Keter

This long trip started with a cheap J class ticket from JNB to GVA via IST on TK of which I never used IST-GVA segment though I initially planned to. The report is solely dedicated to SV which is a rare guest in flight reports, so I hope it provides useful information to travellers. The trip was in April 2014.

I booked a BOM-JED-JNB ticket on SV via a Russian online agency and I had it on hold for a long time before I finally paid for it and got the ticket issued. The price was just USD 450 for the one way J class ticket (I fare) and this price was valid for a long time from anywhere in India to anywhere in Africa (where SV flies to of course). Now the price from BOM to JNB on SV is from USD 1,200. Did not check other routes. I had 17 hours layover in JED and this was the shortest connection on weekend days.



Just to give some information on the rest of the flights, CAI to BKK was on EY business clas, as many report here CAI has attractive prices to BKK in J many times of the year and EY is not the worst airline to jump in. Funny enough is that I flew from Moscow DME to BOM on EY as well but in coach unfortunately. The sequence was DME-AUH-BOM-JED-JNB-CPT-(JNB)-IST-CAI-AUH-BKK-HKT-AUH-CAI-SVO.

Keter

I arrived from AUH on a EY flight (operated by 9W) and I must say 9W on this route did it worst as my previous experience with 9W was much beyond this; I flew AUH-BOM with AI in February this year and it was the same story, looks like they don't spend much time for this route as it's mostly used by workers who go to Emirates for work. But that's another story...

I went to available self check-in kiosk to see if I can get a boarding pass for SV, but as I expected SV flights were not an available option.



Sp i went to transfer desk to get my boarding pass (I checked in online already but I did not print it, not sure if it would have been accepted if printed though). Because the flight to JED was not yet open for airport checkin the staff gave such a funny manual boarding pass to allow me to pass to the departure zone



I was supposed to get the real boarding passes from the airline staff which were supposed to find me in the transit hall...

I shall say the new BOM airport is a huge improvement to the old one.






As many of you do I went straight to the business lounge:





The lounge seems spacious but nothing special:



The surprise or rather another expected thing was that I was refused to enter the lounge becauase the airline had to give me the lounge invitation (my manual boarding pass itself was not a problem).

Because my flight from AUH (EY operated by 9W) delayed by almost 2 hours I only had to wait about an hour before the check in normally starts, so I sat near the lounge and tried to do some work.
To my surprise the lounge staff offered me free water and juices but still did not allow me to get into the lounge.

After 2 hours I think the SV staff showed up with my proper boarding passes (to JED and then to JNB) but to my dissapointment he did not bring the lounge invitation... so I had to wait another circle when he came back with the lounge card.

Happy me entered the spacious (as expected lounge):









Except the space it did not have much to do, the food choice was relatively scarce.












After doing some work it was the time to go for boarding area.

Keter

As you can imagine flight to Jeddah have many pilgrim passengers and it was the case with my flight of course:




Before I boarded I asked the gate agent (who seemed to be a supervisor and did not participate in boarding process despite he could as he had a separate desk) to confirm that my baggage was successfully loaded (as EY kindly tagged it all the way through JNB in Moscow DME). To identify my baggage the agent supervised me to low ground area (outside the terminal near the aircraft) where I confirmed my bag. I did not make pictures there as I was afraid this is not allowed and some one would not like it.

The bird (772) for today:




The lovely boarding screen



Let's now talk about the cabin.

The both aircrafts I flew on were quite old (you will see later)




The business class section on many aircrafts is just 2 raws, the configuration was 2-3-2. This flight was full in J, do not remember if economy was full also.







The seats are relatively standard (NW, SU on old 332 or 333 are similar seats), the seat remote also did not show any surprises.





As well as the Video remote control.




The entertainment system menu:




The inflight magazine:




The amenity kit (I will show the content later) was a Ferragamo unisex bag (well the plastic bag says 'unisex' for J/C class). The bad itself looked much better than those offered by other airlines.





Before we move to next section, you can see how old the aircrafts are, cabins at least.

Keter

A separate toilette section

As you may expect the lavatory was a little bit old also:







Well in a business class section I would not expect to see this:




or this





OK to finalise and overcome the WC theme let's look into the flight path:

Keter

Let's talk about meal service on BOM-JED flight.

As SV flights are alcohol free they have to offer something special as a replacement so as a welcome drink they offer 'cardamom-flavored Arabic coffee', a something you can see below...





In addition you will get a fig





Business class menu:





Unlike the aircrafts the menu is fine printed:











The SV logo on the menu





And the bags some people look for to put into their collection





Some meal shots:























A coffee with milk as a final picture (for this flight)

Keter

All aircrafts in JED are parked far from the main Terminal building:




The passengers were transported in a bus, I think J class had a separate bus but frankly I don't remember already.





Once I got into the building I immediately saw the transit desk (people mentioned in some reports) and went straight to it to ask if I can leave the airport (my connection was 17 hours but I booked it on purpose @:-) as for business class it was the great price).




Unfortunately (as expected though) I was told I can't leave the airport without a visa so i simply followed 'transit' pointer arrows, to my surprise the door to the departures was hard closed, but soon it was opened by an officer. I quickly went through security check and was ready to discover the terminal.

The airport building is relatively small, the duty free occupies a lot of space, it sells tobacco but does not sell alcohol. I don't know if the prices are worth buying anything, probably not as I did not buy anything...





There is a mysterious 'upgrade counter' in the departure hall, I am not sure how it works, in fact I could ask, but did not so maybe someone else can shed the light to this point.





I quickly understood that there is nothing to do in the main departure hall (there are a couple of coffee shops there though) and headed to the business class lounge. The lounge is used for both business and first class without any designated area for first class. It is spacious but may get busy and looks well maintained unlike SV aircraft cabins.











The lounge is very cold, when I complained to one lounge manager about this he told me that this is central air conditioning system and this cant be fine tuned, however, after several hours I asked another manager the same question and... he quickly adjusted the temperature. However, this did not last long, I suspect newly coming passengers (from outside where it was +40 something) we very willing to sit in the coldest possible environment.

So if you need to spend a lot of time in the lounge be sure to take some warm clothes along.

There is a work area with desktop computers but I don't recall to have seen desks where one can conveniently use their own laptops.





The views out of the lounge window:








As I was sitting in the lounge around 16 hours I used the shower once. To my disappointment the water in the shower cabin was not hot at all!!!





There is only one shower cabin in male restroom by the way.





The WiFi password which probably never get changed:





And before we move on to in-lounge food review, here is what you see inside the SV amenity kit:

Keter

Now the lounge food review. The food choices are very generous to me, for first class passengers this is not probably that they expect but for business class passengers it is better than you can find in many airline J lounges.

The fig plate looked really gorgeous:





There is also a drink which you can see as welcome drink on board (I am not really sure what it is):








Let's look into the fridges:





A variety of salads and deserts is available:




















Cold (but not fridge stored) meals:

Keter

Continuing to lounge drinks:


























The cutlery available is made of plastic, these ones are for tea and coffee





And these are for all other stuff:





When time comes hot food becomes available:












Some other meal pics and move on to the JED-JNB flight.

Keter

16 hours in the lounge passed and I was ready to board my next flight (JNB-CPT by BA/ Comair was the last one).








As with many airlines Sky Priority is just a sign not meaning any priority in reality





The transportation was also by bus.

The 772 bird looked exactly the same as the one which flew me to JED maybe slightly newer. Unlike BOM-JED flight this was not full in J.














On this flight I had an isle seat so I was able to make a pic of a reclined seat during the flight.



















The headphones... I don't remember anything special about those, I used mine

DanielW

Any pics of the prayer space on board?

Forrest Bump

Creepy. And this is what eyes can see about the cabin conditions. Lead you to imagine what they cannot.
A Y EK meal gives point to this J.

fly747first

Yikes, looks like a terrible J experience. Shame on SV!

lcpteck

Thanks for the review, don't see much SV reviews around.

krazykanuck

A business class flight without alcohol? No thanks. Even Emirates manages to serve alcohol on all their flights except the ones to SA.

Keter

It is somewhere between the economy cabins but I did not make a picture of unfortunately.