A few days ago, I happened to read a news article, where it discussed that the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS), the authority responsible for aviation security setup across India, had ordered to remove the special screening queue for Business & First Class passengers. The argument used by BCAS was: We can’t have empty queues at Business Class queue when Economy queues have all the rush. According to another report, the segregation already was repealed as of February 26, 2015. However, while passing through Delhi earlier this month, I did not see these measures implemented. Just yesterday, I was at Mumbai Airport’s Terminal 2, and I noticed that the special queue for Business/First Class passengers for passport control was…
Mumbai Airport
Tag Archives for Mumbai Airport.
Massive downgrade to third-party lounge at Terminal 2, Mumbai
Over the last year, ever since Mumbai’s Terminal 2 was opened for public use, I used to have access to the Clipper Lounge via the airline or the Priority Pass or somehow. The airport also operated a temporary lounge, which they converted into a permanent lounge, called the GVK Lounge, as of the end of 2014. The permanent lounge is pretty beautiful, and I’ve accessed the Business and First sections both. This past week, I was travelling back to Delhi and I chose to take an Air India flight from Terminal 2. The earlier time I did this, I was invited into the Business Class section of the GVK Lounge, however, this time, I was invited to something they called…
Lounge Review: Air India Lounge, Mumbai Terminal 1A
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…
Review: GVK Business Class Lounge Mumbai Terminal 2
Yesterday, I wrote about the inauguration of the new GVK Lounge at the Mumbai Airport Terminal 2, which came after months of anticipation. I had some work in Delhi today, so I was supposed to take an evening flight from Mumbai to Delhi to get here. The power of mileage tickets, I could just call Air India and swap the ticket from most of their A321 BOM-DEL flights (from Terminal 1) to get a seat on their B77W which flies BOM-DEL-JFK, and hence I could head to Terminal 2 to check out the new lounge. Air India provided me with an invite to the Business Class section of the lounge, located on Level 3, since I am a Flying Returns…
Mumbai’s Terminal 2 now has new First & Business Class lounges
Mumbai’s Terminal 2, when it was open for business in February 2014, had started out with a temporary lounge, which was in itself a step-up from the earlier airport’s lounge. I wrote a full review of the interim lounge here. The airport, unlike its earlier version, was going to disallow airlines from operating their own brand lounges, and the airport operator was instead going to offer one First Class and one Business Class lounge each for all airlines to share, owned by the airport operator. There was much discussion about when these lounges were going to be open for the public. The news is, now! Just a couple of days back, the new lounges were inaugurated, and now they are…
Lounge Review: Mumbai Terminal 2 Interim Lounge
Planning the Proposal Trip to Paris One of the trip reports I’ve been holding off for a while, for the lack of adequate time to write it up. Like many of the regular readers on this blog would know, I proposed to my girlfriend in Paris this summer, and she said yes. The first thing to do was to of course, get a flight to go to Paris from Mumbai. Like I’ve mentioned before, I was going to use the Mumbai – Paris flight on Jet Airways A330-200. The context set up here was that we are going on a work trip to Europe, which was total gibberish anyways. We arrived at the Mumbai airport Terminal 2, and headed up…
Hotel Review: Hyatt Regency Mumbai
Like I mentioned in this post, I really needed to get out of my house and get some downtime over the last weekend. So, I decided to check out the Hyatt Regency and the Grand Hyatt Mumbai over the weekend. Hyatt Regency is an airport hotel, while the Grand Hyatt is the suburban hotel in Mumbai. While I have been to the Grand Hyatt a few times to attend events or grab a bite, it was the first time I was going to be over at the Hyatt Regency Mumbai. I arrived at the hotel and went to the lobby check-in desk, where the hotel had a room ready for me. I was informed that I was booked in the…
New Mumbai Terminal 2 Lounge coming in August 2014?
Late last week I was on my way to London Heathrow from Mumbai, and I stepped into the Mumbai Airport’s temporary lounge for a brief moment. The current lounge, like you know, is made at a gate, while they do up the details on the separate First & Business Class lounges at BOM. I ran into someone who I have seen at the host position before, and I enquired when is the new First and Business class lounge due to open. For the first time, I have heard a timeline, of August 2014 when the new set of lounges would be operational. While given the track record of the airport operator, I can be sure August 2014 is not it,…
Travelling through Terminal 2 Mumbai: first thoughts!
Clipper Lounge, Mumbai Terminal 2 Courtyard by Marriott Hotel, Kochi Airport Clipper Lounge Cochin Air India 682, Cochin – Mumbai, Economy I planned a last minute weekend getaway earlier this week, and I decided to head to Cochin for the weekend. However, I also wanted to check out the Terminal 2 in Mumbai, which went live about 10 days back. At the moment, the terminal only serves international flights, and my first international trip for the year is still a few days out. So, for a change, I decided to fly Air India and use one of their domestic flights that fly from the Terminal 2. I’d been walked through this airport a long while back, when it was still…
First pictures of the new Terminal 2 at Mumbai and interim lounge
A loyal reader Arjun Warty, happens to be on the second flight out of the newly cutover Terminal 2 at Mumbai (British Airways 198), and he was kind enough to share his experience and pictures with us. While I am waiting to check out the airport myself, here is what he reported back: The elevated access road is not open, so you have to use the old airport road and take the on-ramp after the line of hotels, near the Sky Chef building. There were guards at the start of the on-ramp checking which flight you were on and directing you to the correct terminal. The entrance is huge and with multiple drop off points I hope the midnight chaos…
Reminder: Mumbai Airport switches to new Terminal 2 on 12 Feb’14
A few weeks ago I had posted about the imminent (re)launch of Terminal 2 at Mumbai Airport. Just as a heads up, the new terminal is all set to take international traffic coming into and leaving Mumbai airport with effect from Wednesday, the 12th of February 2014. Air India’s Singapore-Chennai-Mumbai (AI 343) will be the first flight to land at 1 p.m. at the new terminal, and Jet Airways’ Mumbai London flight (9W 118) will be the first flight to take off from the new terminal. There will be no shutdown for the transition. Here is a video of the new terminal, for those of you who are preparing to come to Mumbai’s International Airport in the coming days. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bgXx3t0l0E…
