Just yesterday, I flew over to Delhi from Mumbai, yet again. I was originally scheduled to get into Delhi on AI101, which is perhaps one of my favourite flights given it gives me access to the Terminal 2 GVK Lounge, and I get to fly a Boeing 777-300ER between the 2 hour Mumbai Delhi segment (the flight further heads to New York from Delhi).
However, given that it is winters and Delhi has a massive fog problem, and I did not want to really really get into home middle of the night, I decided to change my plans. I now was going to depart from terminal 1A, from where Air India operates, and this meant I had access to the Air India Lounge as an Air India Golden Edge Member. This lounge is also available for all Star Alliance Gold members and The Maharaja Club Members of AI. There is a separate lounge for Air India Business Class passengers, not accessible by FFP members.
The lounge is situated pre-security, so you need to have enough time on hand to clear the security check and then roam around at the gates. This made it a bad option for me, but I wanted to try it out anyways for all of you.
The Lounge was a pretty basic and small lounge. I’d never been here before, so I was all the more surprised to see a lounge for 16-18 passengers, only. Air India is the dominant carrier based at Terminal 1A, and I would have expected a bigger capacity lounge from them here.
I was over in the morning, so they had a couple of Indian hot breakfast items like Chana-Parantha and Upma, along with vegetarian and non-vegetarian finger sandwiches and some bakery items. Apart from that, there was a choice of soft drinks (hot and cold).
The lounge attendants stayed in the backdrop all the time, making a round every few minutes to clear the tables or ask if there was anything else I required. With this being an empty lounge and pre-security, I hardly stayed here for over half an hour to get some pictures, and then moved into the security hold area, where I could have gone to the Carnations Lounge or the American Express Lounge, but I was lazy and headed straight to the gate.
I don’t think I’d plan time for this lounge the next time I would be flying Air India domestically. It is a rudimentary lounge after all, but the pre-security location gives me some amount of anxiety.
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