Air India has spent three years telling passengers that the new airline is coming — new A350s, made-for-Air-India 787-9s, a retrofit of the old widebodies that has taken longer than anyone wanted. On 22 October 2026 it delivered something passengers can see on the next flight: Air India Business Class fine dining, served as a sequence of individually plated courses on a linen-clad table, with a new tableware collection built around a cruet set shaped like the Martaban storage jars of Indian kitchens. The tray is gone. The service starts on India–UK flights to London Heathrow, London Gatwick and Birmingham and expands from there across the long-haul network, progressively on the Airbus A350, the Boeing 787-9 and the Boeing 777-300.
It is a small announcement with a large meaning. Restaurant-style Business Class service — courses brought one at a time, at the passenger’s pace, on real crockery — is the thing that separates the airlines everyone names first from the rest, and Air India says explicitly that this puts it alongside them. Here is what changes, where, and how it compares with what the competition did this same month.
Air India Business Class Fine Dining: Key Facts
- Announced: 22 October 2026, Air India newsroom
- What changes: a multi-course, restaurant-style meal served at a more leisurely pace, replacing the single-tray presentation; appetizer, main and dessert plated and served individually on dedicated tableware
- Table: linen-clad, set by the crew before the first course
- Service: described by Air India as personalized and choreographed, with flexibility for passengers to engage as much or as little as they like
- Launch routes: India to London Heathrow, London Gatwick and Birmingham, on selected Business Class services
- Aircraft: progressive rollout across the Airbus A350, Boeing 787-9 and Boeing 777-300; availability varies by flight
- Next: other long-haul and ultra-long-haul international routes, with no dates published yet
- New tableware, for the Vista Verve service: dedicated plates for appetizers, mains, snacks, dessert and cheese; a signature glass; a specially designed espresso cup; and the Martaban cruet set, a reimagining of the traditional Indian Martaban jar in a contemporary shape
- Cabins: Business Class only; no announcement for First, Premium Economy or Economy
- Builds on: the refreshed global food and beverage menus, the airline’s award-winning wine selection and its upgraded tea program introduced earlier this year
- Quote: Rajesh Dogra, Chief Customer Experience Officer: “At Air India, we are continually reimagining every aspect of the customer experience”
- Fares: no supplement; see below
Why the Tray Was the Problem
A tray tells the passenger that the meal is a logistics operation: everything arrives at once, the appetizer goes cold while the main stays under foil, and the crew’s job is to deliver and collect. Plated courses tell the passenger the meal is hospitality, which is the thing Air India has been promising since the Tata takeover. The airline’s menus were already better than its service rituals — the refreshed global menu earlier in 2026 had real regional range, and the wine list has won awards — but a good thali on a tray still looked like the old Air India. Courses on linen is the visible break.
The tableware carries the argument. Most airline crockery is anonymous white porcelain with a logo; Air India has commissioned a set with a specific Indian reference, the Martaban jar, in which Indian households have stored pickles and preserves for generations. Turning that into a cruet set is a clever piece of design: it is instantly recognizable to Indian passengers and a conversation piece for everyone else, and it sits in the same tradition as Singapore Airlines’ Christofle collection and the 60-piece Delta set announced this month — airlines using the table to say who they are.
Where You Will Find It, and Where You Won’t
The launch is deliberately narrow. The UK is Air India’s largest long-haul market from India, with multiple daily flights from Delhi and Mumbai to Heathrow plus Gatwick and Birmingham, and the crews on those routes are the ones being trained first. Even there, Air India says the service is on selected flights and that aircraft availability varies — which in practice means the A350s and the new 787-9s are the likeliest to have it, and a flight still operating on an unrefurbished older aircraft is the likeliest not to.
That is the honest caveat. Air India’s cabin transformation has been uneven: the A350s and new 787-9s carry a modern 1-2-1 Business Class, as I covered in Air India’s new cabins, while some of the older 777s still fly with seats that predate the Tata era. A plated meal on linen in a new A350 suite is a different experience from the same meal in an old 777 cabin, and the airline has not said when Air India Business Class fine dining reaches North America, Australia or the rest of Europe.
Tip: on the Delhi–Heathrow and Mumbai–Heathrow routes, check the aircraft type when booking — an A350 or a 787-9 with the new cabin is where the full experience, seat and service together, is most likely.
How It Compares With the Competition
October 2026 has been the month airlines competed on the table. Delta rebuilt Delta One with a Michelin-trained chef, a Master Sommelier and new tableware; Singapore Airlines put more than 100 new dishes on Christofle; Qatar gave its Australian flights a chef and a mixologist; and Alaska and Hawaiian named four chefs for their Suites. Against those, Air India’s announcement is about service format rather than celebrity — no chef is named, no champagne is named, no new dishes are listed. What it offers instead is the structural change the others already had: course-by-course service, which is the single biggest difference between a good Business Class meal and a great one.
On the India–UK market specifically, the comparison is with British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and the Gulf carriers via Doha, Dubai and Abu Dhabi. BA relaunched its First Class dining on 1 October, and Qatar has served plated, dine-on-demand courses in Business for years. Air India is not ahead of the Gulf; it is catching up on the one route group where it has the nonstop advantage.
Air India, First-Hand Context
I have not flown Air India’s new Business Class and this is a preview of an announcement, not a review of a meal. My references for the difference service format makes are Emirates’ 777, where good food carried a dated cabin, and Etihad’s 787-9, a 3.5-out-of-5 seat I marked down for the wine rather than the service. Air India’s menus already have the regional range; course-by-course service is what would move it into the same conversation, and the Martaban cruet set is the detail I would photograph first.
How Much Does It Cost?
Nothing extra. The plated service, the linen and the new tableware are included in every Business Class fare on the flights where they have rolled out; there is no dining supplement and no pre-purchase. Air India’s Business Class fares on Delhi–London and Mumbai–London are dynamic and vary widely by season, and Maharaja Club award seats are also priced dynamically. Flights to Birmingham and Gatwick are generally priced below Heathrow on the same dates.
Flight prices do move between platforms. The same business class seat on the same date is not always the same price on the airline’s own site, Trip.com and Expedia: point-of-sale currency, consolidator fares and what is bundled into the ticket can shift the fare by a few percent — and occasionally by much more on premium cabins booked out of India.
So before I pay I run the same dates through Aviasales, which scans dozens of booking sites at once, then check Trip.com (often the sharpest on long-haul fares) and Expedia (strongest when you add a hotel to the same booking). One caveat: a ticket bought through a booking site is changed or refunded through that site, not the airline, so read the fare rules before you buy.
Linen, courses and a cruet set shaped like a pickle jar — Air India’s new Business Class dining is the first part of the new airline that arrives before the new aircraft do.
Photos © Air India
This preview is based on official announcements — I haven’t flown Air India’s new Business Class yet. Read more about how I review or visit my Work With Me page.
This article contains affiliate links. If you book through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Read my full disclosure policy.
