As I arrived at my gate, the familiar long boarding queues were visible. Airlines from India, in any part of the world, do not follow a systematic boarding procedure and this means everyone is crowding out the gate to get on the flight first.
Once I could find my way through the crowd on the plane, I turned left and took my first steps onto the new business class cabin of Jet Airways to head towards seat 1K.
Like I’ve mentioned earlier, Jet Airways has started to induct new Airbus 330-300 series planes since December 2012 and already has 4 out of its 5 planes delivered by March 2013. They have 10 A330-200s in the fleet, which have the herringbone configuration in business class. These planes now have the staggered seating, much like Austrian and Brussels Airlines. This allows them to squeeze in 4 more seats into business, and 69 more seats into Economy in about similar space as the A332s (the A333s are slightly bigger).
Brussels(BRU) – Mumbai(BOM)
Saturday, March 16 2013
Depart: 10:10AM
Arrive: 11:25PM
Duration: 08hr50min
Distance flown: 4,271 miles
Aircraft: Airbus A330-300
Seat: 1K (Premiere Business)
Meal Service: Lunch, Snack
While I could appreciate the reason to squeeze in more out of less, I did not like the new cabins almost immediately. Here is why, on the earlier configuration, my 22” rollerboard could easily glide down the aisle and fit into the overhead baggage compartment. The new aisles were so small that they can’t even accommodate this standard size baggage in themselves. Seeing how I was getting a crowd behind me, I had to pick up the bags and walk over to my seat.
Here are some pictures of the cabin:
Now, like you can see on the far right of the last image, the seats to the right of the first aisle are in a 1-2-1-2… configuration, or as it is called, the throne seats and the couple seats. The middle column is all 2-2-2… configuration good for families and the leftmost column are 1-1-1… ideal for the single traveller. The staff at check-in clearly is still not trained on these aspects, since when I asked them at check-in for 1A, they told me 1A was empty but 1K was better since 1A would have another seat next to it. In reality, 1A just had this huge space on both sides, and bulkhead ahead, making it perhaps the best seat in the whole cabin in terms of space.
Read More…
Posted by Live From A Lounge |
Tags: 9W, A333, Airbus, Jet, Jet Airways, Premiere, Trip Reports
After the trip to the Clipper Lounge, my flight’s boarding was announced and I headed to the gate. There was a separate queue for Premiere class boarding and I headed through that queue to the plane. There was a secondary security check on the gate as well.
Jet Airways 228
Mumbai(BOM) – Brussels(BRU)
Tuesday, March 12 2013
Depart: 2:05AM
Arrive: 07:50AM
Duration: 10hr15min
Distance flown: 4,271 miles
Aircraft: Airbus A330-200
Seat: 2D (Premiere Business)
Meal Service: Dinner (Refreshment), Breakfast
I was flying the Mumbai – Brussels leg of the flight which was further going to Newark. At gate 1L, I was greeted by a steward, who directed me to my seat. Jet Airways’ 30-seat business class cabin on their Airbus 330-200 planes is configured in a 1-1-1 herringbone fashion. I usually like to park myself on the window side because it gives me a good view in the morning at Brussels airport, but since this was the last business class seat on the plane, I did not quite have much option.
A funny yet very concerning thing happened in the 30-35 minutes I was in the plane on the ground. There were mosquitoes on the plane, loads of them. So many of them that passengers around me were folding up their newspapers and trying to kill as many of these mosquitoes as they could. After a while, when the front cabin was all boarded and we were waiting for procedures to be completed and doors to be locked, some cabin crew members also started to do the same.
I’ve had a couple of similar instances in the past for flights that depart from the International side of Mumbai airport, and I am still trying to figure if the airport management is waiting for a malaria outbreak to put an end to this menace. Also, I think the airline should do something as well, to ensure the passengers do not suffer due to this mosquito rush. However, it all went away when the doors closed and we were good to take off.
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Posted by Live From A Lounge |
Tags: 9W, A332, Business Class, Jet Airways, Premiere, Upgrade
About a month and a half back, Jet Airways inducted two new Airbus 330-300s into their fleet, which have their new business class product, a departure from the herringbone design I so love, because of legal issues. And now, till April 30, 2013, they are offering a special promotion which offers a 200% bonus on the following routes for flying in their Premiere Class, over and above the 100% you’d earn regularly and the cabin bonus and your JetPrivilege tier bonuses:
- Delhi – Brussels or v.v.
- Delhi – Toronto or v.v.
- Delhi – Newark (via Brussels) or v.v.
- Mumbai – Newark or v.v.
- Mumbai – Toronto or v.v.
Some of these sectors look pretty sweet for earning as per this chart that was published by Jet Airways for this promotion, since one could earn over 50K JPMiles with one trip to their North American stations, with the stacking of the various mileage earnings on this one:
Tickets to avail this promotion could be booked via travel agents or on JetAirways.com but has to be ticketed on the following classes only: C,J,I, P, Z, and only on Jet Airways’ tickets. So, if you book this ticket as a part of a codeshare, you won’t get the bonuses.
More details can be found here.
Sweet promotion, except it does not cover the Mumbai-Brussels segment, so you can imagine a sad-panda face on this end!
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Posted by Live From A Lounge |
Tags: Bonus JP Miles, Jet Airways, Premiere
