So I'm flying back to Europe from Udaipur mid December. This will be on 2 separate tickets: Economy on Indigo for the domestic flight to either BOM or DEL and Business on Lufthansa onwards to Germany - so we will need to pick up and re-check our luggage. I have the following 2 options:
- Fly Indigo to BOM (T2) with scheduled arrival at 21:25, then a 4hr10min gap before our 01:35 departure on Lufthansa to MUC. Check in closes 60 minutes prior to departure, so we have a theoretical 3hr10min window from arrival to complete check-in. We will have access to the Adani lounge and assume that this will provide decent food for a late dinner.
- Fly Indigo to DEL (T3) with scheduled arrival ar 20:20, then a 5hr30min gap before our 01:50 departure on Lufthansa to MUC. Check in closes 90(!) minutes prior to departure, so we have a theoretical 4hr window from arrival to complete check-in. There is apparently no lounge access at all for Lufthansa Business Class passengers who aren't *G currently(!)
Until I found out about the lounge issue in DEL, my choice was clearly option 2, however now I'm conflicted - if all goes well, we'll be spending approx. 3.5-4 hours in the terminal with no lounge access - are there at least decent restaurants available airside?
The 4-hour gap between flights in BOM feels "just" OK, but if there's more than an hour's delay, I'm concerned that it would be a scramble and my travel companion is 80 years old... Is fog/weather typically an issue in UDR or BOM at that time of the year? There is a much later Lufthansa flight from BOM to FRA at 3:35am that I could conceivably beg to be rebooked on if we missed the earlier departure to MUC, but that's obviously not something I want to envisage as a likely scenario.
It's a first world problem to be sure, but would appreciate your experience/wisdom. What would you advise?