DEPARTURE

There were no lines at Bombay airport inspite of one person checking in both first and business passengers for this flight.


CABIN

New slumberette seats. The rest of the cabin looked bare since this was a leased Korean Air aircraft.


SEATING

The seating was not bad. But given the pace at which the airline's competitor's are introducing new seating the quality of this seat is going to be obsolete quite soon. Air India should have spent a little more thought in introducing seats that would not go obsolete for another 5 years or so. A word of comparison, the BA Club World Seats are far better, although the BA seats were introduced in 2000 and Air India's slumberettes were introduced in 2004.


CATERING

The food was good. However, the crew from LHR to JFK were drastically worse - sloppy, rude and almost unprofessional by today's standards.


CABIN STAFF SERVICE

From Bombay, the staff were very polite and the service was well done. From London, as mentioned above, the new crew were sloppy, rude and close to unprofessional.


FLIGHT ARRIVAL

Once we landed in London, the onward passengers for New York were not allowed off the plane. This can be quite agonizing on such a long route. Landing in New York (as well as London) was delayed due to several reasons, some of which were not Air-India's fault. However, Business and First passengers did not get priority off the plane. Instead it was like 400 wild horses let our from a paddock. Quite disorderly.


CUSTOMER VERDICT

I would use Air-India again had they let passengers off the plane in London (since the halt was for an hour and 45 minutes) and boarded the personal DVD players are advertised in their inflight magazine, for first and business passengers. Given that their inflight entertainment on the main screen was aweful - actually disastrous - I would pay the additional funds it costs to fly British Airways, because at least I am guaranteed a good night's sleep and entertainment.


CUSTOMER RANKING