When a single route can be served by a full-service European flag carrier, a transatlantic budget disruptor, an Indian low-cost giant and a newly privatised national airline, the obvious question is which one is actually worth booking. Noel Philips set out to answer precisely that, pitting IndiGo, KLM, Norse and Air India against one another on the Amsterdam Airport Schiphol (AMS) to Mumbai Airport (BOM) corridor in a video published on 29 March 2026. The title — "WHY This Budget Flight to India Goes the WRONG WAY" — teases the central curiosity: at least one of these carriers routes its passengers on a decidedly indirect path to reach the subcontinent, a scheduling quirk that shapes both journey time and value proposition.

The Route and the Contenders

Amsterdam Schiphol is one of Europe's most competitive hubs for South Asia traffic, and the AMS–BOM pairing attracts a wide spectrum of carriers. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines operates the route as part of its core long-haul network, while Air India serves it as a natural home-market connection. IndiGo, India's dominant low-cost carrier, has been expanding its international footprint aggressively, and Norse — the Norwegian budget long-haul operator better known for transatlantic flying — represents the video's most unexpected entrant. It is the first time Philips's channel has covered Norse Atlantic Airways on this particular routing, and the first time Mumbai Airport has featured in his coverage at all, making the destination itself a debut for the channel.

The video's headline puzzle — the "wrong way" routing — appears to centre on Norse, whose network architecture means passengers travelling from Amsterdam to Mumbai may find themselves arcing in a direction that adds considerable block time compared with a direct service. Whether that detour is justified by the ticket price is the core commercial question Philips investigates.

IndiGo: Catering and Crew Impress, Seat Assignment Does Not

Philips's assessment of IndiGo lands as a mixed verdict, with the positives clearly outweighing the negatives on the soft product. On catering, he is unambiguous: the carrier offers both Western and Asian meal options, and the chicken dish drew specific praise. The crew, meanwhile, earned some of the warmest language in the video.

IndiGo's crew were absolutely wonderful and seemed to go the extra mile.

The ground experience, however, introduced friction before the flight even departed. Philips observed that boarding completed with many empty seats despite being told the flight was full — a discrepancy that points to seat assignment irregularities rather than a genuine load factor issue. This marks Philips's third documented engagement with IndiGo across his channel's history, following reviews in 2019 and 2022, and the airline's trajectory in his coverage has been broadly consistent: reliable on service, occasionally chaotic on process.

The long flight itself tested Philips's patience in a way the crew could not entirely offset.

This flight is dragging, man.

It is a candid admission that even a competent low-cost product struggles to disguise the sheer duration of a long-haul sector when the hard product — seat pitch, recline, entertainment — is calibrated for short-haul economics.

KLM, Norse and Air India: The Broader Competitive Picture

KLM's presence on the Amsterdam–Mumbai route carries the weight of a home-carrier advantage: Schiphol is its hub, and the airline's KLM Crown Lounge at Schiphol forms part of the pre-departure experience Philips has previously assessed. His channel's history with KLM is extensive — stretching back to timelapse flights in 2016 and a business class review to Canada in 2021 — and the Dutch carrier has consistently drawn praise for its catering and crew. Fellow creator Josh Cahill reviewed KLM's new business class product approximately one year before this video was published, awarding it strong marks for price and service, providing useful competitive context for readers considering the premium cabin on this route.

Air India's inclusion is freighted with recent history. Philips's 2024 coverage of the carrier's longest flight resulted in a food poisoning incident, and his 2022 review of its Boeing 787 Dreamliner product was bluntly titled "My AWFUL Flight on Air India's Filthy Boeing 787." The Tata Group's ongoing transformation of the airline has been a recurring theme across the aviation YouTube community, with Josh Cahill documenting a disastrous ground experience as recently as February 2025. Whether the AMS–BOM service reflects the reformed or the legacy Air India is a question this video directly addresses.

Norse, making its channel debut here, brings a price-led proposition that Cahill reviewed positively on its transatlantic routes in August 2025, describing it as "a really, really good airline." The structural question for the India routing is whether Norse's cost model can survive the additional complexity — and the "wrong way" geography — of a market where established carriers have decades of operational experience.

Verdict and Practical Guidance

Philips's overall verdict on IndiGo is characteristically measured: the catering and crew deliver genuine value, but the seat assignment chaos and the grinding duration of a long-haul sector in a low-cost configuration are real costs that budget-conscious travellers should factor in. His practical tip for the route is pointed — use points for business class — which implicitly acknowledges that the economy experience on any of these carriers demands a tolerance for discomfort that not every passenger will possess.

I love being wrong when it comes to things like that.

The remark captures the spirit of the entire comparison: Philips arrived at Amsterdam Schiphol with expectations shaped by reputation and price point, and at least one of the four carriers — the evidence suggests IndiGo — exceeded them. For travellers weighing the Amsterdam–Mumbai corridor, this video offers a rare side-by-side assessment of carriers that rarely appear in the same review, from a creator whose channel history on Indian aviation and on Schiphol-based flying gives his verdicts meaningful longitudinal weight.