After a number of cocktails and a few glasses of wine, it was time to finally hit the hay. It was a bit later than I would have wanted to sleep, and waking was a major struggle. I had to get to an office by 09:00 about 30 km away. Looking at the map, it looked as if it would take over an hour as the main highway going there was packed. Deciding that I had no time for breakfast, I headed to the Taj Club and grabbed a to-go coffee, had a shower and was on my way to check out.

Check-out formalities completed, I called an Uber and was on my way across the metropolis of Delhi - NCR (National Capital Region). My meeting was originally planned for 09:00 in the southern suburb of Gurgaon, but as I was almost at the destination, I was asked if it would be possible to reschedule to 13:00. This meeting was crucial and was the sole reason I was in Delhi, so I had no choice but to accept. I really regretted not having breakfast at this point. This meeting would end at 14:00 and I would be cutting it close to get to Delhi airport for my 17:00 departure to Mumbai. Miraculously, there was no traffic to be found, and I was at the airport just before 14:30.

A smooth check-in at Delhi’s T3 was followed by a tediously inefficient business class security line, but I soon made my way to the Air India lounge. The domestic business class security line is honestly a nightmare at DEL T3, and I reckon it is better in some cases to just use the regular lines.


Apparently the airport is a shopping destination even when there's no duty free in the domestic concourse.



The Air India lounge was recently renovated, and the operations were handed over to Encalm, which runs all the other lounges in Delhi airport. This includes the much-lauded Encalm Privé lounge in the international concourse that is only accessible by those flying in premium cabins and with status (as opposed to Encalm lounges in both the international and domestic concourses at DEL T3 that allow entry to Priority Pass/CC access pax). My first post mentioned that lounges in India are overwhelmed by the number of people with credit card access. Thankfully, with Air India having its own lounge in Delhi’s domestic concourse, getting in was not an issue, in comparison to the massive snaking line I walked past the Encalm lounge. I had forgotten, however, that Vistara was no longer using the Encalm lounge and was now using the Air India lounge, given that they are merging with Air India in a matter of weeks.



This meant that this lounge was more full than I had ever seen it, and unfortunately, I was unable to take any pictures. It was not easy to get a space at this 14:30-15:00 time period but I eventually found a recliner seat in the smaller section that once used to be the dedicated first class area. I did spot a few people taking up two seats: one for them and one for their, while others walked from end to end trying to find a spot where they could enjoy their dinner. Bad lounge behaviour is everywhere. If you are in the political know in India, the Air India domestic lounge in DEL is always a good place to people spot. This visit of mine was no exception, as I counted 3 MPs, each from a different party in separate areas of the lounge.



I had a quick snack and some water, and then tried to think whether it would make sense to leave the lounge and head to the gate early, given how crowded it was. While the domestic contract lounge in Mumbai does serve alcohol (at an extra cost), the Air India domestic lounge has no bar, whether paid or not. The neighbouring Encalm lounge did have a paid bar, but I was not planning on braving the entry lines just for an overpriced beer. I decided to head towards the gate early and see if there was anything interesting to do on the way there. Of course, knowing the airport very well, I knew there was nothing really to do there.




I was looking up my aircraft, and it turns out it was VT-ALG, only 15 years old, but with a business class product that could be straight from the early 90s. This was not unexpected, and I had already seen the seat map during check-in for this flight. I’ve flown in this product a few times as well, including on much longer India - US flights where this aircraft type used to be predominantly deployed. On a short hop to Mumbai, these angle-flat seats would do just fine. What I was interested in, however, was that the aircraft had just flown in that morning from Istanbul SAW after spending a few weeks there. I tried searching what the reason could be for this, but really did not find anything at all.

At this point, I also realised that the gate listed on my printed boarding pass was different from the one shown on the screens at the airport. I came to the realisation that we’re headed to the dreaded 42/44 bus gates. Oh well, I had already left the lounge at this point, and Delhi T3 being massive, it didn’t make much sense to turn back towards the crowded Air India lounge far away. So to the gate I went.


A view of the outside on my way to the bus gates



Getting there early was a huge mistake. To get to the bus gates, you go down two levels from the main concourse to a small area with nothing but two toilets and a tiny shop selling some snacks. It can be quite unnerving normally, but when one 777 (granted a 200LR, not a 300ER) and a A321 are boarding at the same time from two adjacent bus gates, the area for gates 42/44 became extremely crowded and honestly very claustrophobic. It also turned out that every single seat on my flight was full (8F, 25J, 195Y). Looking at the disorganised mess, I decided to wait in the middle level (the one between the main concourse and the bus gate area) and just pay atetntion to any announcements from downstairs.



It turns out boarding was quite late, and for a 17:00 flight boarding only started at 16:40. Now Air India is no Ryanair, with hyperfast boarding times. On the other hand, Ryanair has no 777s that they have to board with bus gates either. What Air India does have up its sleeve is that this flight had a scheduled time of 2 hours and 35 minutes. I have already mentioned in an earlier post about how Indian airlines like to pad their schedules to improve their on-time performance. This time the padding was particularly hefty.



What didn’t make the situation better was that the aircraft, when it arrived from Istanbul, decided to park at the widebody parking that is the farthest away from T3. Literally the bus drove from the domestic T3 concourse, past the international concourse, past T2, past the cargo terminal and we were almost at T1, which is quite literally on the other side of this mega-airport. I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation later using the ruler tool on Google Earth, and we travelled for 4.2 km to get to our aircraft. What made the journey interesting, though, was that we were in Air India’s special new bus for business and first class passengers. Yes, as a part of their modernising process, Air India has procured (or refit) a few of their remote boarding buses just to be used for premium passengers. But in true Air India fashion, they were using this bus for a large aircraft with 43 business/first seats and possibly many more elite tier pax. Not everyone in these categories were boarding at the same time, of course, but this was a very busy bus, and I was not comfortable with taking any pictures. However, here’s a quick overview of what this bus looks like from the inside, if anyone’s interested.

As stressful as this bus ride and the gate crowding was, I do enjoy bus boarding widebodies because you really get to appreciate the scale of the giant metal tube that’s going to take you places.


Just before boarding, I also was able to snap a quick and blurry shot of a Hawker Siddeley HS 748. There is only one operator of this formerly ubiquitous aircraft in the world: the Indian Air Force, which uses about two dozen of these aircraft for training. They are currently being rapidly phased out as brand new Airbus/CASA C295s are inducted in for a similar tactical transport role.


As all seats were full on this evening departure to BOM, I was not able to snap any pictures in the cabin. However, an FT member has an in-depth review of these seats here while on a much longer route from SFO to DEL (thankfully now all the SFO flights are operated by ex-DL 777s with the Delta One hard product, though this aircraft is still used on the DEL-JFK route).

I soon realised why the aircraft spent the previous few weeks in Istanbul. In my bulkhead seat pocket, was a little flyer, highlighting that a new Wi-Fi-based in-flight entertainment system was installed on this aircraft. I had only read about this here, but did not know that an old aircraft would be fitted with this system.




The UI was snappy and easy to use, and the entertainment selection was decent, if not very extensive. The map feature did not work for this flight (and weirdly did not let you zoom in very much). I tried watching Mad Max Furiosa, but instead decided to switch to the downloaded TV shows on my iPad.



This was the maximum zoom level

With boarding finished, we were offered the same welcome drink choices as before: lassi or pomegranate juice. Once again I chose the latter, and was then offered the choice between a hot or cold towel. Now, I’m a major proponent of the hot towel that Air India gives, but the ones here were scalding hot, and I had to wait a bit by carefully juggling the lump of towel between my hands before it cooled down to a usable temperature.




As this was an evening flight, it was not quite lunch or dinner time, so the meal offered was a “refreshment”. It’s a bit smaller than the three main meals that are normally offered on domestic flights on Air India, but even so I was happy to see that there was a choice between three options.

Now, the FT community must forgive me, because even though I ordered the “Oriental Platter” from the menu, I quickly fell asleep as we climbed over Delhi and did not actually get to sample any of the fare on offer. The wine and cocktail shenanigans of the night before meant that I was severely lacking in sleep, and this was my body’s way of making up for some of those lost hours in dreamland.

We landed in Mumbai with a delay of only 9 minutes (since the flight time was so heavily padded), and this time we were given a proper jetbridge to deboard. Just like when we arrived in Delhi, my luck ensured that we got the gate that was the farthest away from the exit, and a 10-minute walk later I saw that my bag was waiting for me at the baggage claim, thus bringing an end to this quick one day Mumbai to Delhi work trip.
Until next time, and hopefully I remember to take better photos so I can post about my upcoming vacation to Tokyo.