After a week in India, it was time to return to Europe. I don’t generally leave reviews of hotels or destinations, and this time is no different. The summary of my trip is that I really enjoyed visiting the granite temples of Mahabalipuram and really did not like the Somerset Greenways Chennai. The Leela Palace Hotel is just around the corner and is way better from everything I can tell. Stay there instead.
Our flight was supposed to take off at 5:35 am (i.e. 2 hours after the 3:30 am arrival). Our flight ended up being delayed about 3 hours, which, honestly, was super great because an 8:30 am flight is way better than a 5:30 am flight.
However, speaking of things that could be a lot better, the Travel Club Lounge is also one of them.
The lounge is split into two sections: one section is pay-per-use and is the one people accessing via Priority Pass can use. The other section is for business class passengers.
Since we were traveling in Club World, we had access to the “better” side. Given how mediocre it was, I’m glad we had the better of the two at least.
The structure of the lounge was actually quite nice, with great architecture and nice tables, but, that’s where the nice part of the lounge ended for me.
There was tons of seating available, so presumably the lounge gets busier later in the day, but it was very empty when we were there. They had a hot breakfast buffet on offer that was, in fact, as terrible as the hotel’s breakfast offering, so I guess that’s just what breakfast is considered in these contexts in Chennai.
The coffee machine was also broken, and the drinks selection was otherwise quite limited. So it really was just an empty place to sit for a while.
After the extremely mid lounge experience, it was time to head to the plane. On the plus side, I knew the plane was going to have Club Suites, so I knew that at least the hard product was going to be very nice. Based on my experience in Chennai, I knew to temper my expectations for everything else. This was my first time on a 787-8 with Club Suites, and I knew to expect them to a bit narrower than on wider aircraft.
I’d say the difference compared to the Club Suite on the 777/A350 was pretty minimal, however, and it was a huge step up from the previous flight with the old style seats.
I had selected myself seat 1K, which is generally my favorite seat on British Airways aircraft, and this was no exception.
We left the lounge in time to be on board the plane early because I figured I’d be happier sitting on the plane than in the lounge, and that was correct. Boarding didn’t take too long because the flight was relatively empty, and soon we were off.
Since this flight normally takes off at 5:35 am (rather than 8:30 am), the first meal was a small breakfast. I selected the smoked salmon starter, which was served with yogurt and a croissant. Then for the main dish, I had the egg masala, which was quite small and not particularly well presented.
About halfway through the flight, the flight attendants came through to offer us a cup of fruit and a pot of yogurt. I don’t know think I’ve had that be included as part of the service flow on other flights, but I guess it makes sense when you consider how small the initial meal service was relative to the 10 hour length of the flight. There is usually a self-serve area for fruit and yogurt on larger aircraft that may just not exist on the 787-8 with smaller galleys. Finally, before landing, we were served lunch, which, once again, had a choice of a Western or Indian-style meal. I selected the kebab platter and the chicken parmesan. I normally don’t order Western food on aircraft, but the Indian options were biryani or jalfrezi, which I don’t even like on the ground.
As is to be expected for a Western-style meal catered from an Eastern outstation, it was not good. The flavors were off and since this was served 8 hours into a flight that was 3 hours delayed, it was dry and unappealing. And because of the delayed flight, I, once again, was unable to use the British Airways arrivals lounge at Heathrow, which, in principle, continues to be out of reach of this blog.
In summary, this flight was perfectly fine. The lounge in Chennai was pretty bad, though no worse than the “5-star resort” we stayed at (2/5). The Club Suite was definitely an upgrade over the old-style seat on the outbound (4/5). The service was perfectly good (4/5), but the food was not good (2/5). The lack of WiFi drags down the IFE score, which was otherwise perfectly good (3/5). Overall, the flight gets a 15/25, which is below average and noticeably lower than the outbound flight, but that largely comes down to how poor the ground experience was (and the worse food).
I booked this flight as part of a UK-Chennai and back using (other) Michael’s upgrade voucher. With the upgrade voucher, this return leg cost 47 500 Avios + $262, for a cash equivalent of around $890, which is a great price (and nearly $100 cheaper than the outbound). 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. This was actually a good value for the low price I paid, but it fell short of what I’ve come to expect of British Airways’ Club World product, but I have to imagine that this is far from a high priority route for them.
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