For now, Air India’s A350-900 aircraft are the only (new and) exciting aircraft in their fleet. All six inherited with the Aeroflot designated interiors have been inducted and are now flying on long-haul international routes: twice a day Delhi – London Heathrow, one flight to New York JFK and one flight to Newark from Delhi. However, the Boeing 787-8 fleet of the airline (27 of them) is intended to start with their retrofit this month (April 2025), which will involve the removal of all existing seats and a complete retrofit with Business, Premium Economy and Economy class installed. I recently happened to be flying to Ahmedabad to attend an aviation conference. On the way back to Delhi, I booked myself on Air India’s Boeing 787-8 service. This is a quick review of the business class flight, as many interesting things jumped off the page since my last flight with them on the 787-8 aircraft right after the Tata Group takeover.

On the day of the flight, I took an Uber to Ahmedabad Airport’s Terminal 1.

For the first time in a couple of years of use, DigiYatra errored out for me. I had to ask a DigiBuddy for assistance, who deleted the boarding pass and uploaded it again. It worked the second time around.

On the inside, there was one of the new initiatives of the Government of India, a UDAN Yatri Cafe, which sells water and snacks on the cheap to passengers. It is located in the check-in area.

Right ahead was the Air India check-in counter. I initially booked myself in the Economy cabin, but on the way to the airport, I decided to try for an upgrade to the Business Class cabin with a voucher. After all, this would have been a one-voucher upgrade instead of the usual two-vouchers it would have cost me on a narrowbody aircraft (because each voucher gets you a one-cabin upgrade only).

Once at the counter, I inquired about the upgrade and the availability of window seats in the Business Cabin. The AIASL agent told me seats were available, but there were no window seats. I thought about it briefly and decided to go for it regardless. Shortly after, I got a business class boarding pass and an invitation to the airport lounge used by Air India.

At Ahmedabad Airport, the DigiYatra lane to enter the airport is shorter than the regular queue. However, the DigiYatra queue was much longer than the regular queue at security. That meant waiting before I was called for a security check. After about 12-13 minutes going through security, I crossed over to the other side, realising that my gate was far from “The Lounge”, the sole airport lounge at Ahmedabad’s Terminal 1. Here is a review of the lounge from when it was still the Plaza Premium Lounge.

Instead, I decided to wait at the gate since it was not long before boarding. For our 11 AM departure, the crew arrived at about 10:15 AM and proceeded towards the aircraft.

A little later, the gate agents started pre-boarding all the passengers who used wheelchairs and those travelling with kids. As you can imagine, there were quite a few wheelchair passengers on a plane with 256 passengers. Thirty minutes before the scheduled departure, the gate agent started boarding passengers, beginning with the business class passengers. It was surprising,an IndiGo bus pull over to pick up the passengers—off- though, to see brand, to say the least.

In a short moment, we arrived at the plane.

There was another bus behind us, which somehow turned up before us, and hence, our boarding took a while. We were going to fly VT-ANC, the third 787-8 delivered to Air India in 2014. It is one of the earliest-produced Boeing 787 aircraft.

Air India AI424
Ahmedabad (AMD) – Delhi (DEL) 
Sunday, March 9, 2025
Departure: 11:20 AM
Duration: 1 Hour 36 minutes
Arrival: 12:56 PM
Aircraft Type: Boeing 787-8 
Seat: 3F (Business)
Meal Service: Lunch

Air India Boeing 787-8 Economy Class Cabin

Given that I was initially flying in the Economy cabin, I, for a moment, forgot to turn left and instead went right. The Economy cabin looked like it was all right on this aircraft, albeit in the multi-colour assortment of seat covers.

Air India Boeing 787-8 Business Class Cabin

And then I headed to the forward section, where I would be seated in the last row, in the middle set of seats. Remember, Air India’s Boeing 787-8 aircraft have 18 seats in a 2-2-2 configuration, with all seats in an open format, 6 seats being Window seats, and the rest 12 being Aisle Seats.

Here is the third row of seats, in the middle part, where I was seated for this one-and-a-half-hour flight. You will note that a bottle of water and a menu card were already placed on the seat.

The window seats were, of course, even more admirable. In some moment of wisdom over a decade ago, AI went with three windows per seat instead of two, which is now par for the course in the J Cabin. The seats installed by Air India then were the stock seats offered on the 787s, and I only remember seeing these on Air India and Turkish Airlines and Boeing widebody, which someone converted into a private jet.

The in-flight entertainment on these seats did not work, and in my case, neither did the Universal Power port, which was closed off with tape. Once Air India gets to retrofit these aircraft, a process that starts this month, as I mentioned earlier, this should get better.

A short while after I was seated, the cabin crew started to roll out the pre-departure beverages. Options on this flight included buttermilk and cold-pressed orange juice. I got some orange juice.

A cold towel service followed. Despite an 11 AM departure, the doors closed only after 11 AM. In the interim, the crew came around to take meal orders. I was expecting a snack service on this flight, something I would have received in the back of the plane, but it was a lunch service, at least for the 18 passengers in the front. Here are the meal options.

I was impressed with the options on offer. I usually fly in the morning or evening, so I don’t get a look at the lunch options on board. But the options presented were impressive: Two Indian and Two International meal choices, one in Vegetarian and one in Non-Vegetarian variants. At least I was hell-bent on eating healthy on this day, so I went for the Salmon Teriyaki.

I noticed that the crew manning my aisle did not have a method to the madness. She randomly approached passengers to ask for their meal orders. So, while she went front to back, she did not go left to right or right to left. It was whosoever she could make eye contact with first. Consequently, I was the last to be approached to take an order from, and the Teriyaki had run out. Luckily, another passenger changed his mind quickly, so they saved the last of those for me.

After take-off, the crew set in motion quickly, setting up tables and rolling out the meals. Here is a look at the Salmon Teriyaki, which also turned out delicious. The lunch was catered from the Ahmedabad base, so it was not one of the significant kitchens, such as Oberoi or TajSATS, that was doing the uplift here.

I had requested that some Diet Coke be served, which was brought out quickly. I’m always grateful when the crew is open to handing out a whole can rather than fizzled-out soda in an open glass. I also glanced at the Chicken Farcha the passenger who swapped out his fish order took. It looked nice, but it was a massive portion for me.

As the meal service was over, the crew brought the dessert options on a tray for passengers to look at and partake in. I went with the Lemon Curd pastry to taste.

It was a short flight, and as soon as lunch service was over, the captain came on and advised that descent would commence soon. I took a quick moment to visit the lavatory. Unfortunately, the wear and tear showed here. For an aircraft that I thought was extremely well-kept, the maintenance crew could not fix the lav, and it was held together by tape in some places.

Overall, it was a pleasant flight, if you excuse the state of the lavatory and the IFE, which did not work. On arrival, the plane was taken to a bay where it would operate its next international flight. So, for us domestic passengers, we would alight out of door 1L and be bussed to the terminal.

Bottomline

This flight experience with Air India was good, with the hard product and the crew’s attention to detail. Eventually, for another couple of years, the frontline works with one hand tied behind their back. The product held up fine for this flight, and I was also impressed with the meal options.

Have you experienced the 787 on one of the recent flights of Air India? What has been your experience?

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Pros

+ Spacious
+ Meal Choices

Cons

- Seatback IFE does not work
- No Wi-Fi
- Old Aircraft

Rating