• 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)

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…

• 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)

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.

Read More…

• 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)

Earlier this month I needed to plan a trip to The Netherlands, not for fun but for work. The direct route from Mumbai (BOM) to Amsterdam Schiphol (AMS) has only one flight, which is actually a SkyTeam flight operated by Delta on the route Mumbai – Amsterdam – Atlanta, using their Fifth Freedom rights. However, having travelled on that flight once, I decided I did not like it much. What could you expect of Delta afterall? They took 1.5 hours just to serve me water!

Anyways, a lot many more options could open up if I had a valid UK Visa at all times, because then I could have flown BOM-LHR-AMS, and unlike flying to the USA, I cannot transit UK with a valid Schengen visa. But since this visa is not always available to me, I have chosen to be flying BOM-BRU, a route that is served by Jet Airways for years as a part of their Mumbai – Brussels – Newark service. Brussels is 9W’s scissor hub, and here passengers from the Delhi – Brussels – Toronto flight come in as well, and can switch flights to Newark for instance. I’ve done this flight quite a few times, and here are some pictures from a past trip in business class in 2011 (the trip report is still due ), and economy in 2012. I sometimes take a short regional flight from Brussels to Amsterdam, but most of the times the trains work for me.

Once my dates were firmed up, I ticketed economy class seats on Jet Airways website using the Jet Airways American Express Platinum Credit Card. Not just did it mean I got 12 JPMiles per Rs. 100 spent on the ticket, I also got a 5% discount on the base fare, which worked to about Rs. 2,000. Not bad I say!

Since I was going to be getting straight into work mode after landing, I decided it was worth it to try and upgrade to Premiere. Since I am Platinum with Jet Airways, I thought it was going to be easier since there is no fare class restriction for Platinum members, and to add to it the ticket was purchased close to the date of travel so it was not a deep-discounted ticket either. However, after multiple assurances from Jet Privilege, I only got the waitlist till the day of departure. You can see how to use Jet Airways upgrade vouchers here.

For the stay, I was going to head up to the corporate agreement hotel of my company in Rotterdam, The Manhattan Hotel, since this is the only 5-Star hotel in Rotterdam, and is way better than some of the other ratholes I have stayed at in the city. On my way back from Rotterdam, I was going to spend a night at the Sheraton Brussels Airport, which would have made life easy in the morning since I just had to walk across the road to check-in for my flight.

All in all, apart from the snow in Brussels which had me off-guard for a while, since I did not think trains would not work due to this, we did good. So, I’ll try and go through the details over here and I hope you have fun reading it.

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