My experience flying domestic Premium Economy on revamped Air India

The food tasted decent, having flown this route multiple times across Air India and Vistara. For an airplane meal, I will rate it above average.

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Flight details:

• AI 687 SERVICE- ECONOMY CLASS SEAT- PREMIUM ECONOMY
• BOEING 777-200LR (ex-DELTA) Y- 4*7 = 28
• PE- (2+4+2) *6 = 48
• E- (3+3+3) * 22 + 22 = 220
• SEAT RATING – BUSINESS (DELTA ONE) – 8.5/10
• PREMIUM ECONOMY (DELTA PREMIUM SELECT) – 8.0/10

ECONOMY - -/10 (yet to be reviewed)

I travelled Air India’s most popular route Mumbai (BOM) - Delhi (DEL) onboard their new 777-200LR which also serves Air India’s route to San Francisco from Mumbai (AI 179) and Bengaluru (AI 175). This is a scheduled daily flight operated only by Air India’s widebody 777 aircraft, with the 777-200 and 777-300 alternating on the route.

Booking:

I made the booking through HDFC Infinia’s Smartbuy portal providing me with approximately 15% of the total booking amount as points. These points can be redeemed for future bookings or can be transferred to select airline loyalty programmes. My preferred manner to redeem HDFC points is by transferring them to my Vistara account and redeeming it against flights. Upon transferring points, I can book a flight on the route BOM-DEL, BLR-DEL, BOM-DED, BLR-DED for 5000 Vistara points. These flights ordinally cost anywhere from INR 5,500 to INR 10,000 (1.1x to 2x) depending on the route, increasing my adjusted benefit up to 30% of the cost of the ticket price.

Mumbai Airport:

Mumbai Airport has finally enabled DigiYatra service for all domestic passengers at Terminal 2. When entering the airport, I initially encountered an issue with DigiYatra gate, however, as I was standing in queue to enter the terminal it became operational, and I used the service. The revamped Terminal 2 at Mumbai Airport was inaugurated in January 2014 being home to all International Departures and Domestic Flights for Air India, Vistara, Indigo (shared with Terminal 1).

Luggage drop was quick, with the entire process taking less than 10 minutes. I was initially allotted seat 55H- a middle seat at the third last row, when I checked with the employee at the counter his computed showed that all seats were occupied, and no other seats were available something that does not align with the information I will receive ahead in my travel. The line at security was not long but unlike the usual efficient self, security took unnecessarily long. This was made worse by the poor implementation of DigiYatra at the Mumbai Airport. Unlike the Delhi Airport Terminal 3, DigiYatra passengers do not have a separate line for security and a general lack of directions was observed.

Lounge:

The Domestic Terminal of Mumbai Airport is served by three lounges.

• American Express Centurian Lounge- Lounge providing seating for approximately 50 people, a small buffet, and an extensive ala-cate menu. The lounge is accessible only for American Express Platinum Charge Card and Centurian card holders, due to few people being eligible to access it the lounge is rarely full.
• Adani Lounge (Airline Guest)- A separate area inside the Adani Lounge accessible to Business Class passengers, and passengers with appropriate Airline Frequent Flyer programme tier. This provides all the same services as the main Adani lounge, however, as this area is limited to only the guest of airlines it is not as busy and has less wear and tear.
• Airport Lounge- The lounge provides an extensive buffet providing hot and cold meals, with cold drinks, coffee machine and live counters at certain times of the day. It is divided into two separate halls, Adani Lounge (main) and Loyalty Lounge (smaller lounge). A variety of credit and debit cards (almost every single card) grant access to the lounge evident by the long lines to enter these lounges. Extreme high rush, extreme wear and tear these lounges are soon becoming a sore spot in travel.

I visited the loyalty lounge, one of the two lounges accessible by Priority Pass at Mumbai Airport. The Loyalty Lounge is in much better shape than the Adani Lounge and usually has fewer people using it. I grabbed a bowl of soup, some pasta, and a dessert before running to my flight.

Today’s flight boarded from Gate 53, with our beautiful 777-200LR visible from the gate. The aircraft is a 20+ year old 777-200 delivered originally to Delta and recently refurbished by the airline before Delta retired the majority of its 777 fleet during COVID-19. Upon closer inspection of the aircraft its visible that the aircraft has been retrofitted to enable inflight Wi-Fi service. Upon inquiring at the boarding desk, I got to know that numerous empty seats were available on the plane and upgrade to Premium Economy would be possible. Although I was not able to get the upgrade, I was able to secure a premium economy seat with economy service (premium economy service was not available on the flight).

Note- Upon later enquiry it was brought to my notice that Air India does not provide separate elevated premium economy service domestically, resorting to economy class service)

Air India 777-200 at Mumbai Terminal 2

My new seat 20A

Retrofitted Internet antenna box visible on the 777

The boarding began 10 minutes after I arrived. Air India does not start boarding with business class or premium economy passengers, instead, it starts its boarding by something they call “pre-boarding.” Pre-boarding is the process of boarding passengers before allowing passenger to actually board onto the aircraft, with them simply having to stand on the aerobridge. In my experience this process is unique to Air India with no other airline (including sister airline Vistara) following such a procedure. The objective of such a procedure is to reduce the time taken to board passengers thereby increasing operational efficiency. In practice pre-boarding is horrible for passenger comfort, especially for premium class passengers as their priority boarding has no value anymore. In this particular instance the situation was managed in an acceptable manner, with the Air India staff escorting Business Class passengers to the aerobridge connecting to the front gate of aircraft.

Premium Economy Cabin onboard ex-Delta 777

Upon boarding the aircraft, I was greeted with a smile and welcomed to my seat with a pillow and earphones. The earphones were nothing to write home about, they were the basic plastic earphones sufficing their function. What was missing at the seat was an amenity kit. This is a good time to inform that in India domestically no airline provides any sort of amenity kit regardless of your class of travel. The premium economy cabin was relatively empty and offered substantial space in the overhead bins for passengers to store their luggage.

Premium Economy Seat 20-A – Wide, well-padded seat

Premium Economy vs Domestic Business Class:

In comparison to domestic business class offered by Air India on their A320/321, the seat is not as wide and does not offer quite as much leg room. With the dimensions reading a pitch of 38 inches and width of 19 inches against 40 inches and 21 inches respectively on the domestic business class product. While on paper the difference is only of two inches each way, when I first took the seat, I immediately noticed that the space was not quite as much as I recalled from my business class flight onboard Air India’s A320 from Mumbai to Patna. Another thing I immediately noticed was that the seat was made with long duration seating in mind, meaning that the seat was not super soft and had a slightly firm padding. The seat also slightly thinner as compared to the domestic seat, although that might be down to the harder padding used to make it more comfortable during the ultra-long-haul journey. The seat reclines offered in the premium economy seat is also significantly less than that offered in domestic business class.

Next thing which I noticed was the space between the two seats next to each other was also significantly less. This means that while you can easily place your full-size coffee cup or your iPad to watch content on the domestic seat, you can’t do the same on the premium economy seat. This is a minute detail which would greatly impact your experience on a long-haul travel.

Overall, while on the face of it the two seats look extremely similar, once you have experienced the two its quite easy to figure that there is a reasonable difference between the two, with each seat optimised for their dedicated purpose.

Air India 747:

Air India 747 stored at Mumbai Airport

While taxing to runway 09/27, the longer of the two intersecting runways at Mumbai, I spotted an Air India 747.

Another view of the Majestic Queen of the Skies

The aircraft registered VT-ESO is a 747-437 named Khajuraho, named after the Khajuraho group of monuments built by the Chandela dynasty in present-day Chatturpur, Madhya Pradesh. This 747 like the rest of Air India’s 747 fleet has been retired from regular service for more than half-a decade and has been stored at the airport for atleast last six years. The 747s used to be an integral part of Air India’s international operations, serving important routes such as those to Dubai, London, Toronto amongst a host of others. However, with rising fuel cost, aging aircraft and a lack of public demand, Air India retired the 747 from general operations and only used them to fulfil Haj demands. Current as per reports the remaining five aircrafts are up for sale. Interested buyers please contact Air India.

Taking off from Mumbai runway 09/27 heading west

The seat:

Headrest and seat cushioning

The seat onboard is a replica of the one you will find on the refurbished wide-body long haul Delta aircrafts. Air India has not brought any changes to the seat, they have not even changed the seat covers featuring the signature Delta Blue colour covering the entire seat only with no Delta branding anywhere to be seen in the cabin. This is understandable as the original seat covers don’t have any Delta branding, thereby reducing unnecessary cost and time-consuming process of replacing the seat covers.

The seat features a large headrest with four-way adjustment. The positioning and the movement offered by headrest is sufficient to be comfortable for people of all heights. A knee rest is also seen, with can be extended using one of the three buttons below the right armrest of your seat.

Seat recline

Seat arm rest

Seat in its fully stretched position

The recline on offer while more than economy was disappointing to say the least. While on paper it might not be able less than competition, -. However, with leg-rest extended and maximum recline you will definitely find it to be a comfortable place to seat. From your left armrest you can access the two-fold pull-out table providing you a sturdy place to keep your meal and any other item you may wish. Fully open the table is sufficient big to accommodate a 15–17-inch laptop and another small item comfortably. In between the two seats you will find a rather slim space designed probably to keep the welcome drink and other similar items. Funny enough the rectangle design between the seats perfectly fits my phone. Don’t know if that was an intentional design or just a happy coincidence, regardless it was amusing. Right below the right armrest and besides the seat adjustment buttons you will find a rather oddly located universal power point with a USB A port above it, and the remote to control your entertainment system. The location of the plug point is especially quirky considering that if you have a bulky charging brick, such as that of most laptops, the charging brick will encroach into the seat and can make it rather uncomfortable to seat with the charger plugged in. I was not able to test if the charging points were working, as my charging brick never seem to be able to plug into any airplane power socket, regardless of the airline, seat, class of travel and aircraft manufacturer.

Oddly located power socket along with USB Type A and entertainment system remote right next to it

Seat Entertainment System- Premium Economy bulk-head seat

As I was seated in one of the bulkhead seats, my screen extended through arm from the right of my seat. The screen was adjustable in height and angle making it a well-thought and comfortable bulk-head seat screen. The entertainment system features a high-resolution, touchscreen featuring a decent collection of films, movies, songs, and games. However, the entertainment system does not offer any external video cameras and it does not feature any sort of interactive map tracking fight status. In regards, to flight status, it offers a simple page displaying the current time, duration left in the flight and not much more.

Meal Service:

Vegetarian hot meal- Chole Kulche

After reaching the cruising altitude, the crew got into action and swiftly presented us with our meal choices. There were two offerings one in veg and one in non-veg. I opted for the vegetarian offering which featured chole-kulche as the main course. Note- no one in the premium economy section received any sort of menu indicating that Air India did not provide any premium economy service on this flight with every passenger receiving only the economy meals. The food tasted decent, having flown this route multiple times across Air India and Vistara, I have tried this meal on multiple occasions and the taste has always been consistent. For an airplane meal, I will rate it above average. I didn’t try the accompanying sweet, however, based on my previous experience it shall not be shabby either. I don’t recall being offered the option of tea or coffee, which was odd because on every other flight I have taken on this route I have always been offered the same (or I might not be recalling correctly). Either way, the flight meal was decent to good, nothing extraordinary nor something non-edible.

Descend and Landing:

Views of Sun setting down

After meal service was completed, I asked for a blanket which was provided soon. The thin Air India blanket while comfortable provided a bare minimum level of warmth. The evening flight offered beautiful views of North India. The lights were dimmed, and mood lighting turned on offering soft smooth comfortable journey for the remaining time.

Delhi at Night

The descent into Delhi began 20 minutes before the planned arrival, By the time we got to a lower altitude for landing, the houses, and streetlights lit the city in the nightly dark. While descending at a lower altitude the flight fired its engine to max power as the flight went for a go-around. The aircraft in front of us on their way to land experienced a bird strike, therefore the aborted landing.

10 minutes after the initial attempt at landing, our flight landed at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport at 18:45 pm on runway 11L/29R.

Flight route showcasing the go-around while landing at Delhi. (flightaware)

Delhi Terminal 3 – Walking to baggage collection.

Final Thoughts:

The premium economy offered on the 777-200 is a definite step above economy while being quite a bit below business class. The product on offer by Air India is well maintained and provides decent comfort, however, there is nothing groundbreaking about it. Against international competitors, it is an average product and Air India running Delta’s 2-4-2 Premium Economy layout means that the product for those seated in the middle rows is of much lower quality. Based on the details, we have on Air India's intended premium economy product expect a similar layout for their retrofitted airliners.

Inspite of the shortcomings, Air India is offering a high-quality product for its long-haul route which will be appreciated by all. The pricing of the flight on their domestic route makes it a no-brainer for anyone wanting to get a taste of premium products. On the long-haul route, the seat fulfils the comfort requirement and gives us a peek into the glory days for Air India to come. The service quality, like my recent flights on Air India, was absolutely fantastic with a crew that really felt like they enjoyed their work and from my interaction on another 777 flight (ex-Etihad Air India) crew love to serve on this plane.

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