An Air India flight. Photo / Aimee Shaw
Aimee Shaw flies from London, Heathrow to New Delhi aboard Air India's flight AI112.
The plane: A Boeing 777-300. Very old aircraft definitely in need or some TLC, or a revamp.
Class: Economy.
The Seat: 35A and 35B, window seat.
Flight time: 8 hours and 20 minutes.
Entertainment: An old entertainment system but it had a good handful of newly released films. I watched Nerve featuring Emma Watson - not a bad way to pass the time.
Price: About $500 per person - with a checked baggage allowance of 46kg.
Service: A lot of very young flight attendants offering okay service. The start of the average service started as we boarded - flight attendant advised wrong location of our seats. Secondly when I sat down I was horrified by a grubby stain on the seat belt - everything was in dire need of a good wipe down. I cringe at the thought of what was on the seat belt. Eek.
Food and drink: The croissants were my flight favourite. Hot food was average, opened up the foil and decided to pass on the meal. Vegetarian meal consisted of a spinach curry with vegetable balls and a side of cauliflower and peas.
Toilets: Based on previous experience with Air India, I purposely made sure I went to the bathroom before the flight and limited my liquid intake as I didn't want to be faced with having to use the on-board toilets.
Fellow passengers: A mixture of expats and eager intrepid travellers.
Experience: There was terrible turbulence for the majority of the flight, which, paired with an old aircraft didn't make for a pleasant journey. There was no air conditioning (or so it seemed) at the start of the flight and an excessive amount at the end.
Would I take the flight again? Probably not. I've flown Air India domestically multiple times and I found those services to be much nicer than this international service, surprisingly. I thought it would have been the other way around. The only reason I would consider taking this flight again is that it offers a checked in baggage allowance of 46kg per passenger. And it is a non-stop flight from London.
Princess Diana stayed there, and now so have I.