due to my membership once again and had about 80 to 90 minutes to spare for our departure.

Eventually made my way to the Non-Schengen Lounge of Privium to have a small drink and a minor bite as I did not eat a lot and was quite hungry. Even though Privium does not offer a huge buffet, the options they offered were tasty.

Wraps, Sandwiches and Pastel de nata were on offer on the photo below.

A salad bar was also available if you fancied something healthier.

Hot meals were also available if you fancied a bit more food, though I usually skip them as those meals are usually not to my liking in terms of dishtype. It's often soup, pasta and some other potato dishes.

On the other side you will find a snack bar with vegan nuggets, vegetarian gyozo and some nacho's with dipping sauces. Hard liquor and soft drinks can also be found here.

The lounge itself was quite busy for the size it is, so I decided to sit on the large table in the middle having a glass of white wine. The white wine they served was a South African Unoaked Chardonnay of Boschendal (Year 2022).

And some of the bites I took later accompanied with a Ginger Ale.

Behind me you will find the main seating area, which again isn't particularly huge and was well-occupied.

About ten minutes to boarding, I decided to leave the lounge and head over to the G-Pier, which was being used today for our departure.

Spotted this Boeing 777-200ER of KLM who arrived a few hours ago from Tokyo Narita and was now ready to being towed to one of Amsterdam's remote stand as it would not fly the following day and a Boeing 787 of Aeromexico preparing for it's flight to Mexico City as AM26.

A Boeing 737 MAX 9 (PH-CDR) of Corendon Dutch Airlines who arrived from Dalaman a few hours ago and was now idling to tomorrow.

And here we find our bird for today's flight.

VT-ANS is a 9.6 year old Boeing 787-8 (at time of flying) that was newly delivered to Air India in December 2014. It is configured with 18 Business Class Seats and 238 Seats for Economy and is powered by two General Electric GEnx-1B engines.

VT-ANS

Serial number:         36290 LN:232
Type:                           Boeing 787-8
First flight date:      19/10/2014
Plane age:                  9.6 years
Seat configuration: C18 Y238 Seat
Engines:                      2x GEnx-1B 

Boarding was called right on time and went quite orderly, but on a very slow pace. Upon embarking the aircraft, we were kindly greeted by one of the younger flight attendants who kept a smile throughout the entire boarding process by welcoming passengers. As I was located in seat 12A, it was just a few steps from entering the aircraft and came in this awful colourschemed seating configuration.

Legroom was no issue at all.

next to that a pillow and blanket were also awaiting at your seat.

A socket could be found between your seat which you need to share with your neighbour.

Probably the best entertainment in the very early stage of the flight giving us a spectacular view over the engine and wing.

While legroom was perfectly fine, the seat itself wasn't very clean. A lot of stains to be found and you could find a lot of dirt among all the seat.

The IFE entertainment itself was quite old and outdated with the touch function not working on mine (It did with the fellow passenger). The remote control itself also felt like it was about to break down with half the buttons not working and the cable connecting to the seat being close to being torn apart.

With a very dirty looking stain on the table. I really don't understand how the cleaning department is able to miss that spot? The table itself wasn't also that sturdy and was angled down, so drinks were slowly sliding down the table.

Earphones were also available with a very ugly colouring pattern and being of bad quality. The only good thing is that your headset is to be plugged into your armrest rather than the seat in front of you, so no cable obstruction when exiting your seat.

Despite being fully boarded on time, we had to wait about 20 or 30 minutes for pushback as a row of seats became out of service and those passengers had to be re-booked on different seats.

After a few minutes waiting for that issue to be solved, the flight attendants attention had to be focused on the row behind us as the guy sitting on the aisle seat refused to move to another seat (which turned out to be a middle seat) as they wanted to have a bit more space with a small baby (not older than 2). As the guy who was sitting on the aisle did not want to give up his seat for the kid, the father of the kid called him a pathetic person and this conversation went on for a solid 10 minutes too. In the end, the flight attendant found him a seat on the aisle more aft in the back.

Finally we were rolling for a southerly departure about 20 minutes past our scheduled boarding time to Delhi with the sun about to set.

Upon reaching a safe altitude, the flight attendants jumped into action and started to serve us some drinks with a snack. I opted for a red wine and some water, but little did I know that this was the drink service also meant for your food and no drinks were served when providing us with our food. Coffee and tea were only offered after food service.

About twenty minutes past the drink service we were now offered our food with a choice between chicken curry or paneer palak (Vegetarian Spinach Curry with Indian cheese). I opted for the Home Style Chicken Curry w/ Onion Pulao & Gobi Tawa Kalimirch. The dish itself also came with a Potato Chickpea Salad as starter, a bun with butter, a bottle of water amd some type of mousse.

The food in general felt fresh and did not disappoint as I found everything other than the bun to be quite tasty. My biggest worry with this food was not to spill, cause it's going to be hell to clean my clothing if I spilled something.

Opted for a coffee after meal service with some milk.

Cleaning service followed a few minutes later and decided to grab some sleep if I could as the IFE did have limited options and was almost unbearable to watch. About two hours to landing, I woke up again being treated by this beautiful view.

Not much later we received our breakfast, which to be fair, wasn't all that impressive with just a fruit salad, orange juice, bottle of water, dry croissant w/ Jam and some Danish Pastry. Coffee and Tea was also offered. The only thing that disappointed me a bit with Air India is that the flight attendants did not regularly visit the cabin by offering some complimentary water or juices as they were non existing throughout the entire flight other than the meal services.

I quickly went to one of the lavatories in the aft to have a quick peek about the state of them, though it wasn't too bad and was well-cleaned by the flight attendants. However no amenities were served other than some handsoap.

Despite not being fully satisfied with this flight itself, it wasn't a bad flight per sé, but there's a huge room for improvement if Tata's plan is to be achieved.

An impression of the cabin when walking through the aisle back to my seat only to find out that I have now a direct neighbour to my seat for the last hour as the flight attendant had to move another three persons due to another seating row becoming out of service. It was quite a task as the cabin itself was quite full.

Not much went on until the approach in a hazy New Delhi.

After a taxi of 15 minutes or so, we were parked into a stand next to Air India's A350 in their new livery.

Only to find out that we were about to be shipped by bus instead as the flight would continue a few hours later as a domestic flight. Not too shabby as it gave me a chance to spot this beautiful bird up close.

Thanks for stopping by and I will continue with Flight AI332 from here on.