Air India A350 Economy Class Review: Maharaja in all its glory!

Air India is on a transformative journey under the Tata Group. As part of this, the airline is investing very much into its fleet, which will shape the future of it. The carrier made headlines around the world with its 470-aircraft order. That order includes the Airbus A350 too, both the -900 and -1000 variants. While the longer -1000 variant will come in 2025 or 2026, Air India has taken delivery of its first A350-900 and already deployed it on domestic sectors. This is a review of Air India A350-900’s economy class on a flight from Mumbai to Chennai.

Air India A350 Flight Booking

Air India currently has one Airbus A350-900, registered VT-JRA (a tribute to the father of Indian Aviation – Mr. JRD Tata). From Mumbai, it operates a single 6-weekly flight to Chennai (except Tuesdays) (as of the time of writing).

I booked my ticket from MakeMyTrip (an online travel agency) for ₹3475 ($42 approximately). For all the aviation geeks out there, if you book a Bengaluru-Mumbai-Chennai or Mumbai-Chennai-Bengaluru routing (click here for details), it is sometimes cheaper than just a single sector (see the comparison below for a clearer idea).

Airport experience

For the 1005 hours departure, I reached airport at around 0715 hours (yes it’s early but I was crazy with excitement!). The lines for check-in at domestic counters were insanely long. Thinking that I would rather spend more time in the airside area, I used kiosk check-in and was on my way to the security in no time.

After having breakfast while enjoying some airplane action on both the ramp and the runway, I proceeded towards the gate to get a better view of the A350 landing.

Air India A350 cabin

Air India’s A350-900s feature a total of 316 seats spread across three classes of service – 28 Business Class suites with lie-flat seats, 24 Premium Economy seats and 264 standard Economy Class seats.

The Business Class seats are arranged in a 1-2-1 configuration and have a blue-beige colour scheme while the Premium Economy seats have a maroon-dark red colour combination arranged in a 2-3-2 layout. The Economy Class seats have a 3-3-3 configuration and are red coloured. Air India has retained the same seats that are found on Aeroflot (Air India took over the 6 undelivered A350-900s which were originally meant for Aeroflot), although with changes to the upholstery.

I must say that the seats look absolutely beautiful. They are well padded and I guess they should be comfortable for long-haul flights. The seat pitch is 31 inches, providing adequate legroom. The seat features an inflight entertainment screen, a tray-table, USB-A and USB-C chargers, power sockets, adjustable headrests and a coat hook. There are individual air vents available too.

The Economy Class cabin indeed is quite attractive. The overall vibe of the cabin, along with Airbus’ Airspace cabin, is surely very pleasing.

The inflight entertainment system has a range of movies, TV shows and music amongst others. All the categories have Indian and Western options. The best thing in my opinion are the onboard cameras. There are two of them – a tail camera and a front camera. The live map is provided by Panasonic Arc, which is probably one of the best out there.

The Flight

Boarding began around 40 minutes prior to scheduled departure time. We took-off at 1040 hours, 35 minutes behind the scheduled departure time. Taking-off from Mumbai is one thing I always look forward to because of the stunning views right after wheels go up.

Once the seatbelt sign was switched off, the cabin crew sprang to action to commence the meal service. We were served breakfast on this flight. Passengers who want a special meal can do so by pre-booking their meal at the time of booking or after that. There was a choice between Vegetarian and Non-Vegetarian meal. I went with the former.

The hot meal included Paneer Bhurji (a North Indian curry made of cottage cheese), Paratha (flat bread), a veg cutlet (small veg roll), Mango-flavoured Dahi (Curd), a croissant, some butter and a bottle of water. The meal was great and on-point for a route like this.

The rest of the flight was uneventful. The south-easterly tail winds helped us push forward swiftly while cruising at 41,000 feet. We landed at Chennai right on time at 1205 hours.

The service

Cabin crew on this flight were spot-on. They were smiling, friendly & courteous. Whoever I had a chat with, were smiling and seemed to be very happy and beaming with pride to represent the “new Air India”.

After landing, I asked the crew members for a picture with them and they were more than happy to do so. One of them even quipped “now we are like celebrities” (well, they certainly are at the moment 😉). They even asked if I wanted to click solo pictures of me in the cabin. One of the crew members told me that they have had many passengers who flew with them just to experience the A350, just like me.

Thoughts

Well, this is the new Air India. It’s finally here and is here to stay! This flight and the memories created are something which I would cherish forever.

The Air India A350-900 is like a teaser of a mega movie that is in works. From the seats and new crew uniforms to the aircraft and the sheer joy of flying the Maharaja, it seems that things are heading in the right direction.

The A350 is always a pleasure to fly on and that, added with the new Air India, makes for a perfect combination, one which will hopefully carry forward the Air India legacy set by Mr. JRD Tata.

Featured image by Ishan Haria

All the other images by Ishan Haria

Do you like the new Air India A350? How you flown on it? If yes, how was your experience? Let me know in the comments section below.