Revived: Air India A350 Business Class Suites To London

The start of a new year brought with it a first for me: flying Air India A350 Business Class Suites To London. It’s rare I fly an airline for the first time these days. This flight was one I approached with cautious optimism, and I left feeling hopeful that it would be the first of many long-haul flights with the new Air India.

For a deeper dive into Air India’s transformation and what to expect from their long-haul fleet, check out my dedicated post on their overhaul program. Now, let’s get into this flight experience.

Flight Details

• Route: Delhi (DEL) to London Heathrow (LHR)
• Flight No.: AI111
• Date: January 2025
• Departure Time: 07:25
• Duration: 10 hours (blocked)
• Aircraft: Airbus A350-900
• Seat/Suite: 6D

Check-in & Airport Experience

This trip started in Goa, where I had a domestic connection to Delhi before my London flight. Given the 75km drive from South Goa to Dabolim Airport, I booked my taxi in advance with some buffer time and arrived a little over four hours before departure.

I had already checked in via Air India’s sleek new app, which allows seat selection and sends notifications via WhatsApp, including real-time updates and seat confirmations.

There were no dedicated Business Class bag drop counters, but check-in was efficient despite the small airport being busy.

Indian Airport Security

Whilst not specific to Air India, Indian airport security is intense and borders on ridiculously OTT. I came prepared, still, I was shocked at the unnecessary level of intrusion into your belongings.

My carry-on got flagged on the flight into Goa for no apparent reason. In this instance, getting out of Goa I was fine, but in Delhi transfer, my GoPro’s battery was an issue—despite never facing this anywhere else. It’s something to be mindful of if traveling through India.

Air India Lounge

Goa’s Dabolim Airport lacks lounges entirely, which was disappointing.

In Delhi, Air India’s flagship international lounge is under renovation, so Business Class passengers are directed to Encalm Prive. I’d visited this lounge not long after opening in 2023 before a Virgin flight.

Whilst this is a great lounge with fantastic catering, on this visit it became clear there was no standard provisions for rest areas – paid for sleep pods did not even have a flat surface !

Connecting Flight Delay & Rebooking

Originally, I had a tight but seemingly manageable connection:

• Goa to Delhi: 9:55 PM departure, arriving at 12:40 AM
• Delhi to London: 2:00 AM departure

However, just after passing security in Goa, a WhatsApp notification informed me of a 25-minute delay. I wasn’t too worried.

Boarding then proceeded on new time, but with a full flight, we departed the gate 40 minutes later than scheduled. As we taxied, another message appeared—I had been automatically rebooked onto the later 7:00 AM flight to London.

Initially, I wasn’t thrilled about waiting five extra hours in Delhi, but in hindsight, it saved me the stress of sprinting through the airport and dealing with security again. Air India also emailed me a new baggage tag code when I was switched to flight AI111, which was a nice touch.

We arrived into Delhi Airport just past 1am, I could have made it onto my 2am flight – without the security kerfuffle. Still, the fact that Air India operations had proactively managed the situation was reassuring at least.

Boarding Air India A350 At Delhi

After a restless few hours in the lounge, I was relieved when boarding began—a whole 1 hour and 15 minutes early. It was still pitch black outside.

Upon rebooking, I lost my original window seat and was reassigned an aisle seat. Unfortunately, the Business Class cabin was completely full, so I couldn’t switch back.

Boarding was smooth, and I was warmly greeted at the aircraft door by crew members in elegant red uniforms.

In this A350 there are 28 Business Class Suites spread across just 7 rows. This is followed by a Premium Economy cabin of 24 seats.

Air India A350 Business Class Suites To London

The cabin lighting was dim due to the early morning departure so pictures do not do justice to how gorgeous this cabin is..

 

The Suite is the Horizon Premier product as Turkish Airlines’ A350 Business with some customizations to fit Air India’s branding, namely the IFE system and leather headrest colour. 

Aeroflot’s deep blues and golden trip still dominate the aesthetics otherwise.

With the aircraft only being delivered to Air India in late 2023 – I was surprised to find noticeable wear and tear in the cabin

 

Air India Business Class Amenities

Waiting at my seat was:

• Memory foam pillow
• Light wrapped blanket
• Menus
• Noise-cancelling headphones
• Wrapped bedding set with an additional pillow and slippers
• Amenity kit & Pyjamas handed out by the crew

Air India partnered with Tumi for it’s amenity kits but that didn’t last long and now provides a kit by luxury Italian brand Ferragamo ..

The PJ’s were thick and all amenities were of high quality.

Departure

During boarding hot towels and a welcome drink of Buttermilk or Orange juice was offered, I went with the Buttermilk purely due to novelty aspect !

As boarding finished the soft morning light started glowing into the cabin and we left the gates 10 minutes early.

Leela, our captain today – briefed us on our expect flight path and conditions. An all female crew would be piloting this A350! For some reason that put a smile on my face. Progress!

With the inflight safety video playing on all our screen – it did feel odd that I was not in a window seat – thankfully the A350’s are equipped with camaras to get a nice birds eye view of our aircraft movement and surrounding planes 🙂

Air India Business Class Breakfast

The crew began service around the time we reached cruising altitude.

Looking after me on this flight was Kristy alongside 2 other female and 1 male crew members in the Business Cabin. I hear only the most experienced crew are put on A.I flagship routes such as London and New York now.

The timing of things felt a little odd to me personally – I still hadn’t slept. But I also knew I would not be able to sleep if they began serving breakfast – so I decided to have breakfast and then sleep for a few hours after.

Conveniently, Air India made the flight menu’s available on the App long before check-in. You can also learn about Air India’s catering provisions for your flight before booking.

The food and beverage menu was impressively extensive on this flight too and were as follows:

The breakfast consisted of

• Orange Juice or Berry Smoothie with Chia seeds
• Fresh sliced fruits
• Bircher Muesli with diced fruits and toasted nuts
• Choice of pastries with preserves

Then a choice of four mains, two western and two Indian/Vegetarian options.

I did not particularly fancy an Indian breakfast in the moment – for research purposes I felt it would be a point of differentiation over other carriers.

Therefore I opted for the Tomato Upma, Coconut Idli & Masala Dosa – a traditional South Indian breakfast

This was presented all in one tray..

The crispy potato pancake was excellent, the muesli was too runny.

The savoury semolina porridge – was nice but I would have just preferred it to be sweet instead. I found the coconut rice cakes to be bland, until I mixed it up with jam!

After finishing up, I requested some herbal tea – to find they do not have any.

Coming to think of it – I encountered the same problem in the Encalm lounge. Do Indians not like/drink herbal tea at all?

Overall the breakfast was okay but nothing amazing. I’ve had a couple of dishes like this in Goa and it was of a similar quality. I’m generally not the biggest fan of Asian breakfasts, especially East Asian breakfasts ( even if First Class ) so make of that what you will.

Air India A350 Business Class Bed

During breakfast, I mentioned to the crew that I was feeling a bit under the weather with a sore throat and just wanted my bed made as soon as possible. Less than 20 minutes after my plates were cleared, Kristie came by and kindly offered to make my bed while I relaxed a little longer.

I stepped away to brush my teeth, and by the time I returned, the cabin was dimmed, and my bed was neatly made.

The cream-colored duvet and pillow blended with elements of the Suite, creating a calming—if somewhat plain—atmosphere. The mattress padding was reasonably thick, making for a comfortable bed by Business Class standards.

Noticing my occasional coughing, Kristie went out of her way to offer me some of her personal lozenges, which I gladly accepted.

In the end, I only managed about two hours of sleep before waking up.

I’m not sure if Air India offers dine-on-demand, but from the sounds of service continuing throughout the flight, it seemed like they might. In hindsight, I should have used the earplugs provided—I probably could have squeezed in a couple more hours of rest.

Air India A350 Restrooms

There are two dedicated restrooms in this aircraft.

They are nowhere near as bougie as Turkish’s A350 or ME3 but they were well kept throughout the flight – which is the most important thing.

Air India Business Class Lunch Service

A little while after being awake, the crew noticed and asked if I would like to have my table set for lunch – I agreed but then realized we were still more than 3 and half hours from London!

The meal service started with choice of drinks served with nuts – opted for a Virgin Mojito..

There were plenty of alcoholic and non-alcoholic choices here, including Laurent-Perrier La Cuvee Brut c as champagne – which retails at around £55 a bottle

For the starter, I selected Apple Pistachio Citrus Salad..

I rather enjoyed that. It was served with warm bread including SQ fan favourite, garlic bread!

For the main, once again there was a choice of 2 Western and 2 Indian dishes.

This time I opted for Chicken Tikka Masala:

Juicy chicken dices marinated in spices, over roasted and simmered in rich spice gravy served with flavourful pan cooked pulao rice, creamy corn spinach, black lentils stewed with tomatoes and onions, gram flour pearls, yogurt raita and pickle..

This was most certainly the star of the show. The dishes were pleasantly aromatic, pulao rice gorgeously fluffy, the spinach, pickles and raita where all just perfect!

This dish is not known as Britain’s favourite dish for nothing!

I was quite full by the time I finished it, so while I would have liked to try the cheese plate, I just opted for the Chocolate Marquise to finish off the meal.

After lunch, I opted for a full coffee, which arrived within minutes.

I then still had over 2 hours to relax and watch a movie.

Air India Business Class Entertainment & WiFi

Air India’s entertainment selection is more limited than the ME3 or big European carriers in terms of English content – which is understandable as they have a reasonably large selection of Bollywood titles !

You will find enough decent films and documentaries to watch. I did like they had specific collections for SciFi geeks or Keanu Reeves fans for that matter 🙂

Besides watching a couple of documentaries, to be honest, I spent half the flight with the flight map App on..

If you like to work or stream your own content, you’d be pleased to know that Air India provides free and unlimited WiFi throughout the flight ! The speed was decent and I did manage to watch a couple of things on YouTube.

Overall Thoughts

I would not select this particular flight time given it straddles such an odd body clock time, being neither a night flight or a proper day flight.

Yet despite that, I was rather happy with the flight. The service and product offering was above what I expected. The crew were highly professional and attentive.  I noticed customers around me demanding almost had non-stop service, so this was not one of those flights where the crew just serve meals at set times and then disappear.

The only time I called the crew bell, to request a new water bottle, they arrived in less than 20 seconds !

The catering has areas that could be improved, using trays does not signal fine dining. Though I equally understand trays can expedite the service on a night flight. In hindsight – I wish I had started my lunch much later – as many people started their lunch service an hour after I had finished !

Whilst this hard product itself is excellent on the whole – many may rightly be wandering it is not entirely representative of the typical Air India long haul aircraft – which is true for the time being until retrofits are complete.

At least you can expect the aircraft consistency on specific routes. A.I deploy these new A350s on London – Delhi route, and New York – Delhi route. Equally, for Mumbai – London route, you will consistently get the ex Etihad 777 aircraft with their previous Business Class seats.

I got off the aircraft being more intrigued about the direction Air India will eventually settle in, as I am sure they are still very much in the “storming/norming” phase of the transformation. So far, I’d say it’s looking rather promising, and I look forward to my next Air India flight.