I was in seat 3F which is in the last row on the right side of the aircraft.

As you can tell, the aircraft still has all the signs of its former Vistara life, but all the amenities are Air India themed. At our seat was also a pillow and blanket which is sufficient for this daytime flight.

I will note that airlines sometimes have inaugural goodies, or small remembrance items at each seat to demarcate that this was an inaugural flight; however, they did not have anything like that for this flight.

The seat a TV screen which faces you at a slight angle, but not anything too disruptive. To the right of that is also a coat hangar should you wish to utilize.

Below that is a nook area where you can keep ipads or books or things like that.

In between the 2 seats was a center console where you can keep cups and anything else.

Right below that was a fairly intuitive set of seat controls.

The magazine rack and remote control are right under that.

The tray table comes out of the side of the center console, you have to hold the handle and pull it out at a diagonal angle to make it come out cleanly.

Over your right shoulder, you’ll find the menu card and all, but this is also where the power port and headphone jack will be.

The next cabin over was 4 rows of premium economy, which featured 33″ of pitch. I would say this is fine, but I would expect more from premium economy.

Economy class meanwhile was the rest of the plane and these seats had only 28 inches of pitch which I would say is a bit tight to sit in for 7 hours.

Each of these seats did have a pretty good sized TV screen though.

Coming back to our business class cabin, as you might have noticed earlier, there was a water bottle waiting at every seat for us.

I also want to take 2 seconds to acknowledge the absolutely gorgeous menu design that the drinks and food menu had.

One of the crew members came around with a pre-departure beverage choice of spiced buttermilk or sugarcane juice. I went for the latter.

I went for the sugar cane juice, as did my neighbor.

One of the captains gave their welcome for the flight, and we began our pushback.

As we were taxiing, the crew offered us a choice of hot or cold scented towels. I love the choice because I’m a huge cold towel guy. Any time the crew offers a hot towel, I always waive it around to cool it down first.

We taxiied by this gorgeous Air India A350 on our way to our departure runway 11L.

Just as we were about to pull into the runway, we were given chocolate boxes.

We began our takeoff roll and had a smooth climbout from Delhi. The views were excellent on climbout.

Now that we’re up in the air, let me introduce you to our lavatories.

Back at the seat, there were a decent number of movies and honeslty the movie selection was much better than what I was expecting so well done by Air India here.

The headphones provided were pretty big and they weren’t fully noise cancelling, but they did a decent job.

Now let’s take a look at the menu. Once again, I can’t emphasize enough how beautiful these are.

I loved the number of options Air India had. You have 2 indian and 2 western choices. Within each of those, you have one veg and one non-veg option.

There was also a pre-arrival meal that would be served as you can see here.

The drinks menu was pretty solid. Laurent Perrier is a decent champagne brand.

Eventually a crew member came and took our meal order. He also asked what I wanted to drink after takeoff and I went with champagne. She then took my appetizer order for which I went with the chicken citrus salad. She then asked for my main and asked if I wanted to change my drink with my mian and I decided to switch over to a white wine given that I would be having chicken with my main. Lastly, she asked if I wanted still or sparkling, and since I chose sparkling, she also offered some lime and ice with it.

There were a loooot of questions asked and so you can imagine it took a while for the crew to make their way through each passenger.

The purser came around with a glass a little after and poured the champagne at my seat. There were warm nuts served alongside as well.

While this was happening, I was enjoying the awesome Southeast Asia cloud show outside.

 

Shortly after, the crew asked if I wanted to eat now or later and I opted to eat then. I liked the option as it introduced a little dine on demand type of option.

The appetizer was served first. A bread basket came around shortly after and I went for Garlic bread.

The salad was good, I liked the pistacio crust and the apple was decent.

The garlic bread was as hard as a grenade. If anyone wanted to try me on this flight, I was well prepared.

I was given more bread after and I opted for some pappad.

The main course was served and it was beautifully presented.

The chicken and the corn were both delicious, spicy, and fragrant. It was just a perfect meal. The raitha (yogurt) was also tasty and the dal (lentils) was flavorful as well.

I genuinely always enjoy every meal I have with Air India. The flavors are there and they usually don’t let me down. The crew took a minute but they did eventually bring the white wine for my main course around.

Dessert was served after and I only wanted the cheese plate. But the purser insisted I have a real dessert in edition so I went for the pakiza.

The cheese plate was good, and the pakiza was also good. For those who don’t know, the latter is a Bengali dessert. Bengali’s are absolutely known for creating wonderful sweets and this was no expection (source: I’m half Bengali).

Throughout the flight, the crew were pretty diligent with refilling drinks and they also came around throughout with hot towels for us.

Eventually we passed over Bangkok and flew by Suvarnabhumi International Airport (BKK)

As we made our way into the South China Sea, the second course began. Here, it was a simple cold-cut sandwich.

The sandwich was fine. It was a good chicken cold cuts sandwich and there’s nothing more memorable I can say about it. The dahi vada was also fine, it tasted good as I expected. The mango cake was also good.

The pre-arrival meal was simple and good. It was a perfect portion that would satiate you prior to arrival so that you wouldn’t need anything on the ground and you could go right to bed or wherever your destination would be.

I went for a little walk through all 3 cabins just to get some movement in. At the end of the day, this flight is 6 hours and 45 minutes. You are on a narrowbody so its hard to get movement sometimes.

Eventually we began our descent into Manila as we maneuvered around a few thunderstorms.

We taxiied over to our gate in Terminal 1, and 2 trucks greeted us. As is the norm for inaugural flights, we were greeted with a water cannon salute to welcome us to Manila.

Post Flight

Once we deplaned, there was a crowd waiting for us. These were mostly Air India ground staff, airport staff, and I believe I saw the Indian ambassador to the Philippines as well.

The ground staff handed us some traditional bracelets as well to welcome us to Manila which I thought was a nice touch.

And here’s one last look at our aircraft, preparing for the 7 hour journey back to Delhi.