I was flying from Mumbai to Doha in business class with Qatar Airways. Checkin and all went perfectly fine and the agent was very friendly and invited me for the Adani Business class lounge at Mumbai Airport. However, what shocked me was the lack of people at Mumbai Airport. Covid has really reduced the footfall at the airport. It is always surprising to see less or no people in India.
In India you are always part of the crowd and to see a (nearly) empty airport like this is disheartening. Hopefully, now that Corona is under control in India, the Indian government will take away the ban on scheduled International fights. I quickly went through the immigration and the view from the Duty free/retail area (airside) is also quite disheartening – I felt sorry for the retail venues here.
It didn’t take me too long to get to the lounge. Lounge is the same as the GVK lounge, except that now it is called Adani lounge as the airport has changed ownership. The service, food and people all have stayed the same. The peacock design at the lounge entrance is still gorgeous.
I quickly headed to a nice spot next to the window to enjoy my cool beer, while enjoying a nice Mumbai sunset.
As earlier, the service at the lounge is very friendly. Once I was seated the lounge attendant came to ask me what I would like to drink and was happy to bring me a nice cold beer. After negotiating the mumbai road traffic it was great to kick-back and enjoy the sunset and a cold beer.
One big change at Mumbai airport is that now it is easier to access internet. Earlier you had to receive an SMS code to log on to the internet. However, the SMS codes were not easily obtainable on non-indian mobiles. However, now this has changed. The sms easily arrives on any international number and you are ready to browse!
The lounge was quite empty. I think early evening time at Mumbai international terminal is quite anyways and it is even more quieter due to Covid. I am sure that the lounge is quite busy around mid-night when a big batch of flights to Europe departs.
During covid times the lounge does not have an all day buffet. But, you can easily order off the menu. The menu is shown below and it is quite mouth watering – from chicken tikka to biryani, you can order many yummies on this all day menu.
After a few beers, I headed to the dining area. Food display and options were lovely.
The lounge really offers a lot of veg and meat options – and also a great section of sweets. There are always lounge attendants close to you, if you need any help.
The lounge offered quite a few hot and cold options.
One thing I noticed was that due to covid, the massage area within the lounge is closed. What a loss. I like to massage area here and the nice foot rub before a long flight.
I had a good fill of sumptuous Indian food before boarding my Qatar flight to Doha. As always I loved the lounge and the offerings and I am glad that Mumbai airport has maintained its high level of service.