I recently flew to India during the COVID pandemic. As with most people, being stuck in a giant metal tube wasn’t something I was looking forward to. A recent study released a few weeks before my flight departure, made this an easier decision. The silver lining as an aviation enthusiast, was that I would be able to travel on United’s much hyped Polaris business class cabin. This flight was operating under the Vande Bharat Mission as part of the Air Bubble between India and the United States, which I detail in this post.
Note: None of this is intended to be legal advice, please follow your own intution while confirming your travel plans.
I want to start of by emphasizing that due to the ongoing pandemic, this was not a normal trip. In better times, my prep involved packing a suitcase and grabbing my passport the preceeding weekend .This……. wasn’t as straightforward and my experience might differ from those of others during “ normal” times. However, with some planning, things can be smooth end to end.
The goals which I hope to achieve with this post :-
1) There’s been a lot of confusion on the steps required to enter India. While I feel the Indian government has been doing a great job under the circumstances, the ever changing regulations regarding documentation, testing, allowed flights, makes it quite a bit of work to understand the steps required. Hopefully, this post might be helpful to others through my experience.
2) Reviewing the Polaris product. I’ve been following United’s premium cabin for a while now through travel bloggers.Flying between my two homes half way across the world, limited my choice for Operators to Air India and United.. Having extensively used the former, and (almost) been on the launch flight for the inaugural United SFO-> Delhi flight last winter, I was excited to fly on the latter.
Booking the itinerary:
I was part of United’s MileagePlus program and had also accumulated a decent amount of points at my disposal. Looking at award travel turned out to be a good choice: I found a Saver award for 80,000 miles which were a 1:1 transfered from my credit card. A rough valuation puts this at 800 USD + 5.6 in taxes. Some of the other options were priced at more than double this which seems unreasonable, given the cost of a regular ticket.
I was originally booked on the direct SFO-> IGI service, but due to reduction in frequency and a change in my timeline, I had to prepone my ticket to early November. For this saver award, I found a connecting ticket via Newark.
I wasn’t exactly thrilled at the idea of this extra 10 hours with the layover, the only silver lining being that I was able to test out both of United’s Polaris business products in the 787–9(SFO->EWR) in this transcontinental trip to United’s East coast hub.
The total airfare came to these miles + 5.6 USD in taxes. Not bad.
I managed to snag Seat 1A on both of these flights with the neighbouring seats empty, (at the time of booking) which I was hoping would grab me more privacy.
This is a seat layout from a different flight but the cabin for this journey was thankfully less crowded.
Pre-flight Steps:
United was operating under the agreement between the Indian and US government under the Vande Bharat Mission. To enter India, there were a few documented requirements, which have been listed through the Air Suvidha portal. Do check the website for details, as the latest information gets refreshed here. At my time of travel, we were required to submit :-
(a) Self reporting form to be filled in before departure. This requires basic information regarding passenger details, flight itinerary, and whether the passenger has experienced any symptoms so far.
(b) [Optional] A Self exemption form. All international travellers are required to undergo a mandatory 14 institutional quarantine in New Delhi. There were certain exceptions (also listed on the Air Suvidha portal), including the ability to submit a negative covid test report taken 96 hours before boarding the flight. This needs to be attached to the self exemption form, which once approved allows for home quarantine.The catch is that this needs to be uploaded on the portal 72 hours before the flight, which effectively leaves only a 24 hour window to get a result. However, I’ve seen posts where Individuals uploaded their results later, and also got approval.
I managed to get tested on the Friday evening before my flight(exactly 96 hours before my scheduled departure) and also got my results back the next evening. On social media, I saw posts of people getting valid forms rejected, pending requests etc. There were also some suggestions to submit it during Indian business hours, or committing to multiple submissions. While I don’t know how far that is true(or allowed in the latter), I submitted my results as soon as I received them around 5am IST, and got an approval in 20 minutes.
That was a great relief and it seems that I was now ready to fly!!
SFO
On an unusually chilly early November morning, I arrived at the airport around 6:00am, 3 hours before the departure, as recommended by the United agent. Although this was a domestic connection, the flight was scheduled for departure from Gatel G2, part of the International Terminal.
The airport was empty, which wasn’t exactly unusual at this hour. Masks and face shields everywhere.
The Check in process was a breeze, with no questions asked about my international leg. I got both my boarding passes at this stage and confirmation that my bags are checked all the way to Delhi.
While I knew the San Francisco Polaris lounges was shut, the United website shows an open United Club lounge , which I enquired about. The agent wasn’t sure about this, asking me to check after security. Not a good sign: I made the mistake of packing light on food, and proceeded onwards.
I recently got access to Global Entry and TSA Pre-Check, which made security screening easier(no awkward struggles with removing all electronics, metals on trays) even though there wasn’t much of a rush at that point.
After moving on to the gate side, the agents suspicion was confirmed: All of the United Club lounges were closed. The Website had them listed as open in SFO, so do plan accordingly if like me, you were expecting to have some breakfast in the lounge. A couple of cafes were open.
I grabbed a sandwich at Joe & the Juice and proceeded to eat in the outdoor seating area in Terminal G, which gave some great views and was empty. Boarding started on time around an hour before departure and gave plenty off time to get settled in.
UA2244 : SFO-> EWR on the Boeing 787–9
The boarding area seemed relatively empty, I made my way towards the front of the aircraft to my seat. This Boeing 787–9 was yet to be retrofitted with the new Polaris cabin and had the old 2–2–2 configuration. The seat next to me was unoccupied the last I checked online, and I was hoping it would remove that way.
The flight attendants were wearing masks and offering sanitizers to passengers to clean up the seats, if they wished to. While United does clearly mention that they have already sanitized the flight, this seems to be a “just to be sure….” measure, one that I was more than happy and greatful to take up. The seat looked clean overall but I spent a few minutes scrubbing it from my end. I settled in and was offered a choice of a pre-departure drink and to pick a choice of breakfast among pancakes and a chicken sandwich. Towards the end, as the upgrades cleared, the cabin filled up a bit more, with the seat next to me getting occupied as well.
We managed to take off early, around 20 minutes before the schedule departure time, with the taxiways very empty. Having woken up fairly early for the flight, I reclined the seat fully back to get a quick nap. I woke up to breakfast and spent the rest of the ~5 hour flight working and watching the on boarding entertainment options. The bathroom was quite clean and seemed to be maintained well. I managed to catch this great snap soon before landing in New Jersey.
Deboarding was in an order and commenced from the back of the business class cabin door.
Layover @ Newark
Because of the on time take off, we landed around 20 minutes earlier to EWR. This gave me roughly 4.5 hours before my next flight. There was a United Club right near my arrival gate, which made it an easy decision on how to pass this time. Newark was fairly crowded, especially given it was a Tuesday evening. The lounge was initially quite packed, with a bunch of other departing flights scheduled before my departure(including United’s service to Mumbai as well)
Flying Polaris, you get complimentary access to the drinks bar. Due to the recent response to the pandemic, they had temporarily stopped serving warm meals . There were packaged snacks and fruits. I was contemplating getting a real dinner outside but being too lazy, decided to stay in . An hour in, the lounge thinned out, and I spent my time catching up on work and also following the early election results which were coming in.
An hour before boarding, I decided to leave and head to my gate, noticing the lounge getting quieter as well. The United App mentioned it would be a short walk(<1 min) but ended up taking me quite a lot more to time to get to my gate. The walk was quiet, but as I neared C136, it was densely packed. There was no concept of social distancing followed here, while the United agent’s were trying to get everything in order. It seems like pre-boarding had started and since I was a bit late, I had to figure out what the steps were. Someone mentioned there’s a documentation and temperature check after which we get a stamp on the boarding pass. I proceeded to get these completed, and with the approval forms, got a stamp on a newly printed boarding pass(I prefer using the App, but in this case a physical copy is required to board). The agent’s were helpful and ushered me over as part of pre-boarding .
UA82: EWR-> IGI on the B777–300ER(~ 14 hours)
I boarded the aircraft and similar to the prior leg, was offered sanitizers to clean up the aircraft. While the seat looked clean, I noticed some dirt by the gap and requested a few more sanitizer pads to clean this up. The flight attendants were helpful and provided a printed copy of the self-reporting form as well. When I mentioned that I had already filled this up online, they were not too sure about whether I needed this as well.
The cabin was a 1–2–1 and being in 1A, it was more isolated. However, this flight got booked up quickly and there were very few empty seats left. I got a welcome drink and put my items in the storage bins. We got blankets, pillows and an amenity kit. The famous Polaris pajamas were not there and needed to be specially requested.
We were asked for a preference of dinner, and I went with the fish curry. (The other option was a vegetarian entree). I enjoyed my welcome drink as we completed the boarding process and had a slight 30 minute delay before we left the gate. We were served dinner shortly after take off which I enjoyed with a nice movie from the IFE.
3 hours into the flight, shortly after midnight EST, I decided to make my bed and get a few hours of sleep. I’m not sure if the attendants would assist with this in normal circumstances, but I was happy to do this on my own. I managed to get almost 8 hours of sleep. The seat was quite comfortable although sleeping with a mask on isn’t the best of experiences.
I freshened up with the kit provided, changed back into my regular clothes and completed the immigration formalities. We were approximately an hour from arrival when we were served breakfast(a bit weird since it was dinner time in India).
Final Boss: Immigration and Quarantine stamps at IGI
This is the part I was dreading the most in the trip. I had heard horror stories about quarantine screening at Delhi airport, spanning multiple hours(with no social distancing). I stepped out of the aircraft in anticipation…..and 12 minutes later I was at baggage claim. I passed through multiple checks where they initially checked my documents and a temperature scan. This was followed by checking my self exemption approval form and finally after this I got a stamp on my left wrist that stated I was going to undergo a mandatory home quaratine. This was followed by immigration which was also relatively empty.
As a disclaimer: everyone’s experience is different, with multiple factors involved and this changes from time to time. In this particular scenario, I assume I got lucky because:-
(1) The flight landed at a time when the terminal was pretty empty(9pm on a Wednesday evening). Hence, no backlog of passengers from previous flights waiting in the queue.
(2) Being in the front of the plane, the initial few passengers are allowed to disembark first, which gets you through the checkpoints fairly quickly. The ground staff seemed efficient.
(3) Having your documents ready speeds up the process for everyone. The staff was accpeting digital copies and would check your self-reporting, self exemption form and passport(or visa).
Baggage claim is where I lost a lot of time and it took approximately 50 minutes for me to grab my bags. There wasn’t much social distancing followed at this stage, I felt the airport staff could have done a better job of segregating the luggage. A lot of bags were clogging up the carousel(possibly from passengers still stuck in the previous steps) and could possibly be kept to the side, especially given the airport was not especially busy at this hour.
After this, it’s Customs and finally the arrivals here. This was by far the most crowded part of the airport. Delhi Airport was offering RT-PCR tests on arrival , which take roughly take 6–8 hours to get a result for. I saw a lot of people sitting and waiting for this. There were also the statewise quarantine desks for those with onward connections. I took the exit for home quarantine passengers and made my way home :)
