VS301 leaves at 1315.
The journey from my accommodation to the airport takes 45 minutes on a good day...
This was monsoon season with regular rainstorms and all bets are off. I listened to the rain overnight over and over and over again and started to worry.
Nevertheless, we left at 10, assuming a 2 hour check-in time.
And then disaster struck - trying to get onto the freeway, the road was chocka.. cars in the outside lane were tootling along, but our section was crawling. And we crawled, and we crawled and we crawled. Starting to get nervous, I pulled out the confirmation (necessary to access the terminal) to check minimum check in times... and it's one hour... I started to breathe more easily, we might just make it by 1215!
And then, magically the roads cleared, we picked up speed, and made it to the terminal by 1115 - pretty much on our original schedule! The Indian airlines take the first couple of entrances to T3, with all other airlines at the final entrance point.
We waved over the VS guy (there to help UC pax with their bags), loaded my bags onto the trolley, I said my farewells and wandered into the bosom of DEL Terminal 3 and VS. Security once again checked my itinerary - and at least checked my photo id to make sure it was me, before I was waved in.
There were two people in front of me in the UC queue - I could quite clearly hear the guy at the front desk trying to talk himself into row 1... where I was already pre-assigned, and the queue comber had already confirmed me as still in that seat when she welcomed me into the UC queue. The check-in lady was holding her ground in saying row 1 was already occupied - at least I didn't hear her give away my seat, so well done to her polite insistence!
After he had been dealt with, it wasn't long until I moved up to check-in, and in the meantime, the queue comber gave me my hand luggage tags - all clearly marked UC. You have to have these tags on all your hand luggage, as they are stamped at security to ensure your bags have been screened, and then checked again before boarding - it's a world of pain if you manage to lose them, so after a week of travelling around India, I knew the score in putting them on securely.
Check-in was friendly and efficient, I was confirmed into 1A, bags were checked and boarding passes issued. My escort appeared to take me to the entrance of security, and she explained where to go to find the lounge.
Indian security is segregated, with the ladies getting little private cubicles for clearing. At many airports, this makes for shorter queues - unfortunately, DEL isn't one of them, and security took exception to my car keys and my fountain pen. For all the high tech of the new airport - everyone's boarding pass details are still written in a hard backed book at each security point... A final salute to Indian bureaucracy for the departing pax!
Airside, the new terminal is open, bright and airy. Not all concessions are open yet, and a quick look at Duty Free showed international prices. I popped into WH Smith to buy some chocolate for the flight and a book - sadly, I didn't notice the dedicated bookshop further down departures hall, so had a restricted choice. Then off to the Premium Plaza lounge.
It should be noted, it took maybe 20-30 mins to go from dropping off bags to clearing airside - that's pretty good going.
There are currently two lounges in DEL - ITC, operated by the hotel group which is associated with SPG and Premium, which is also the Priority Pass lounge. Unfortunately, the outside bit is open to the terminal, so not much privacy, while the inner bit is terribly, terribly dark. Plug sockets are in short supply as well, and the number of computer desks is low, and were being queued for. There was some hot food on offer though, and it still beats sitting in the terminal!
Flight announcements were made, and we were called to go board. It was a bit of a trek down to the flight, but I was waved onwards encouragingly by the lady who had escorted me to security. And I saw my final new bird species of the trip... boarding was already well advanced, so I was able to board straight away, and UC pax had their own queue.
Back onto Jetstreamer, the A340 which had brought me out, and I settled into 1A. M... the crew member on my section came around, introduced herself, took our drink orders and distributed our amenity kits - it was a very personal welcome, and appreciated. She took the time and trouble to check we knew how to work the seats, and generally made us feel welcome. Champagne was forthcoming (I did confirm this time we were on the Lucas Carton) and we waited for pushback - the Jet departure was delayed, and would be taking a similar routing so ATC were trying to sort out routings and flight levels. M came around handing out the menus for the flight - lunch and afternoon tea. Flight time would be a rather leisurely 9 hours..
Eventually, doors were closed and the 180-odd people on board prepared to take off.