Alex Bowyer | building the future, one idea at a time...

Losing my business class virginity (with a backpack!)

Posted by Alex on 16 Oct, 2008 in Travel Bites | 0 comments

India 1: Journey to Ahmedabad

Less than a week ago, I was told that I’d be doing something a little different for the next two weeks. Rather than sitting at my desk in Hampshire writing code, I’d be flying to India with a colleague to help our Indian colleagues with an installation of our software for a major Indian telco as part of an outsourcing deal. It had been a possibility for two or three months but in the end it was confirmed on the Thursday and we flew out late on Monday – after a hectic Friday in the office booking overpriced last-minute flights and trying to find a hotel that met our criteria of being (a) close to the centre, (b) having a swimming pool and (c) being available. At the time we were only able to secure the first three nights in Le Meridien (which satisfied the first two and was the only hotel with any availability at all that wasn’t a long way out from the centre). All the hotels had been booked up in advance for Diwali, the Indian festival of light, as well as a major Indian Premier League cricket match in the city. We hoped that we’d be able to extend our stay or find an alternative once we were there in person.

The good news is that we were given permission to fly business class, something that is quite rare in my company, and something which I have never done before. So it was that I found myself sitting in the Flagship Lounge at Heathrow Airport enjoying the use of the fully stocked bar and the buffet of good old English sandwiches alongside Indian delicacies while sitting in big comfy armchairs and watching the news on a big flatscreen TV. It was nice to be out of the hustle and bustle of the Departure Lounge in a little oasis of calm. We even spotted a celebrity, Caron Pickering, who as it turned out would be travelling on the flight with us to Mumbai. After a relaxing couple of hours the lady from the reception desk announced that the 2125 Jet Airways flight 119 was ready for boarding. We wandered through and boarded the plane straight away.
First impressions of the business class section were excellent – each passenger gets a whole cubicle to themselves, with a seat which adjusts in three directions, all the way to the horizontal, making a completely flat bed in conjunction with the footrest. This is the most striking difference from economy class – this is what you pay your money for! The other differences were lots of little touches which all add together to make a very pleasant experience.

I made a list of what you get over economy (as well as the chair that converts into a bed):