British Airways
British Airways was by far, the best airline I've ever travelled by. I strongly recommend BA for flying to/from India. First of all, they honor your food requests. And second of all, BA has a decent collection of Indian movies for in-flight entertainment. Twenty hours on bread, butter and jam is the most grueling experience for Indian taste-buds. :) Request a vegetarian/Hindu meal on ba.com and thats all it takes for a yummy meal to reach you on board! One other advantage of requesting a special meal is that, you are served before all other passengers. Isn't that nice? This was my first flight journey without me waiting eagerly for the food-cart to arrive. :D
The main reason I chose BA was because the fares were cheaper than other carriers at the time of booking. One other reason was that BA stops just once at Heathrow enroute Los Angeles-Hyderabad. But now when I tell someone about BA, the food factor and the desi movies on board take the first place. :) One more thing, BA has hindi-speaking attendants and announcements are made both in English and Hindi. This helps when you have non-English speaking people travelling.
Well, the only catch however when you have a stopover in UK (on most airlines) is that, you need to have a DATV (Direct Airside Transit Visa) if you are travelling with an expired US visa. If you are a US citizen, you are good to go. Visit this for more information. The visa is required even if you don't leave the airport. I say it's a complete ripoff and an unnecessary cause of tension. To get this visa, you have to fill up a form online, get a biometric screen done at a USCIS application support center near you and send some original documents (passport, work authorizations, etc) along with a fee of 95$ + postage charges to the British Embassy. In most cases, it takes anywhere between 7-15days for you to get back your passport with the DATV stamp. The British consulate calls you once they check your documents and typically mail the passport the next business day. You get an email from them along with a UPS tracking number once they mail your passport. The biometrics thing at the USCIS center is by appointment. So getting the DATV is a time-consuming process. Make sure you apply for the visa as soon as you purchase your air-ticket. We didn't know about DATV until 3 weeks before our travel date, and God alone knows how much we panicked. What makes things worse is that, there's no way you can monitor your case status at the UK consulate. We felt greatly relieved on getting back our passport, and you know what, nobody even bothered to check the DATV, both in LAX as well as LHR. Shitttt!!!! But yeah, it's always better to be safe than sorry.
That's all I have. Concluding here giving BA a 5/5 rating. Happy flying!!!
