After flying from Paro to Delhi on Bhutan Airlines, I had to get to Dubai for my flight home on United Airlines. That left two options: Air India or Emirates. As Air India was pricing much cheaper than Emirates, I gave it a try…my first time on the Indian flag carrier. How good…or bad…would my Air India 787 business class flight be?
Air India 787 Business Class: My First Time On The Indian Flag Carrier
The one-way business class ticket was $768, which was about $500 cheaper than Emirates (and the Emirates flight would have been on an older 777 with angled seats in business class). I’ve read (and reported on) a lot of bad things about Air India over the years, but went into the flight with an open mind and quite frankly, found the overall experience satisfactory. My flight was operated by a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner.
While just an off-the-shelf business class seat, I quite like it because your feet are not at all constrained. In any case, this was more than sufficient for a three-hour journey from DEL to DXB. The aircraft cabin appeared clean and well-maintained.
The service was excellent onboard: the ladies working in business class were extremely kind, attentive, personable, and charming. When dinner orders were taken, I was addressed by surname and that continued for the rest of the flight.
I was also impressed with the newspapers offered before the flight (very few airlines still offer actual newspapers onboard) and the full-size bottles of alcohol nicely presented on a cart during the meal service (the Champagne on offer was the same as my previous flight, a Laurent Perrier).
While I was also impressed that there were four meals to choose from, all four were “Indian” in terms of the spices and sauces. I would have appreciated a piece of fish or chicken without a heavy curry flavor…just a personal preference.
I tried the chicken Chettinad Kathi roll (a very pungent gravy), served with tandoori aloo. A spinach quiche with (another very fragrantly spiced) tomato relish was served on the side. The presentation was not very premium. The “aloo anger ki chaat” appetizer (potatoes with sweet and sour spicy chutneys) was soggy: my understanding is that the potatoes are supposed to be crispy.
Furthermore, the IFE selection onboard was very poor. If you are flying Air India on a longhaul flight, you will certainly want to bring your own entertainment to help pass the time.
CONCLUSION
I honestly enjoyed my first flight on Air India and it was not simply for the sake of amusement: the product was solid, with the service especially exceeding expectations. The Tata Group is now in the process of transforming Air India and I am quite excited to see what will come of it: I think Air India has the potential to be a great carrier that competes with its regional rivals.
My few experiences of Air India have all been fine as well. Service in J has been very good. Agree on the IFE – definitely a case of BYO.
On the food – I love Indian food and love the AI food as a result. Understand your ask, but I suspect the percentage of people wanting a non-Indian or non-Asian meal on that route is close to zero. I have the opposite issue on most US or European airlines — I really want an Asian (all of Asia) meal option and very often there’s just a chicken, a beef, or a pasta, all of which are much the same. But they’re catering to the majority of their clientele, so I get it.
Jet Airways had better food overall. Granted, it was a better airline overall.
Yikes, I probably wouldn’t have eaten on that flight… scratch that, I wouldn’t have booked such a flight. I can’t stand the smell (and you mentioned “pungent”, RIP).
Air India was the first business class I ever flew when I was first getting into points and miles – it certainly wasn’t bad. You could do plenty worse.
What was the Y pricing like? I don’t think I could convince myself to spend $500 on a single 3-hour flight.
In any event, it’s good to see AI becoming competitive- while India is one of the three or four countries that I have visited and have no desire to go back, they do tend to have decent award availability for travelling between Europe and Asia.
Indian food is exceptionally popular and influential in the region. On my trips in Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Seychelles, I saw curry food served everywhere and everyday. There are huge differences between East and West Asia in regard to cultures, cuisines, traditions, religions, etc.. Not all Asian countries are created equal.
Not to mention East Africa – Indian food is everywhere in Kenya and obviously Mozambique too (due to Portuguese connection with Goa).
Indian food Mozambique? That’s news to me. I’ve combed the country from top to bottom and never saw it anywhere.
The names may not be instantly recognisable, but I am sure you will have come across rissois, chamussas and carril of something or other…
https://xantilicious.com/recipe/rissois-de-camarao/
The Hakka noodles with chili sauce is definitely not Indian
My understanding is that this is an Indian-Chinese dish?
It is an Indo-Chinese dish, but it is a lot more Chinese than the Bengali wet curry that you are thinking of from many western Indian restaurants. It is not Indian Chinese like we call American Chinese – it is a dish from the part of India that is populated by Hakka, who are considered a Han Chinese ethnic so group. Chili Chicken itself bears more in common with a Chinese stir fry or even Thai food than what you might consider “Indian food.”
So can you special order a Burger in advance?
Ha. Not with beef.
“While I was also impressed that there were four meals to choose from, all four were “Indian” in terms of the spices and sauces. I would have appreciated a piece of fish or chicken without a heavy curry flavor…just a personal preference.”
In their defense, very few non-Indians fly AI at the moment, so there probably isn’t much demand for Western options.
Also, you’re right, that chat should be crispy. Disappointing to see that, as AI had a pretty good reputation for on-board food (though the airline itself was a hot mess).
P.S. you are a either a truly brave soul for ordering something Chettinad, or they watered it down considerably. Chettinad cuisine will light you up big time!
It was quite spicy, but tolerable.
That menu looks excellent. I’d probably have gotten the chili chicken, especially since it came with noodles.
“heavy curry flavor”. I know you’re not trying to be offensive and I’m not trying to be pedantic but I see this comment a lot buts not correct. Curry flavor is not a thing, at least not in the context you are using it. There’s one specific dish in India called curry, but that’s not what you ate. Curry leaves are sometimes used in South Indian food, but likewise I doubt you had that.
As far as the four Indian dishes. It’s an Indian airline flying from India to a regional country. That’s like being surprised United serves western style food and western spices on flights between the US and Canada and not offering Chinese food for example. No one would question United for making that menu choice.
I appreciate your comment and want to make sure I describe the spices and flavors correctly when I publish my full review (this is just a teaser post). How should I describe these flavors? I realize there is a great diversity of flavors in Indian cuisine, but there must be some term to encompass the spices and flavors that smell so characteristically Indian. Any help you can offer?
As for the menu choices, I would think one menu item more appropriate for the Gulf / Middle Eastern clientele would have been appropriate. I wasn’t looking for fried chicken or beef burgers…I was looking for one choice that might be readily found in the Levant. It could have been something simple and vegetarian like falafel and hummus.
Matthew, if you want to better articulate that sort of thing, there are training courses designed to enable one to accurately describe organoleptic properties of food, drinks, and fragrances.
I know one or two people who have been on them as they are big wine fans and another guy who is a consultant working with the food industry and mostly interested in tasting olive oil (!)- this is where descriptions such as ‘there is a hint of dried fig on the palate’ originate from.
I am too lazy to do this systematically, but I do enjoy making hyperbolic comparisons to describe smells and tastes that don’t seem right to me (e.g. ‘this energy drink tastes like screenwash’).
“I was looking for one choice that might be readily found in the Levant”
But you weren’t flying to the Levant, you were flying to the Arabian Peninsula.
Yes, but I thought that would have provided more options.
But why Levant? If anything Gulf Arab cuisine is closer to Indian cuisine than it is to Levantine cuisine.
You can always email me if you’d like a primer on how to describe Indian food 🙂
I think the criticism here is a little off-base, though. We in fact use a spice we call “curry powder” in our dishes in our family (at least that’s what my mom’s always called it). When we buy it at the Indian store, it’s even packaged as – curry powder, though it’s not exclusively used in curries, and the exact ingredients used varies from brand to brand and location to location. Heck, when I’m criticizing an Indian dish, I’ll do so by saying “too much curry powder” (or too little). So I don’t think your description is inaccurate, though if you wanted to be more artful, perhaps something like “the spice mix was overpowering”.
P.S. if you want a really unique flavor, next time you make enchiladas at home, substitute Indian chili or curry powder for Mexican chili powder. Just don’t forget to reduce the quantity, or you’ll be lit up big time…
Appreciate this. Thank you.
Curry is a term from South Indian cuisine that refers to a way of preparing vegetables and meat that has no relation to how it’s used in common parlance. It also refers to a type of tree whose leaves are used as one of the ingredients in the aforementioned curry powder (at least the South Indian version of it). That flavor is almost certainly not the flavor you’re referring to when you say “heavy curry flavor”.
Curry powder is a melange of different spices. It makes no sense to say too much or too little curry powder unless you are referring to the same mix every time. The issue here is that every chef uses a different mix of spices and ratios when making their curry powder – it also varies drastically by region, type of dish being prepared, and many other factors.
As an example, I wouldn’t use the same curry powder to make any one of the 4 dishes on the menu. They’re each from a different cuisine and require a different set of spices. So, to say any one of them had too much “curry flavor” makes little sense. This is also why your statement that there’s a characteristic flavor or smell that’s Indian is a bit reductive.
The accurate way to describe the issue would be to state which particular spice(s) was overused to your liking. That requires a level of familiarity with Indian cuisine that many people who aren’t from the subcontinent (or Southeast Asia) wouldn’t have unless they went through culinary school.
If you can’t identify which specific spices were overused, just leave it at “the food was too spicy” or “the food was too pungent”.
But “too pungent” strikes me as equally unsatisfying. Is there no term to quantify the general “smells” of Indian cuisine? I realize Indian cuisine is itself quite diverse and includes many different spices, but there is some food you simply smell and know immediately it is Indian food, right? What is that smell?
@Matthew – the aroma isn’t one thing you can point to. It’s the amalgamation of various spices (typically turmeric, coriander, cumin, etc.) that creates what you think of as the “smell” characteristic of Indian food. The problem, as it is, is that these recipes are typically handed down by word of mouth, and vary from family to family, so there’s no standard I can point you to. (Anytime I or one of my siblings asks my mom to write down one of her recipes, she always struggles, because it’s just something she learned from memory from her mom or my dad’s grandma.)
@Blackjack – no offense, but how is “too spicy” or “too pungent” helpful to the average reader? Yes, I’m an ABCD and my perspective is different from a native, but “too spicy” = “too hot” and “too pungent” = “smell is too strong” or “it’s too bitter” in my lexicon. I don’t sense either of those describe what Matthew is trying to say here. He seems to be trying to convey that the spices are off, and his description gets that point across as far as I’m concerned.
From there should be punishment for Air India for overflying Russia to actually flying on them. Seems like when it’s a matter of your own money, all the proselytising goes out the window. Lol.
It is a pity you are too dense to see the difference between this flight and an Indian carrier (or any carrier) operating a route to the USA and to the detriment of US carriers made possible only by the use of Russian airspace that is off-limits to US carriers. My flight did not go near Russian airspace.
I always thought you were a reasonable liberal, but I guess all sanity goes out the door when the “integrity” of your country or the country of your ancestors is at stake. Rabid nationalism is so unbecoming.
Great at parties.
Just to clarify, Russian airspace is off limits to US operators because the US FAA refuses to let them fly there and not because the Russians are denying them access. So a bit of a self inflicted crisis there.
FWIW, I am no fan of the Russian atrocities in Ukraine, but I also don’t believe that sanctions on civil aviation are the way to solve any of this – whether that is airspace closures, end user restrictions on spare parts, etc..
That’s not quite true. The US and EU banned Russians from its airspace first, but then Russia retaliated with its own ban.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/17/us/politics/russia-us-airlines-ukraine.html
List of companies still doing business in Russia. But you won’t ask for punishment against them. I wonder why? Racism or cowardice?
https://leave-russia.org/staying-companies
Lol. Descending into ad hominems. You know nothing of my politics and the fact that you need to assume says so much about you.
It’s quite hypocritical that you lack the intelligence and the courage to call out other airlines and companies that do business in Russia, or overfly Russia.
It’s even more hypocritical that you want your government to take action against one airline that flies over Russia, while choosing to patronise that airline to save a few dollars.
But then someone who went charging into Baghdad with the neocons to “save democracy” is not know for either his courage or his intelligence.
Further, when commenters use the term “dot head” in your blog to describe Indians, you allow them to continue commenting. Shows your true racism. Should we all now goose step while wearing jackboots to please your racist inner self? See. It’s so easy to assume things about others. What a fun game.
I see your IP and all your handles. You’re laughably immature – a petulant little naive child.
I used to fly around 60 segments a year on domestic AI before the Tata takeover and was treated like royalty with my UA sourced Star Gold. I developed a friendship with ground staff and FAs who were generally very nice to me. They did a lot with not much help from the airline.
For future reference perhaps going for the vegan tofu dish would have been more sensible given it’s a tomato basil sauce. Love that they offer a vegan as well as vegetarian offering, although it’s always sad when the vegan dish is another Mediterranean tomato sauce…
I have no appetite to read this article but I know this is for sure a paid article. I recently traveled in Air India and still same lame attitude of flight crew, new seats with no storage rack to fast up plane cleaning and reload for next flight. Food oh my God Food is so pathetic that being Indian person I can’t even eat. And thik of those 20% European passengers who took connecting flight. They were in nightmare.
A paid article? Come on…they want to kill me:
https://liveandletsfly.com/air-india-banned/
Matthew Klint and others responding to his article, here is some bits of information: There once was a time when Air India enjoyed the reputation of being one of the best airlines in the world. Singapore airline, which today has similar reputation was inspired by and modeled after Air India! Most of the airlines like Emirates, Etihad, etc. didn’t exist then and were the followers of the trend set byAI.
By the way, the Delhi-Dubai flight is flown mostlly by Indians, which may be the reason why all four food choices were Indian. Western and Indian food are available on flights between India and Europe/U.S.
With a VERY out-dated cabin hard product. Food and pre-take-off services…. via a vintage cart trundling down the aisle ..handing-out hard-copies of newspapers/magazines; in this age of computers and social media ! (Well, with the abysmal iFE , maybe that’s the logic!) Food looks tasty..but why the continued use of foil containers, so very non-premium. All this…but yet, you call this a “solid” product!!!
Matthew Klint and others responding to his article, here is some bits of information: There once was a time when Air India enjoyed the reputation of being one of the best airlines in the world. Singapore airline, which today has similar reputation was inspired by and modeled after Air India! Most of the airlines like Emirates, Etihad, etc. didn’t exist then and were the followers of the trend set byAI.
By the way, the Delhi-Dubai flight is flown mostlly by Indians, which may be the reason why all four food choices were Indian. Western and Indian food are available on flights between India and Europe/U.S.
Sorry for the double psting.
recently travelled with my wife to Chennai from Toronto in the business. From start to finish, there were numerous issues that left us feeling frustrated and disappointed.First and foremost, the flight was delayed for more than 12 hours. the hotel in Chennai , refuse to refund one night pay.
on board the seats were not working ( flat bed ).leaving us restless throughout the flight.The cabin crew appeared helpless.
The return flight to Toronto the worse. same broken seats in the business class. The entertainment system was not working.
the movie channel was not working at all. Approx 14 hours flight
but no movies !
As business class passengers, we expected a higher level of service and professionalism from Air India. Unfortunately, our experience fell far below these expectations. It is disheartening to see an airline with such potential neglecting the needs and comfort of its customers.
we sincerely hope that Air India takes this feedback seriously and makes a genuine effort to improve its services. With better communication, well-trained staff, and a focus on customer satisfaction, Air India has the potential to regain its reputation and provide a more enjoyable travel experience for its business class passengers
Air india is the worst air line in the world. On my 8 hours international flight nothing was working, no movies, no music, no light for readind..what should I do??, and the staff was very unpolite. Not to mention the food that was disgusting.
Will never and ever flight air india again.
Air India’s new A350 has already started flying daily to London and now to New York JFK in November. That is definitely going to prove all the haters wrong and show the airline’s ongoing transformation to regain its previous glory