I’m currently on an Air India flight from Hong Kong to Mumbai in what they call the Executive Class, which is a Business Class equivalent. Flight time wise it is ideal because it is a direct flight and offers more flexibility than Cathay Pacific. Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong to Mumbai goes via Bangkok and takes almost 2 hours more because of it.

Unfortunately that is where the benefits of Air India stops, the planes are very obviously old Czech Airline planes as the signs in places like the Toilets are all in Czech. Infact even the shared TV screen, in Business Class no less, has a big welcome to Czech Airline sign, great free advertising!

The seats as you can see are old and the condition leaves a lot to be desired and are on par with the old American Airline planes, the flight offers no first class but it hardly would have made a difference. The seats are merely bigger, they aren’t flat or even partially flat, and the seats themselves have damages and marks on them that have clearly not been fixed, meaning this plane has probably seen many, many years of action without being really updated which provided for a very uninspiring beginning.

There was no power plug for a laptop, there was no personal TV for each seat, and again this was supposed to be "business class", so obviously no on-demand media device either. Newspaper were all indian, they didn’t have any chinese or even english hong kong  newspapers (like SCMP or The Standard) despite taking off from Hong Kong.

The service is generally good but I’d say it’s worse than Cathay Pacific, what’s more the cost of the ticket was only about US130 cheaper.

In general, if you can afford the little extra bit of time fly Cathay from Hong Kong to Mumbai, and unless something radically changes with the fleet, flying Air India is probably not advisable for inflight comfort anyway.

The one thing that New York is not well known for is good value Hotels. In general, Hotels are expensive and service and quality questionnable. In my attempted search for a good value Hotel for the travelling executive I ended up booking this time at the Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers because it was cheaper than the other Hotels by almost 100 dollars.

The website paints a nice picture and the images donot strike you as a Hotel that is infact 3 stars. The price I got was between 360-380 USD which is expensive but was cheap for New York standards. The address at 811 7th Avenue on 53rd Street, New York City, NY 10019, was very central and is within walking distance to most needs and especially if you travel for business it’s a great location.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the Hotel itself. While the photos looked nice, the actual Hotel is old, the carpets fairly dirty and the window has no curtains but wooden blinds that can’t block our any light, in addition they were very dusty. The bed is reasonably comfortable, albeit a bit too soft, but the service was just downright terrible. The Hotel itself was also catering towards a low-market clientelle which was very surprising given what I thought was an expensive price tag. The business center was expensive and out-dated, the staff slow and unresponsive and when I called for the operator I had to wait around 5 minutes on the call. Other user reviews seem to echo the same experience.

All in all, this one is one to stay away from, look at the Westinn’s if you’re going to pick Starwood Hotels. Using the Trip Advisor ratings, I’d rate this one a 3.0.