• Introduction
• Check-in: ICICI/American Express Altitude Lounge Mumbai Terminal 1A
• Airborne: Flight AI 660 (BOM-DEL), Air India, Economy Class
• Check-in: ICICI/American Express Altitude Lounge Delhi Terminal 3
• Airborne: Flight AI 657 (DEL-BOM), Air India, Executive Class

I arrived at the Mumbai Airport in time for the flight, in spite of the fact that it was a working day and I had a late-afternoon flight. This involved arriving at office a couple of hours earlier than usual, and skipping lunch to make the one hour plus trip across town. On arrival at the airport, I proceeded to Terminal 1A, which is currently full of banks of empty counters and only has Air India occupying the terminal. Heck, even with that, they were overcrowded in the row of counters they used.

I went ahead and joined the queue which said Golden Edge/FFP members. Heck, I am going to take a lifetime to be ever getting any status on their loyalty program, but the nuance of the logic I used was that this was the Frequent Flyer queue. No one said a thing when I popped over at the counter to collect my boarding pass.

On the other side, people who were trying to barge into the Executive Class queue (Business Class) were being turned away if they were not travelling in that cabin. Some professionalism, that!

Notice the crowd on the Air India side of things, while on the other side there is a whole row of empty counters, which has been the case since Kingfisher died.

After going through the security queues I was on my own, and I had to choose where I’d like to go. Like I mentioned, the original intention was to check out the Amex Platinum Lounge this time around, which is situated inside the Carnations Lounge at Terminal 1C around gates 4-6. However, my gate today was going to be 11, and I ended up walking towards a side of the terminal I usually don’t go to and hence am unfamiliar with. While I walked, I noticed that the incoming flight for my trip arrived ahead of time.

I don’t know if this was oversight or bad planning, but I happened to step onto an escalator which brought me to my gate. However, to go back up, there was no escalator and you’d have to climb up the stairs. With a couple of relatively heavy cabin bags, I was not stepping into that trap of going back.

I also saw the very inviting Altitude Lounge tucked away here, in a corner of the airport’s domestic terminal where no one knew about it, right opposite gate 12. However, they made it on an elevated platform, and forgot to put an escalator along. So I had to suck it up and climb the stairs anyways.

Like you’d have noticed, American Express has launched a new set of lounges, presently in Mumbai and Delhi for the members of the cards which are issued by ICICI Bank for American Express networks. Access is only available to the Sapphiro, Rubyx cards, as well as the Jet Airways Sapphiro and Rubyx cards which are on the American Express network.

The Lounge was empty, at the middle of a busy week, especially when people were all set to get out of town for a long weekend! That is because no one knew where it is. It is about a 20-seater, and pretty well done. Here are some pictures of the lounge. To access the lounge, Sapphiro members get 4 free trips per membership year at any Altitude lounge across the country, and the Rubyx members get 2 trips per membership year.

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Jet Airways has recently made some amends to the international passengers who use their gateway in Mumbai and need to transit further into the country. Till a few days back, one would have to arrive at Mumbai’s terminal 2, clear immigration & customs and collect their baggage, redeposit it with the transfer desk, and then go to Terminal 1B using an airport operated shuttle bus, which used to frequent about every 30 minutes making it a very cumbersome process.

Now, they’ve secured a couple of gates at the International Terminal (Terminal 2) where incoming international passengers on Jet Airways flights between 0230 AM and 0645 AM at Mumbai will be able to transit directly to their flights from Terminal 2C. The process remains similar where the passenger is responsible for clearing immigration & customs, collect their bags and arrive at the transfer desk. Once there, they go through the process of security check and depositing their bags at Gates 4 or 5, rather than having to go to the domestic terminal and boarding the flight.

While I have not tried this out and perhaps won’t because BOM is my home airport, it should be good to know for those who transit via Mumbai. Also, at this point of time, the press release only states “arriving on Jet Airways flights”, so I am not sure if passengers arriving on another airline and connecting on Jet Airways are eligible or not, but I will check and update this accordingly.

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• Introduction
• Check-in: Clipper Lounge, Terminal 2, Mumbai
• Airborne: Flight 9W228 (BOM-BRU), Jet Airways, Premiere (A332)
• Hotel Manhattan, Rotterdam
• Hotel Sheraton Brussels Airport, Brussels
• Check-in: Jet Airways Lounge, Brussels
• Airborne: Flight 9W227 (BRU-BOM), Jet Airways, Premiere (A333)

I intended to arrive at the Mumbai Airport Terminal 2 in good time for this trip. Part of the reason for that was that I had just gotten done with a long day with a client, and I wanted to relax and be at ease on my flight, since I was going to slip into work as soon as I landed up in the Netherlands post my flight. However, the whole expectation of having an easy evening was marred with a crappy experience with an OlaCabs driver, who I usually thought were good, and the to-the-wire experience with my upgrade with Jet Airways, which finally cleared.

Anyways, at the airport, Jet Airways was nice and courteous and I presented them with 3 paper vouchers and my upgrade was confirmed. Too bad, it being a last minute thing, the only seat I got was 2D, which is the middle column in the 1-1-1 configuration of Jet Airways Airbus 333-200s’ Business Class. My favourite seat is usually 6K in that configuration. Anyhow, way better than slugging it out in Economy on 14A which was the seat I had pre-blocked.

I had requested for a Meet and Assist service, something I used to use occasionally, however I was informed that 9W had discontinued the service. I joined one of the passport control queues which was for premium cabin customers, however in the absence of any checks being implemented at the entry, all sorts of customers were walking into the queue, and it took a good 30 minutes to clear passport control. Next I had a trip through security, where I was hoping to wait much more, but thankfully someone got the sense to organise a premium cabin queue there as well.

Apart from taking it easy, my initial plan was to head into the Celebrations Lounge, present at Terminal 2 to be able to experience it and write a review for all of you. However, given my time had cut close, I headed to the regular lounge Jet Airways uses, the Clipper Lounge at Terminal 2 and presented my boarding pass, which was a go and I was let into the lounge. The reason was, this is the lounge 9W looks for its passengers in while boarding, and I did not want to be caught napping while my flight was gone.

Mumbai has a lot of early morning departures, and Clipper being one of the 2 contract lounges at this airport, gets traffic from a lot of these airlines such as Delta, Qatar, Cathay Pacific, Jet Airways to name a few. Add to it the traffic driven by Priority Pass and the card networks, such as MasterCard, and the lounge is choc-a-bloc full all evening long. Digressing for a moment, I’ve long wondered why Jet Airways does not have a lounge at its home airport in BOM, while it does have one at Brussels and Newark, and others such as British Airways, Emirates and Lufthansa have one in Mumbai. Back to the point, it was not easy to find a chair to settle in, because all the good ones were taken and I had to walk all over the place to find a table, which I had to share.

I’ve reviewed this lounge in the past, so you could have a look at the old review. Not much has changed. The lounge also has a First Class section, which you get access to basis your eligibility with the airlines. I last popped in there when I travelled Cathay Pacific and since I hold Emerald status on oneworld, they sent me to the First Class section.

The food quality, surprisingly, was partially good this time. The sandwiches were fresh, while some of the other Indian snacks were rubbery and chewy. What surprised me was that the entire line-up of snacks was largely focussed on the regional cuisine of Gujarat this time, and I haven’t been able to figure out why.

Here are some pictures of the options available to eat.

Vegetarian eats

More Vegetarian eats with some ready to eat noodles and chicken+rice

Desserts

Bar

My square meal

The I ate some more

My flight was called for boarding 45 minutes out, and I was only happy to leave for the flight, given the amount of crowds I had to endure at the lounge.

Related Posts:

• Check-in: Clipper Lounge First Class, Mumbai
• Check-in: British Airways Galleries Lounge, Mumbai
• Clipper Lounge, Mumbai CSI Airport Terminal 2
• Get complimentary access to Indian lounges with your MasterCard

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