DEL indira gandhi Air India Business lounge, showers, massage
 

I have a monster 9 hour layover in DEL with my business class ticket with Air India. I want to make the most of the shower and massage facilities to get fresh and relax.

I'm looking and it seems like the showers are all for post-arrival. Are showers accessible from behind security..? Has anyone ever taken advantage of massage service in DEL? Is the Air India lounge separate from Jet Air lounge?

9W doesn't have a lounge in DEL.

You have to provide a bit more detail I'm afraid. Are you going to wait for an AI flight in the international or domestic section?

Forgive my lack of information.

This will be an international flight (terminal 3) from DEL-NRT.

My Air India lounge search leads me to this link: http://www.airindia.com/newsdetail.htm?481

However, I can only find information on the "Premier" lounge on the upper floors of terminal 3, and I can only find mention of pay shower locations following baggage claim of terminal 3.

The AI lounge in T3 Intl has showers. The PPremium is right next to it, but not worth a visit. Since you have a *A operated business class ticket, you could go over to the other lounge complex and try out the Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines lounge(s) too. ;)

http://www.staralliance.com/loungeFinderAction.do?language=en&fromAirportCode= DEL&toAirportCode=NRT&From=Delhi+[DEL]%2C+India&fromLat=&fromLon=&To=Tokyo-Narita+[NRT]%2C+Japan&toLat=&toLon=&fromCountry=India&toCountr y=Japan&ffpClass=&showLoungeCode=submit&cabinClass Code=Business&ffpName=&ffpStatus=&paidClassCode=&a irline=Air+India

http://www.singaporeair.com/en_UK/tr...rkrisoverseas/

SQ opens their lounge at 7.25pm, LH at 8.30pm.

the ai lounge in del is pretty decent, however i would not want to be stuck there for 9 hours....

as oliver2002 suggested, it may be worth it to try the other lounges to see which one you like best....

Thanks! I've only had 9W and one world business tickets before and the PPremium lounge is a bit of a letdown.

Any of you guys with DEL experience know how long before the flight I can access the DEL international terminal? I know the itinerary door checkers won't let you in before a certain time. Is it 3-4 hours? or 6-7?

Its 4 hours, but of you are connecting from domestic they don't make an issue. In June I went thru security at 8.30-9pm for a 1.50am flight. Even though I walked the entire terminal looking at all lounges before settling into the LH lounge it got booooring very fast. I would say you need 60 minutes to try out the AI, SQ, LH lounge(s) and then there is nothing to do. :p

I know the boredom of long DEL layovers all too well. Usually my company will stick me in the radisson blu but I guess 9 hours isn't long enough to warrant a stay this time! Oliver2002 do you every park it in any of the nearby hotels?

Well, originally I was booked on an AI flight that was to arrive at 10.30pm to catch my LH flight at 1.50am. But then I noticed a creeping delay on the inbound AI flight and went to the airport to ask if AI can put me on the earlier flight, which they did, hence the long layover which I gladly took ;)

There are now a large number of new, international branded hotels open or soon to open rather close. But then there is the issue of needing to take a taxi or get a car to take you back and forth.

We increasingly do the transit hotel at the airport for several hours -- even as the choices for hotels near the airport is increasingly large and now a relative bargain (with or without using points) compared to some years back.

Also the DEL terminal has become a nice place to linger since 2010. The previous version was a relative dump to be avoided at all costs :D