2025’s big trip: India! Part 4: LHR-MAA

After an overnight layover in London, it was time to continue the journey to India!  Because of the way the upgrade voucher works, the previous leg from Belfast was free, and this flight was simply a continuation of that ticket.  I spent the night at the off-site Sheraton that is a short bus/uber ride away.  I usually prefer staying at Marriotts, but I’ve actually been converted to the Hilton Garden Inn that’s located by Hatton Cross tube station.  I’ll talk a bit more about that in a future post. 

Upon returning to the airport, I used the BA First Class (Gold) Wing to get a fast track through security and into the Galleries First Lounge.  I had noticed a couple days prior that our aircraft had been swapped from a 787-8 (with no first class) to a 787-9 (with first class seats).  No First Class seats were being sold, so the entire cabin was just blocked off.  I won’t bury the lead: unfortunately, they did not open the cabin to Club World passengers, so we were stuck in the 2-3-2 yin-yang seats in the ‘back’.  The other problem with the aircraft swap is that I lost the (ever so slightly) better window seats that I had selected on the 787-8, which was annoying.  

But in the meantime, it’s time to visit the Galleries First Lounge for the second time on this trip!  Given the similar departure time of this flight to India (12:30 pm) to my flight to Dublin (1:35 pm), the lounge experience was quite similar, but only breakfast this time.

I checked out their hot section and also their yogurt bowl station, which looked very fun.

I ended up opting for an American-style breakfast topped up with my favorite bits of a full English, which is to say a pancake and waffles and then hashbrowns. 

Since this was an intercontinental flight on a 787, I had expected the flight to leave from either a B or C gate.  My boarding pass even said “B Gate”.  We actually ended up receiving an A Gate gate assignment.  On paper, that’s good because the Galleries First lounge is closer to the A Gates.  However, it turned out to be a bus gate, which was decidedly less good.  So that wasn’t a great start to the flight.  Once I was on board, however, I had to turn right for my seats (I would’ve turned left if there hadn’t been an aircraft swap…).

Luckily, I was still able to secure myself a direct aisle access window seat.  But immediately, it was clear why these seats are considered so terrible.

Although, in theory, the seat on the 787 is the same width as on the A380, compared to the A380 upper deck seat, the overall personal space width is much smaller.  With a 12:30 pm departure and a 3:30 am arrival, I wasn’t exactly sure what the meal service would be.  Turns out that it’s just a standard lunch/dinner and then breakfast.  That’s unfortunate because breakfast at 2 am is (a) odd and (b) not what I wanted at about 10 pm UK time. Dinner started with the classic Do&Co tri-bread and a salmon starter. The tuna tonnato starter was very good. The mustard seeds went very well with the tuna, and the ‘egg mimosa’ was an interesting addition.

For the main, I selected the Indian curry option, which was a paneer korma and was great. Indian food reheats well on planes, and Britain consistently has great Indian food on offer. Finally as dessert, I ordered the Indian option, which was called Bhapa Doi, which had mangoes and passion fruit. I don’t know if it was a good version of the dish, but I didn’t really care for it.

After lunch/dinner, the only thing left to do really was to relax. I read a bit and then took a nap for a few hours. The timing of this flight really is awful, but it was the only option available, and I knew that going in.

Breakfast started with a croissant, yogurt, and fresh fruit as is usual on British Airways. For the main course, I selected the full English breakfast (to see if the version from London was better than the version from San Francisco). It was, at best, decent. It reheated as well as it looks like it did…

After sleeping for about half the flight, it was time to have some breakfast at about 2 am India time. We landed on time at 3:30 am, and by the time we got our bags, exited, and got to the hotel, it was nearly 5 am, which is just a terrible time to arrive somewhere. My understanding is that this flight is timed to work with connections from early evening US departures and afternoon return flights. I also think it’s timed to work around aircraft availability, with this route drawing the short straw as far as I can tell.

In summary, this flight didn’t actually feel as special as the flights between SF and London do, even though it’s the same length.  Maybe that’s because the cash price was cheaper, flight times were terrible, or because the 787 just isn’t as special as the A380, but either way, it was a big step down.  The Gold Wing and Galleries First Lounge are great in the morning (5/5).  Once on the plane, however, the seat was just alright (3/5), but the food was pretty good (3/5), and the service was perfectly fine (4/5).  The lack of WiFi drags down the IFE score, which was otherwise also only ok due to the age of the seat (3/5).  Overall, the flight gets a 18/25, which is the same as the flight from SF to London, but something about the flight just didn’t have the same spark to it.  Maybe that’s because there was always tons of Club World availability, and I didn’t feel like I grabbed a good deal in the same way. 

I booked this flight as part of a UK-Chennai and back using (other) Michael’s upgrade voucher.  With the upgrade voucher, this outbound leg cost 47 500 Avios + $355, for a cash equivalent of around $980, which is a great price for 10 hours in a lie-flat seat.  The upgrade voucher saved around 40 000 Avios each way, which is awesome.  I earned some Amex points off the cash component of the cost, but that’s about it.  Looking back, that’s all actually a great deal, so I don’t know why this flight didn’t feel that special.