Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

[gunjur]

Though keeping a white elephant alive may not be good but somehow some sort of a 'National' carrier should be retained. Otherwise connectivity especially to NE india would suffer. It would be diffcult to assume that pvt players will keep a route open if it's not viable.

[Abhijeet]

There is no need for a national carrier just to maintain connectivity to far flung regions. The government could simply provide a fee to private airlines who maintained those routes. Subsidizing non-economic services for the larger good is how civilized countries push penetration of such services.

Raise the fee high enough and there will always be private companies willing to fly to those areas. It is guaranteed to be a lot cheaper than keeping a bloated national carrier going.

India does not need a national carrier, period. It's time people in India understood that a competitive private market is always better than having the government try to provide services, with poor quality and at twice the price.

If Air India's only function is to provide free foreign travel for every babu and politician's family, fine -- let's make it that, and stop the farce of it flying commercial routes as well. It can become 10% of its current size and still offer that. Then maybe instead of bailing it out with Rs.30,000 crore every few years -- a truly amazing amount -- we can give it Rs. 3000 crore and push it out of sight.

[Singha]

+100 just enlarge the VVIP squadrons with a bunch of right sized biz jets and ATR72 types and get the job done.

[chetak]

Is Kingfisher Airlines really in trouble?

[Dileep]

You petty capitalist boorshvas must be re-educated!! First and foremost, AI is the matter of employment for 1,00,000 people!! (and matter of graft for many of them, and a ,lot of politicos). How can you serve that primary mandate by having VVIP jets?

[SBajwa]

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2012/20120417/punjab.htm#12

British MP for more flights to Amritsar
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 16
A three-member delegation led by Tarsem Kang, of the House of Lords, today underlined the need for further strengthening ties between India and the UK as a big Punjabi Diaspora was making a significant contribution in the development of the foreign nation.

Kang, who called upon Punjab Vidhan Sabha Speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal, said more flights should be started between cities in the UK and Delhi and Amritsar as a large number of Punjabis were always eager to visit Punjab, especially the Golden Temple.

He said he would also meet Union Aviation Minister over the issue.

He also visited the Punjab Vidhan Sabha hall and was impressed with its unique design.

He also extended an invitation to Punjab Vidhan Sabha Speaker to lead a delegation of Punjab legislators to the House of Lords.

Earlier, Atwal welcomed the delegation and briefly outlined about the legislative procedures and practices of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha.

The Speaker also advocated for the strengthening of economic, social and cultural relations between the two countries.

The other two members of the delegation were Suresh Joshi, Sandwell Amritsar Association secretary, and Bob Cruthly, an industrialist

[Kannan]

Airlines practically never make money, and the public ends up sinking cash into air services in one form or another.

[Austin]

At Least 118 Dead in Pakistan Jet Crash

At least 118 people were killed on Friday in a crash of a Boeing-737 passenger jet outside the Pakistani capital Islamabad, tentatively blamed on bad weather, Dawn.com Pakistani television said.

Earlier it was reported that 116 perished in the crash.

The preliminary body count was announced by the Pakistan Defense Ministry. The plane was carrying 127 passengers, according to the country’s Civil Aviation Authority, and crashed in a populated area, which means the total death toll will probably be higher.

Several houses were engulfed in flames after the crash, Twitter user Khalid Khan wrote, citing a rescue worker.

The flight was operated by Bhoja Air company, which was closed in 2000, but resumed operations in March, Pakistani Geo Television said.

The jet was flying from Karachi and due to land in the city of Rawalpindi, which houses the Benazir Bhutto International Airport. The plane was landing in poor visibility due to a thunderstorm in the area, Pakistani television said.

[Yogi_G]

Airlines practically never make money, and the public ends up sinking cash into air services in one form or another.

Global airline industry profit stood at 4 billion $ for 2011.

[Kannan]

Airlines practically never make money, and the public ends up sinking cash into air services in one form or another.

Global airline industry profit stood at 4 billion $ for 2011.

Right, that's 0.5% Then throw in that FedEx and UPS can still afford to give $200k+ salaries because they don't haul quite as much live cargo, that a razor thin margin. The profitability is usually tied to how well they hedge their oil prices. There are more American Airlines and Uniteds waiting to happen and all it takes is for Iran to sneeze to send the world spiraling away.

People have gotten used to cheap air fares, airplanes are expensive.

Throw in that the FAA wants to go to NexGen and we still have a very minimal architecture of VORs spread around through the country, and there needs to be caution in tying yourself to GPS, it can get more expensive.

[Vasu]

and add to that our shrinking salaries and spiralling living costs.

Now what are people like me to do who have gotten hooked onto airline travel and trains are almost always full.

I hate the CONgress Government so much. Damn socialist unreformist pathological kleptos.

[Sriman]

Detailed report on the Air France 447 crash two years ago:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/9 ... crash.html

I find it incredulous that the co-pilot kept the nose up despite stall warnings going off more than 70 times?

Also doesn't the airbus apply evasive action if it senses a stall? Did that not happen because of the frozen air speed sensors?

Edit: Got the answer to second question. Looks like it was because there of the frozen pitot tubes.

[SriKumar]

^^^ wasnt there a lot of discussion about tail design of airbus and that it was ripped apart by the storm (due to design weakness).

There was a discussion, prompted by the very same picture we see in the above post's article. It was just that ..speculation based on a photograph. One of BRF postors had also speculated along these lines. The actual cause for 447 crash is well-known now and it has nothing to do with the tail.

There is one actual event where the tail fin was indeed ripped off (Nov, 2001, AA flight), for a flight taking off from JFK. The post-mortem pointed not to the tail-fin being the problem but rather in the way the pilots corrected for turbulence during take-off. The turbulence came from a prior aircraft that had taken off. I understand that the pilots are trained differently now.

The French have released several reports for the cause of the crash, atleast one after the black-box and CVR was found. Essentially it was a combination of events, starting with the loss of airspeed data due to freezing of pitot tubes, in combination a warning system that gave confusing warnings to mark a stall condition. There were some other factors too e.g. the pilots thought they were flying too fast and tried to slow down the plane via altering its attitude. This slowed down the plane and made the problem worse. Also the chief pilot wasn't there when the problem developed and became worse. Many factors....

[SriKumar]

Detailed report on the Air France 447 crash two years ago:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/9 ... crash.html

I find it incredulous that the co-pilot kept the nose up despite stall warnings going off more than 70 times?

A lot of pilots too had commented along the same lines.....that basic training says to pitch nose down when a stall warning comes on. It was only after finding the Black box and CVR did the full situation become known. It still is not clear to me why the pilots tried to slow down the plane (after they lost the airspeed readings) but about the stall warnings, the warnings came on but turned off automatically when the AoA of the plane exceeded 40 (?) degrees or so. This AoA is too steep to be realistic, so the control system was programmed to read it as a sensor fault and not issue a warning. So, the pilots were in a odd situation where the stall warning would come on when the nose was pitched down with the plane gathering speed but still stalled, and it would turn off when the nose was pitched up since this was read as a sensor fault (of sorts). So, (to my understanding), the pilots kept the nose up since the warning turned off. This was night time in a severe thunderstorm. Instruments was all they had. The plane was in an extreme situation w.r.t. AoA given its a serious rate of drop in the end. The report is linked to the wiki page.

[nachiket]

That article makes a lot of noise about excessive automation in the A330 cockpit and the fact that it wasn't possible for the co-pilot to tell that the pilot had pulled his side-stick back by looking at it. While the concern is valid to an extent it still doesn't explain how a pilot with 6500 hours of flight time could not recover from a stall at a relatively safe high altitude and with both engines working fine. All pilots are taught how to recover from stalls in simulator training and incredibly this man did exactly the opposite of what he was trained to do. He even shouts at the end "But I’ve had the stick back the whole time!", without realizing that, that could have only exacerbated the situation. It is almost as if he is completely unaware of what causes a stall and how to get out of it. Air France has a lot to answer for as regards their crew training standards.

[ManjaM]

The side stick issue is not really an issue at all. Many business jets already have it and there are probably a few thousand airplanes with side stick. We have it in our plane and will have it on future ones as well. Seems like Boeing is trying to get in a cheap shot.

[Prasad]

Wasnt it the co-pilot who was issuing commands via the stick opposite to the pilot who was actually doing the right thing? The captain who came in a tthe end figured it out in a very short time as to what was happening. The crash at present looks to be the fault of the bonehead Bonin. What it does point to though, is that he had very little time on that particular aircraft and was actively doing something after the co-pilot had called his airplane and the one giving inputs. I read on an article linked on pprune that airbus averages inputs between the two sticks and if one guy had his pulled back throughout then the problem becomes evident.

Will be very interesting to read the final report though.

[nachiket]

^^Yes, I think I got the pilot and co-pilot mixed up. Bonin had 2900 hours of experience not 6500. But still, he wasn't a rookie. It is apparent, at least from the transcripts in the article that if Robert or Dubois had been flying the aircraft when the autopilot disengaged, the accident would not have happened. But Robert made a big mistake by not taking the controls himself till it was too late.

[Prasad]

Actually Robert did. But the plane was flying under dual input mode that averaged inputs from both seats. Thats why Roberts inputs were being negated/averaged by the pull-up input from bonin bonehead.

2900 hours does seem a lot for someone to act like that though. Panic maybe? Even then, its just incongruous. Sad.

[SriKumar]

The Telegraph article linked above, though useful, seems a bit watered down and in part, looks like a plug for Boeing's philosophy of cockpit control (which I think makes sense but is a little out of place here). The report below is released by BEA (the French Aviation Authority) who investigated the accident. A LOT of technical data in it, especially in Appendix 4.

http://www.bea.aero/docspa/2009/f-cp090 ... 1e3.en.pdf

The first stall warning came on at 2:10:10 (UTC). The pitch was immediately increased (odd reaction from pilot) but the engines were always full power after that (with the exception of a 1-minute segment when they went to 50% rpm). Pitch angle exceeded 10 for about 1.5 minutes and stayed below +10 after that and even went negative. Still its ground speed dropped steadily after the first stall warning, and never picked up. This is intriguing. There is a lot of roll and sideslip.

Appendix 1 has the entire sequence of events including all the flight parameters (pitch, ground speed, roll etc.) plus the pilot reactions. It is great the BEA made this report public, in this detail.

[Kannan]

Will be very interesting to read the final report though.

You're in luck, as linked below, it's been out for a year. Just as much technical detail as the GoI Mangalore report.

Seems like panic. Pitch up, the readings seem erroneous and the warning goes off. Pitch down, the warning comes on. Raw human instinct kicks in. If you can't figure it out in four minutes, you're dead.

Most people in the industry I've talked to would agree they screwed the pooch big time, but I can see it happening to a lot of people.

[chaanakya]

New Airport at Chennai to be ready by June

After a successful trial run on Monday, the commodious new domestic terminal-2, held together by a complex maze of mammoth steel grids at the Chennai International Airport, is being given finishing touches before the much-awaited opening. Once rendered functional, these vast swanky corridors can hold up to 10 million passengers per annum.

All work has been completed, and the airline office space too, is ready to be occupied. Once the new domestic terminal is functional — sometime in June — the existing terminal will be closed for a few months for renovation work, according to a source at the airport.

Once both terminals become operational, this will be a huge complex capable of handling the increasing number of passengers, the source added.

While the existing domestic terminal can handle around 2,200 passengers per hour and has three gates, the better-equipped and more spacious new terminal can handle approximately 3,300 passengers per hour and has seven gates. To segregate traffic, those arriving at the airport will exit through the gates on the arrival floor, which is on the ground floor, and those taking flights can directly reach the departure floor using the elevated 1.3 km road which stretches between the Central substation and the exit ramp of the domestic building.

Access to the connector tube, which will connect the new domestic terminal to the new metro rail station, will be through the mezzanine level of the new terminal.

A source said that further work on the connector tube will take place after the commencement of the metro work, so that technical problems do not arise. While the shell is complete, internal work has to be done.

Spread across 72,614 sq m, the five-level structure, will come with a host of amenities such as a VIP lounge, free telephone booths in the security hold area, special assistance for physically handicapped passengers, reserved parking, rest places, executive lounges, assistance counters, prepaid taxi services and car rental counters, an infant-care lobby, a free medical facility, passengers trolleys, vending machines for snacks, a snack bar, duty free shops, banks, ATM counters, foreign exchange counters, and concessionaries.

The car park, situated right outside the arrival gate of the new terminal, can hold up to 1,200 cars. There will also be a vertical garden which can be viewed from the two glass tubes within the terminal. The new terminal will have 52 check-in counters, which will be apart from the eight counters for e-ticketing.

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes ... ndranathan

The trial run, according to the airport higher-ups, brought rave reviews. "The trial was to find out whether all functions are ready for receiving flights. The feedback is good and the trial went well, said airport director E P Hareendranathan.

He said a similar exercise in departure will be conducted soon. "It will be more challenging because there will be a lot of activity during departure."

" The new building is likely to be opened in June. All operations of the existing domestic terminal will be shifted to the new building. The existing structure will be shut for renovation," Hareendranathan said.

[pgbhat]

U.S. slaps 80,000 dollar fine on Air India

[Bob V]

Sukhoi Superjet 100 reported missing on demo flight.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012 ... liner.html

[svinayak]

List of passengers.
Check the TV crew
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012 ... ngers.html

[Austin]

Superjet crew before crash

http://gallery.me.com/sdolya#102194&...r=black&sel=54

[krishnan]

36 + 8 ( russian's who's name have been withheld ) = 44...what about the remaining 2

[Austin]

Said to be the last picture taken after take off

http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/lookmysi ... iginal.jpg

Debris of Superjet

http://img546.imageshack.us/img546/5351 ... 4e8f0d.jpg

[Vasu]

meanwhile, in India's financial capital...

Navi Mumbai airport: Cidco offers land instead of money to villagers

The City & Industrial Development Corporation (Cidco), which is a nodal agency for the development of Navi Mumbai international airport, has proposed handing over of a total of 22.5% of developed land instead of a monetary compensation of Rs 20 crore per acre as proposed by the project-affected people from 10 villages. The proposed land would be provided by the Cidco management in Navi Mumbai and the villagers would be entitled to use portion of the developed land for the residential and commercial purposes.

Of the total 2,020 hectare of land required for the airport project, nearly 1,400 hectare was in Cidco's possession while the state government has agreed to hand over its 150 hectare for the project. Cidco needs another 450 hectare of private land for which notices have been served under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894.

Cidco official, who did not want to be identified, said due to lack of acquisition of 450 hectare of private land its RFQ was pending for clearance since January with the central government. Further, the state government and Cidco have already petitioned the central government to transfer the airport project under the provisions of Greenfield Airports Policy, 2008. If the Centre accepts state's demand for transfer of the entire project then in that case all the approvals would be taken from the state government. Further, Cidco would be able to issue RFQ at the earliest. Cidco was examining both revenue share model and viability gap funding (VGF) option which can be used to select the developer.

Cidco hopes the first phase to be commissioned in 2015 with an investment of Rs 9,150 crore. The total project cost has been pegged at Rs 14,573 crore.

First phase by 2015! Lol, even by India standards, Mumbai creates new benchmarks for delays!

[Vipul]

Where the price of land will soon be quoted in "Sq Inches", such delays are expected. All the Infra projects in Mumbai have been delayed due to land aqusition issues.

[Sachin]

In the mean while the "AI Pilots are on strike, AI dismisses 10 of them" serial is now going on...

[sampat]

Flying troubles? Blame it on Sharad Pawar or shared power!

Despite being a shrewd politician for decades, Sharad Pawar continues to be blamed for any issue that goes out of control. The current blame game is in the skies
I have a friend. He is a sceptic and critic. Sometimes, I have a feeling that may be God has given him some extra brains that can connect something with anything or everything. Of course, some in our group think he is, what is called a pucca 'bheja-fry'. But on rare occasions he can leave everyone astonished and at a loss for answer with his weird and wacky questions. So don't take him seriously... but then, maybe one shouldn't take him too lightly either.

Just the other day, when he bumped onto me, his immediate question was, 'Who is the king of Indian aviation? Who really calls the shots in all our airlines? I first thought aloud about the 'Maharaja' and who control him, the then the blue seabird and its master-the King of Good Times, but he shot back-"You don't even know. This is very easy. It is Sharad Pawar". I was stumped. "How so?" I asked.

His answer: Mr Pawar controls the Indian aviation, just like he controls cricket, agriculture and the state of Baramati. You forgot the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Pawar's political outfit, I shot back. He said, "No. I haven't forgotten the NCP. You see, controlling a political party like the NCP, where everyone wants to be called a 'leader', is difficult. So what Pawar does is smarter; he controls or at least appears to control the leaders of leaders."

Confused, I said, "But how this is related with aviation? I know that he is a farmer from Baramati, he was president of the Board of Cricket Control of India (BCCI), which controls cricket and the controversial Indian Premier League (IPL), he had blessed joint ventures with Vijay Mallya to make wine (Baramati Grapes), but I don't know of his personal interest in the aviation business".

Giving me a look that sneered at my ignorance, my friend, the sceptic, said, "It was the power of Pawar that helped Praful Patel ruin the aviation ministry and help many friends to fly high." "You mean to say rule, right?" I asked. "No," he said. "While the Maharaja was doddering, Indian Airlines was back to giving stiff competition to the private sector airlines under chairman Sunil Arora. Flights were on time, service was good and the many 'pawar'ful private sector competitors were getting a run for their money".

"There was no way that anyone was going to jet to supremacy of the domestic skies, or rule the good times until Indian Airlines was on the comeback trail. So some pawar-play was required. Arora was removed and Indian Airlines was permanently crippled with the disastrous merger with Air India," my friend said.

In 2007, the combined loss of both Air India and Indian Airlines was Rs770 crore. At present, its operating loss alone is about Rs1,700 crore. "Do you know why Air India changed its plan to buy 18 small planes in short-range and 10-medium capacity planes to 50 medium capacity long-range planes? The whole deal was completed in just seven month as soon as Patel was made aviation minister," my friend continued.

The same thing is also revealed by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), in its report. The CAG report said, "Government conveyed its approval on 30 December 2005 and the contract was signed by Air India with Boeing on the same day. From the receipt of the proposal to the signing of contract took seven months. Many of the key assumptions underlying the revised project report (for 50 long-range aircraft) were flawed".

According to information from the net, during that period, the King of Good Times was also on shopping spree and in 2005 alone he placed orders to buy about 48 planes from Airbus. Do you mean at present, Airbus would be crying for not been able to make sell the planes? I asked. "Hell, No. In fact, they would be happy because if Kingfisher is not going to take deliveries and pay the money, then they (Airbus) can speed up deliveries to others who are ready to pay," the sceptic gave me another dose of 'gyaan'.

But, what all this has to do with Pawar and the current situation in India airspace, I asked. "See, the King of Good Times is a good friend of Pawar and subsequently of Patel. So if he is in trouble or the sea flying bird is in trouble, it should extend to others as well. So the Maharaja has also fallen ill and its flights are in cancelled mode," the sceptic blurted out. "Do you know one more thing?" he whispered. "The Maharaja is also under the control of Pawar. And his blue-eyed Bunty is calling the shots in the pilots' strike," he said.

"This is too much. How can you blame Pawar for everything? Whenever there is some or the other issue like inflation, price rise of essential commodities, Indian cricket team losing, Mumbai not getting adequate water or roads are full of potholes, everyone wants to put the blame on him. Why?" I asked.

As an ardent believer is simple things, I think in simple terms. For example, although Pawar is a farmer, he is not selling his agriculture produce to you and me directly. It is the traders who buy from the farmers and then sell it at higher prices to retailers who in turn sell it for you and me at much higher rates. The poor 'sabjiwala' also has to support employees of local municipality and police as they are dependent members of his extended family. So if not from us then from where he will generate money for that 'hafta'? And yet, people like my friend blame Pawar for the sky-rocketing prices of vegetables and foodgrain.

The sceptic, however, was not in a mood to relent. "You see, the King of Good Times is really not having good times in the skies. In fact his buffalo is in the water. So it is the duty of friends, to force other buffalos in taking a dip in the water, for the sake of good times. This is why pilots from both the airlines are falling sick," he tried to explain.

"And do you know, Bunty is not even a pilot and yet he is leading the squadron from the front. Do you think he can guide the squadron and land safely without any help from Pawar?" my friend whispered.

OMG, I thought, this is really getting very haywire. As I remember, almost every union, be it labour or pilots, is headed by a politician. Why then blame Bunty? As I read somewhere, his aspirations are to become a minister in Thane, sorry, in Maharashtra. But may be his party colleagues have different thoughts and so they propelled him to lead pilots. This way if he lands safely, then he can be accommodated in the capital else they can blame him for the defeat and sideline him. Both ways the leaders of leaders would be happy.

The sceptic friend was still not willing to let me go. He said, "Do you know what the King of Good Times told his ailing pilots? He told them either accept whatever salary I am giving and whenever I am giving, or else I will ask Bunty to lead your union. And see the result, all the sick pilots immediately become fighting fit and are back on duty."

Now my head is really swinging. Before I faint, you please move away from this crocked sceptic and critic. And don't take him lightly… I mean don't take him seriously…

[SBajwa]

This is a god send opportunity to retire Air India. Lay off/Retire all its non-pilot employees and fire the pilots. Civil aviation ministry can still control the Airports and air traffic inside India.

[hnair]

Folks who are constantly asking for wiping out the national airlines needs to keep these in mind

- Those creaky planes are the closest equivalent of a Strategic Airlift for evacuating Indian civilians that India has. No other country is going to bring home millions of Indians from bad spots. And we have millions and millions of economically challenged migrants in lots of countries. For them and their despairing families, that last ride out of a besieged airport (Iraq, Kuwait and recently Libya) in Air India is wonderful beyond words. Those pilots and airhostess that we love to trash will look like devathas who came to whisk them off.

- the closest equivalent of this model of part-time usage of airlift capabilities (but in a rather reverse sense) is the usage of expensive C17s by Qatar for civvie freight, so some of the operational costs can be eased.

Unless we have extremely stable global scale Indian private airlines, who are willing to be commandeered ("Lloyds insurance be damned") during a crisis, we got to be careful in calling for extreme measures due to reasons like "airline meal was not accompanied by a smile" or "some pilots took medical leave".

But then even for private airlines, lots of people were jumping with joy because "Mallya got Ashfaqued" and "not a rupee for KF bailout", when countries like US pulled out all stops for Detroit, just a year or two back..... We need to go beyond pop-culture imageries in such matters.

[Pranay]

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/a ... 429642.ece

Ministers and their junkets... Seems like there's nobody to show them their limits.

Even as the cash-starved Air India grapples with a 10-day strike that has cost it over Rs.150 crore and undermined its recovery plans, Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh has invited journalists to join him and an entourage of officials to travel to the United States to take delivery of the first of the airline's new long-range Boeing 787 jets.

In an e-mail sent to media organisations on Thursday, the Civil Aviation Ministry invited journalists to accompany Mr. Singh on his “visit to Seattle and Charlston, USA, from May 28-31 to get delivery of [Air India's first] B787 Dreamliner.” “[T]ravel, accommodation, etc., will be taken care of by us,” the e-mail states.

The invitation came hours after the release of official figures which showed that Air India's market share had declined sharply to 17.6 per cent, making it only India's fourth largest airline measured by passengers carried, ahead only of Go Air with 7.3 per cent and Kingfisher 5.4 per cent.

The figures showed that 5.4 per cent of Air India flights were cancelled in April — the highest among all Indian airlines — in a month when it did not face industrial action.

On Wednesday, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee signalled growing concern at the prospects of the economy — key to the airline's hopes of better times — by announcing he was “going to issue some sort of austerity measures.”

Ironically, the aircraft Mr. Singh is planning to receive has sparked the ongoing strike in Air India. Pilots who worked for the airline prior to its merger with Indian Airlines say they alone should be retrained to fly the jet, as allowing pilots from the erstwhile sister-carrier would jeopardise their career prospects.

In April, Mr. Singh announced approval for a turnaround plan for the airline, saying it was the national carrier's “last chance.” The government gave a Rs.30,000-crore bailout to Air India, in return for its committing itself to meeting specified performance parameters. The bailout was won after the airline registered annual losses of over Rs.7,000 crore, leading to a situation where it could no longer afford to pay staff salaries.

Like other corporate entities, Air India sometimes invites journalists for expenses-paid visits, meant to gather positive publicity for its services.

Earlier, several journalists were flown to the U.S. when Air India's low-cost subsidiary, Air India Express, purchased several Boeing 787-800 aircraft for use on its Gulf routes.

However, the scale and timing of Mr. Singh's trip, coming as it does at a time the airline is cash-strapped, have raised eyebrows even within his Ministry. “The Dreamliner is going to come to India from the U.S. anyway,” a senior official at the Ministry said, “so I cannot understand what need there is for anyone to go there to welcome it into the fleet, especially at a time Air India is surviving hand to mouth.”

The Ministry did not respond to queries from The Hindu why Mr. Singh needed to travel to New York and whether it was appropriate to spend public money on the jamboree.

[SBajwa]

Air India is full of hot air and surviving only on the hard earned money of starving bent back hungry farmers!!

Give something back to agriculture sector (good subsidies for cash crops) that rest of the world does like growing Apricots, Pistachious, Almonds, Coffee, Tea, Rubber, Fruits i.e. anything but Grains (Grains are BAD for Economy) .

[SRoy]

^^
Bajwaji,

Do you fly often?

Is it not more rational to evaluate AI seprately for the facts that...(1) GoI machinery abuses it because it is the national airline (2) Customer service vis-a-vis other indian operator?

Do you think AI themselves are to blame for the situation (1)?

For the second...personally, my experience with AI customer service is far more pleasant than that of many other airline operators. They are not the best, but they are not the worst either.

[SBajwa]

I fly almost every month and I fly at least 1-2 times a Year to India in last 25 years. I have flown on Air india since 1986 (at least 8 times) and have not seen the quality coming up or at par with other airlines. The only service Air India provides is indian food. I will rather carry my own food (like with other airlines) and hope to get someplace in time and with the luggage.

1. The Air India customer handling staff at New York JFK is crazy and behave as if they are doing a favor to us (the customers) by letting us board their Esteemed Airlines.

2. The Air India luggage handling staff again is crazy as well as illiterate (4 times my luggage was sent to Bombay instead of Delhi) at JFK, LaGuardia, Heathrow, Paris and Gatwick.

3. The luggage handling staff in India is corrupt openly suggesting to put the claim much more than it is worth for insurance (while you are wondering how much was your 6 pack of underwear, 4 shirts and 3 jeans ).

4. Two times Air India over booked the plane and wouldn't let the passengers to board at New York. They didn't even provided any hotel for my parents who had to stay at local hotel at their own cost.

and I have heard similar stories from others. Passenger to Customer ratio with Air India is the worst in world and main reason why neither the air lines is making money nor are its workers happy.

[SRoy]

^^

Bajwaji,

I never had a problem with baggage handling from AI. But I was once left without anything else other than my summer apparels in person and my laptop at Frankfurt by Air France. There was a sudden snowfall (late Feb) and I went shivering all the way till Karlsruhe where I had to do some emergency purchases till my baggage arrived at my hotel 2 days later. There were damages paid but no apology.

Baggage theft was a common issue till couple of years ago at IGI Airport. Again not limited to AI, but hate to say it appeared like a typical desi behavioral trait. Its not AI specific.

Can't say about food, because I try cuisine whatever is native to each airlines home country if they offer so. Desi's getting worked up with desi food should stay in desh and enjoy their food.

[SBajwa]

sorry!! I didn't mean "Passenger to Customer ratio" I meant Workers to Customers Ratio. i.e. if other airlines have 1 worker for 200 customers. Air India has 1 worker for 20 customer. Thus each Air India employee need to

1. Increase the number of customers by attracting them.
2. Lay off the workers.