Review: Air India First Class Boeing 777 (DEL-FRA)

For the next flight of my Four Seasons Yacht via Turkmenistan and Saudi Arabia adventure, I flew Air India’s Boeing 777-300ER first class on the 9hr25min flight from Delhi (DEL) to Frankfurt (FRA).

I have to say right off the bat that my flight didn’t exactly go as planned. Initially my flight was scheduled to be operated by one of the carrier’s ex-Etihad Airways Boeing 777-300ERs, featuring first class suites with doors. However, a few days before departure, the flight got swapped to a 777-300ER with Air India’s old first class, which isn’t exactly industry leading, to put it politely.

That being said, I was still looking forward to checking out Air India’s updated first class soft product, given how impressed I was by my Air India A350 business class flight several months back.

Unfortunately I must say that this flight left me underwhelmed. On the plus side, the crew was friendly, I was the only first class passenger, I actually got a great night of sleep, and the cabin wasn’t actively falling apart (making it better than some other experiences I’ve heard of).

That being said, I couldn’t help but feel like Air India puts absolutely no effort into the first class soft product. It’s so strange, the airline has done an amazing job overhauling its business class soft product, but then there’s virtually no differentiation for first class, except a slightly better alcohol selection.

I get that first class probably isn’t a terribly profitable cabin for Air India, but if/when the airline does introduce its new first class hard product, I hope the airline also invests in its soft product. As things currently stand, business class is definitely more impressive than first class, on a relative basis.

How I booked my Air India first class ticket

I redeemed Air Canada Aeroplan points for my Air India first class flight. Specifically, I booked the following for 75,000 Aeroplan points plus $53 in taxes & fees:

7/17 AI2025 Delhi to Frankfurt departing 3:55AM arriving 10:40AM

For an international first class ticket, that’s quite a good value, even if Air India first class isn’t much to get excited about.

For what it’s worth, I ticketed this a little under two weeks before departure, though the award space had been there even before I booked… I guess there’s just not much demand! Aeroplan points are of course really easy to earn, as the program partners with most major transferable points currencies.

Air India first class lounge & boarding

In previous installments, I reviewed the Air India Maharaja Lounge Delhi, including the first class section and business class section. This is Air India’s new flagship lounge, and the airline did a stellar job with this facility. I even rank the first class lounge as being among the best in the world.

Even beyond the lounges as such, Air India deserves credit for its ground experience in terms of escorting guests every step of the way. Since I was in international transit on a separate ticket (arriving in Turkmenistan Airlines’ 737 business class), I didn’t get the typical check-in experience.

However, I was transported from the lounge to the gate by golf cart, and also had a porter help with my luggage. In the lounge I had been asked whether I wanted to board first or last — I asked to board first, and sure enough, they waited to start boarding until the second I arrived at the gate. My flight was departing from gate 24, with the process starting at 2:55AM, a full hour before departure.

Air India 777 first class cabin & seats

I boarded through the forward left door, where I was immediately greeted by the lovely cabin supervisor, Ritu, and escorted to my seat. Air India’s 777-300ER first class cabin consists of just four seats, in one row, in a 1-2-1 configuration. So in that sense it’s like Air France’s La Premiere first class, but that’s also where the similarities end. 😉

The seats have 80″ of pitch and 23″ of width, so they’re super spacious, and actually really comfortable. However, they’re not very private, as there are no doors, and even the partitions aren’t huge. Then again, when you’re the only person in the cabin, that’s a non-issue.

If you’re traveling with someone, you may appreciate the ability to assign seats together in the center section, so you can truly enjoy the flight together. That’s something that isn’t possible in so many newer first class products, so that’s a nice element to this cabin.

Meanwhile if you’re a solo traveler, you’re best off assigning one of the window seats — in my case, I selected seat 1A. The first thing that stood out to me about the seat was that it was in decent condition.

There have been so many reports of Air India’s 777 first class cabins basically falling apart. While the full retrofit of these aircraft has been massively delayed, the planes have undergone mild refreshes, and they at least make a difference. Of course this cabin by no means felt cutting edge, but at least most things were more or less functioning as they should.

When it comes to seat features, immediately to the side of the seat is an enclosed area with the entertainment controller, AC and USB-A power outlets, and headphone jack. On the armrest there’s also a little controller for the seat functions. Obviously this is all outdated tech, but at least it was functioning.

The tray table then folds out from the side of the seat, and is really heavy — it’s a struggle to move around, and I felt a bit bad for the crew members, who insisted on taking it out and storing it for me. This tray table also kept sort of collapsing, as the far side would just hang down quite a bit when things were placed on it. As a result, I kept most things on the left side of the tray table.

There’s also an additional small enclosed storage compartment to the side of the seat.

Then there’s an open closet space of sorts, where you can hang clothes.

Air India also has individual air nozzles on its 777s, which is perhaps one of the carrier’s biggest competitive advantages when it comes to product on this plane. That contributed to me getting some great rest on this flight.

While not related to first class, I did also take a glance into business class. Behind first class and ahead of the second set of doors were 21 business class seats, in a 2-3-2 configuration. While the seats were angled, they otherwise looked fairly fresh.

In terms of hard product, this was exactly what I was expecting, except the seat was in better condition than I was anticipating, so that’s good, at least.

Air India 777 first class entertainment

The entertainment situation in Air India’s 777 first class is pretty rough. First of all, there’s no Wi-Fi on these Air India 777s, so don’t expect that you’ll stay connected to the outside world, despite these planes operating some very long missions.

Instead, the primary option is the seat back entertainment, and that system is really outdated. I mean, I think the interface speaks for itself — this stuff feels a good 15+ years past its prime. The system had movies, TV shows, music, and games, though the selection was rather limited, so I’d highly recommend bringing your own entertainment.

There is also streaming entertainment, with the selection being identical to the seat back entertainment. I assume that’s available so that people with broken screens can still watch the entertainment.

The other thing I’d mention is that beyond how limited the entertainment was, using the controller was just an absolute pain. It was so unresponsive, where there was a delay of seconds between the input and the system actually responding. So I just spent most of my time awake watching the map feature, which is my favorite inflight entertainment anyway (well, assuming there’s no tail camera!).

Air India first class amenities

Waiting at my Air India first class seat upon boarding was a good amount of bedding. This included a colorful pillow and day blanket on my actual seat — while not the coziest, the design was cute.

That was complemented by the additional bedding on the ottoman, including a mattress pad, an additional pillow, and a larger blanket. It’s not at all a big deal, but I found it interesting how this bedding for turndown service was stored directly on the seat, rather than in the overhead bin.

Once settled in, both the cabin supervisor and first class flight attendant introduced themselves to me and familiarized me with the seat. They also offered me a pre-departure drink, with the choice of buttermilk juice or kala jamun juice (did I get that right?). I went with the latter, and it had… a unique taste.

I was also asked if I wanted a hot or cold towel, and that was presented on a little plate.

I was then given the amenity kit, which was Forest Essentials branded. It was a pretty basic kit, and had socks and eyeshades, as well as a facial mist, lip balm, body lotion, etc. I was surprised by the lack of basic amenities, as there was no toothbrush, earplugs, etc.

I was also presented with some Air India branded pajamas, the same I’ve been offered in business class in the past, along with slippers.

Then there were a pair of noise canceling headphones, which were reasonably nice. However, the system’s audio quality was so bad that they could only do so much to help with that.

Lastly, I was given with the menu and drink list, with an explanation about how I could order whatever I wanted whenever I wanted.

Air India’s first class amenities are okay, and what stood out to me the most was the lack of differentiation from business class.

Air India 777 departure from Delhi

The boarding process took quite some time, and wrapped up by 3:50AM, five minutes ahead of our scheduled departure time. At that point the captain was on the PA to quickly welcome everyone onboard, and inform us of our flight time of 9hr25min.

At 3:55AM we began our pushback, and then at 4:05AM we began our taxi, at which point the safety video was screened. The audio quality in the cabin was horrible (it was constantly making a “crackling” sound), though I’m otherwise a fan of Air India’s safety video.

We had a very long taxi to our departure runway, but we taxied fast, at least. At 4:25AM we were cleared for takeoff on runway 28. We had a fairly quick takeoff roll, and a smooth climb out.

The seatbelt sign was turned off around five minutes after takeoff.

Air India first class breakfast service

On this Air India first class flight, there was both a breakfast and lunch meal option, and the idea was that you could order what you wanted, when you wanted. While I’d ordinarily order the main meal after takeoff and then breakfast after waking up, I decided to reverse it this time around, since I had a couple of lunch and dinner type meals at the airport during my extended layover, so it felt like breakfast was appropriate at this point.

You can find the Air India first class menu below.

You can find the Air India first class drink list below.

The thing that stood out to me is that while the drink selection was a bit elevated compared to business class (without being anything remarkable), the food seemed identical to business class, which I’d consider to be pretty underwhelming.

Service was very quick to get started. Within 20 minutes of takeoff, my tablecloth was set, and I was offered a drink with some warm, mixed nuts. I had a glass of champagne, with Charles Heidsieck Blanc de Blancs being on offer — it was a step up from the business class champagne for sure.

The entire breakfast was served as one course. I opted for the South Indian platter, with podi upma, paniyaram, neer dosa, and sagu. I also had some fruit yogurt to accompany that, along with a croissant.

I love Indian food, and I thought that this was delicious. However, there was nothing about this that felt particularly first class, in terms of both quality and presentation. I was ultimately happy, but still, it doesn’t feel like there’s much effort put into this.

Air India 777 first class lavatories

Air India’s 777 first class has two lavatories at the very front of the cabin, right by the cockpit. The one to the left is the larger of the two, and is the one generally reserved for passengers (while the one on the right is more used by the crew).

I’d say the crew did a great job taking care of it, though in reality, I think I was the only one using it, so I think I also deserve a pat on the back. 😉

Air India 777 first class bed

After the meal, the crew kindly prepared my bed for me, so that I could get some rest. I asked to be woken up with enough time before landing to have a pre-landing meal.

I must say, I found the bed to be really comfortable, especially since I could grab some extra pillows from the seat next to me.

I’m generally a horrible airplane sleeper, though I slept spectacularly well on this flight. I fell asleep with around 8hr30min remaining to Frankfurt…

…and I woke up with around 1hr55min remaining, meaning that I slept for well over six hours. For me, that’s absolutely unheard of on a plane. I’m a really sensitive airplane sleeper, so obviously the dark cabin, lack of noise, smells, and sounds, and individual air nozzles, all contributed to a great experience.

Air India first class lunch service

After waking up, it was time to enjoy the main meal. Once again, you can find the selection below, as this time I was working off the right menu.

There were two choices of appetizers, and I selected the citrus tiger prawns with mango wasabi mousse and fresh cucumber. That was served with a side of bread. This dish was fine, but nothing remarkable, or that felt like what you’d expect in first class rather than business class.

Of the four main course choices, I selected the nawabi paneer gucchi, essentially cottage cheese dumplings with creamy tomato gravy, saffron basmati rice, yogurt cooked lentils, spiced okra potatoes, and raita.

Lastly, for dessert I had the shahi gulab jamun — fried, condensed milk dumplings with saffron pistachio filling. It was the inverse of being as tasty as it is healthy. 😉 I had a cappuccino to go along with that, served with packaged Biscoff cookies.

All-in-all, the meal was quite good. But again, there was nothing about it that felt like it belonged in first class over business class.

Air India first class crew & service

Service in Air India first class was excellent. Both the cabin supervisor and first class flight attendant were warm, hospitable, and attentive. Admittedly you’d expect that to be the case with two crew taking care of one passenger.

In general I’ve found service on Air India to be one of the strong points of the experience. While the carrier’s turnaround sure isn’t progressing very quickly, staff in general seem to take a lot of pride in the airline, which is nice to see.

Air India 777 arrival in Frankfurt

At 9:50AM Frankfurt time, the captain was on the PA to announce that we had already started our descent, and would be landing in around 30 minutes. During our descent to Frankfurt we had quite a bit of turbulence, so the crew had to prepare the cabin for landing early.

We ended up touching down in Frankfurt at 10:20AM on runway 25C.

From there we had a very long taxi to our arrival gate. At around 10:35AM we approached the area near our gate, though the captain advised that our parking position was still occupied, and should become available soon. On the plus side, we waited on a taxiway that afforded some great views.

Finally at 10:45AM we were cleared to taxi to our gate, where we pulled in next to a SunExpress Boeing 737.

I bid farewell to the crew, and then continued for my connecting Lufthansa flight to Venice (VCE), to kick off the main part of my trip — after three redeye flights in a row, I was looking forward to spending a night in a hotel!

Bottom line

If the goal of a first class flight is to arrive at your destination well rested, then my Air India first class flight actually deserves high marks, because I got among the best sleep I’ve ever had on a plane. However, it’s also hard to objectively judge the experience based on that.

All-in-all, I had a pleasant flight with friendly service, an empty cabin, and tasty food. The seats were also in better condition than I was expecting, but that’s because I had heard absolute horror stories.

That being said, there’s no denying that this simply isn’t a competitive product. There’s no Wi-Fi, the entertainment system is really outdated, and the soft product feels identical to business class, except the alcohol selection is slightly elevated.

If you’re going to offer first class, the expectation is that the soft product will be substantially better than business class, and that just wasn’t the case here. Frankly, all things being equal, I’d probably prefer Air India’s new business class with Wi-Fi, more modern entertainment, etc.

What’s your take on Air India’s 777 first class?