Civil Aviation Development & Discussion
Posted: 06 May 2008 10:39
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The landing of Mumbai-Nagpur Jet airways flight was delayed by nearly ten minutes on Wednesday after a pig strayed into the runway at the Ambedkar international airport here, airport sources said.
The flight, with 135 passengers on board, including Maharashtra PWD minister Anil Deshmukh and senior politician Ranjit Deshmukh, aborted the landing for a while this morning and hovered in the sky before coming down safely after the animal was driven away, sources said.
This is the third instance in a fortnight when an animal obstructed flight landing at the airport, they added.
Price could have been the only reason. I don't know of any Hindu groups which might have lobbied to have taken Beef off the menu. Beef + Rising Oil would have hit margins. And the Hindu groups have been made the fall guy.cbelwal wrote:Seems like BA took beef off domestic flights. Price could have been the reason, though they ascribe it to 'religious concerns'.
British Airways takes beef off the menu to avoid offending Hindus
NEW DELHI: The US is coming to the aid of passengers fed up with hovering over choked Indian airports like Delhi and Mumbai.
On Friday, American aerospace major Boeing shared its expertise with authorities here on more effective utilization of airspace by allowing planes to safely fly closer at congested airports and enable faster touchdowns.
India has decided to start switching over to the new system by early July and in first phase it will be done at the three most congested airports at Delhi, Mumbai and Ahmedebad. The actual reduction will take place once all stakeholders — pilots, ATCs and airports — are trained for the system in a few months.
Boeing’s presentation, made at the behest of DGCA and AAI, came just as an eight-member team of US’ Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) finished its tour of India and also as an American consulting company, Maitre Corp, gave its final report on "performance based navigation" that would allow reducing separation from eight to five nautical miles between planes approaching to land at congested places.
Armed with Maitre report, which has been circulated to all airlines, and Boeing’s knowhow on how to actually implement the same, India is planning to start switching over to the new system by early July. "One of the early things happening under the aviation cooperation programme between India and US is that Maitre has finalized its report for better effective management of airspace at Delhi and Mumbai. The report, a roadmap for that, has been given to AAI and DGCA. The AAI will start implementing new procedures in a month. This will lead to reduction in separation between aircraft and save time once the preparedness is in place," said aviation secretary Ashok Chawla.
Boeing, which has considerable experience of e-enabling planes, gave its know how on performance-based navigation.
"The new procedures will help fix planes’ position vis-a-vis ground with radio signals using satellites and ground radars. It will help navigate planes at closer distance in both difficult terrain or congested airspace. It is similar to using technology to help planes land using instrument landing system category II or III. All this will help planes fly safely at much lesser separation than currently maintained. Boeing gave a complete overview on how the new system is to be used," said an official. The presentation was made to airline pilots, ATCs and aviation authorities.
Before winding up its India visit, the eight-member FAA team identified the key areas of support with India. These include radar network, airworthiness and airport and ATC management. The team also visited ATC towers in Delhi, Mumbai and Jaipur to assess the actual ground situation. The new performance-based navigation system will be of great help in Delhi and greatly increase the capital’s capacity as the third runway is soon going to be operational. In Mumbai, however, it will help increase runway capacity but the authorities made it clear that the financial capital needs a second airport desperately, at the earliest, as there is no alternative to that.
saurabh.sinha@timesgroup.com
NEW YORK (AP) — A New York City man is suing JetBlue Airways Corp. for more than $2 million because he says a pilot made him give up his seat to a flight attendant and sit on the toilet for more than three hours on a flight from California.
Gokhan Mutlu, of Manhattan's Inwood section, says in court papers the pilot told him to "go 'hang out' in the bathroom" about 90 minutes into the San Diego to New York flight because the flight attendant complained that the "jump seat" she was assigned was uncomfortable, the lawsuit said.
Mutlu was traveling on a a "buddy pass," a standby travel voucher that JetBlue employees give to friends, from New York to San Diego on Feb. 16, and returned to New York on Feb. 23, the lawsuit said.
Initially, Mutlu was told a flight attendant had taken the last seat on the plane, but then he was advised she would sit in the employee "jump seat," meaning he could have the last seat, the lawsuit said.
The pilot told him 1½ hours into the five-hour flight that he would have to relinquish the seat to the flight attendant, court papers say. But the pilot said that Mutlu could not sit in the jump seat because only JetBlue employees were permitted to sit there, the lawsuit said.
When Mutlu expressed reluctance to go sit in the bathroom, the pilot, who was not named in the lawsuit, told him that "he was the pilot, that this was his plane, under his command that (Mutlu) should be grateful for being on board," the lawsuit said.
When the aircraft hit turbulence and passengers were directed to return to their seats, but "the plaintiff had no seat to return to, sitting on a toilet stool with no seat belts," court papers say.
Some time later, a male flight attendant knocked on the restroom door and told Mutlu he could return to his original seat, court papers say.
Mutlu's lawsuit, filed Friday in Manhattan's state Supreme Court, says JetBlue negligently endangered him by not providing him with a seat with a safety belt or harness, in violation of federal law.
A JetBlue spokesman declined comment on the lawsuit Monday.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
NEW DELHI: Your childhood fears about leaking plane toilets have come true. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) recently went on a surprise visit to IGI to check the airworthiness of planes and overall airport safety. The underbelly of a domestic airline’s, Airbus A-320, was found to be covered with blue paint.
A surprised DGCA team conducted investigation and found that the front toilet’s blue flush fluid was leaking and must have got stuck (frozen, rather) when the plane was flying and then got evenly spread out on the bottom with air flow.
"We found that the toilet was improperly serviced and the underbelly from nose to empennage (end) had a coating of blue fluid," said an official. The DGCA has asked the airline to explain this improper maintenance.
In fact, the team found general slackness among most organizations on need to attend to leaks whether from toilet in this case or the more common hydraulic leaks that were found in some other planes. Despite posing a serious safety hazard, some airlines were not found attending to hydraulic leaks urgently.
Two planes of as many airlines were found to be undergoing maintenance work without the engineer being present at site. Other important parts like landing gear safety pins were found to be totally faded in a Boeing 737 of a private airline. All these just pointed to one fact — many airlines don’t pay attention to servicing of their aircraft and maintenance of ground handling equipment.
The team also found that despite a number of lives being lost in accidents on operational area side, the problem of congestion and rash driving still existed at IGI. Sources said once planes are parked with nose towards terminal on domestic terminal side, very little space remains for the hundreds of vehicles that ply inside the airport. Many vehicles were found without speed governors and being driven at over 15 kmph, the speed limit. Instances of vehicles being driven outside their tracks and overtaking discriminately were common, said sources.
Apart from rash driving, other factors were also found contributing to making the airside a dangerous place. A large number of trolleys and ground handling equipment was found lying haphazardly near aircraft which not only poses a threat to aircraft operations but also is an obstruction for refuelling, servicing and passenger embarkation and disembarkation. What’s more, many baggage trolleys were found without braking systems. Which means that when strong winds lash the airport, these trolleys can hit aircraft something that happens regularly at most Indian airports.
The DGCA also found acute congestion of aircraft parked in front of general aviation hangars. At times planes and choppers operate from parking space itself, which is not only a safety hazard but also source of dust contamination to other aircraft parked nearby, said sources.
When contacted, DGCA chief Kanu Gohain said: "This was a regular surveillance we carried out at IGI some time back. The idea of these surprise checks is to find out if there are any deficiencies in maintenance. If any such thing is noticed, airlines have to take action against their negligent officers."
Business WeekBangalore's new airport: help or hindrance?
On May 23, Bangalore’s new international airport will be open for business. It’ll be swish and modern, for sure. Built by a consortium that also built the Zurich airport, plus Siemens and India’s best infrastructure project company Larsen & Toubro. Cost $625 million.
Flights from all over the world will no longer land at the crowded, shabby old HAL airport, in Bangalore city. They’ll come into this swanky new facility on the outskirts of the city.
Those who are rejoicing should take pause.
For the commuter’s pain is about to be exacerbated, not relieved.
That's a fabulous ad. So very true also.Dileep wrote:The Air Deccan 2:30 minutes ad.
Indian airports make steady journey towards 24 hrs operations
Sat, May 17 12:42 PM
New Delhi
Airports at major metros are becoming operational 24 hours with more daylight flights being introduced by global carriers following the government's insistence to this effect. The efforts by the Civil Aviation Ministry in this direction have now started bearing fruit as most of the global airlines operating to the country are adding new day-time services, official sources said.
Earlier, most of the international flights used to operate at night. India, a member of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), had moved a paper in the UN body almost two years ago suggesting that the night curfew at many European and US airports should be done away with.
Government's basic contention was that this practice of the western nations was unfair to airlines and travellers from the developing world, especially those in the east. India's move received a lot of support, especially from several Asian nations, sources said.
The Civil Aviation Ministry also took a firm stand at the global fora stating that the Indian carriers should not be restricted from operating flights from western airports during night, which land here during the day. The night curfew in the western airports also implied that flights could not depart from India in the afternoon or evening, sources said.
The aviation authorities in the west were asked to consider the consequences of India closing down its airports at night due to concerns of noise and pollution, they added. The move was also aimed at de-congesting the major airports, particularly those in Mumbai and Delhi which used to handle most of the international traffic at that time.
Somebody forwarded this to me -Neela wrote:Got this through mail:
Bangalore: As he walked towards the entrance wearing a grey tie on a white shirt and black trousers, one of the four police personnel on guard stepped towards him. But the man displayed his identity card to all the four and smiled at them.
As he walked inside, the youngest of the personnel asked his senior: "Sir, who is this foreigner?" Pat came the reply: "He is the man who built this new airport. He is Albert Brunner. Get his face etched in your memory."
Inside the swanky glass-and-steel terminal building, the spotlight was on Brunner. "Welcome to the new Bengaluru International Airport, we are ready to open our wonderful airport tomorrow," he announced.
On Friday midnight, an Indian carrier will fly the first aircraft from the much-awaited airport to Singapore.
The announcement, indeed, was a moment of triumph for this chief executive officer of Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL), who has battled several odds in adding the new infrastructure to the southern city.
"But now everything is in place," said Brunner, adding "the masterplan of the airport has been developed to fulfil the need for an operationally-efficient and passenger-friendly airport for Bangalore. The airport can handle 12 million passengers per annum and the land at our disposal allows us to develop the airport to a capacity of about 50 million passengers per year."
"It will take about 60-80 minutes from anywhere in Bangalore to the new airport," he said. Except for completion of work on a loop that would facilitate traffic flow towards Hyderabad, connectivity to the airport has ceased to be a grey area. The three modes of transport to get to the airport are taxies, personal cars and buses.
While Merucabs and Easycabs take care of the taxi operations at the airport, Hertz and Akbar Travels rent out luxury cars. State-run Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) has introduced 40 Vayu Vajra air-conditioned Volvo buses on nine different routes in the city to ferry people up to the terminal building of the airport. The fare in these buses ranges between Rs 70 and Rs 200. BMTC will also ply 100 Suvarna non-AC buses to the airport.
For those who use their personal cars, parking is not a problem at the new airport. Brunner said: "Land side traffic is really difficult to handle at the airport, so we have given a lot of thought to the parking system. Our airport can provide parking for 2,000 cars."
Unlike the existing HAL airport, where free parking at the departure terminal is just for 90 seconds, it is 10 minutes at the new airport. If a car is parked for two hours, the owner has to pay Rs 40 and Rs 20 for additional hour thereafter. Parking for 24 hours is Rs 300. The airport also provides for valet parking service for Rs 150 and porter service for Rs 70 (for three bags).
From the parking lot, it is a less-than-a-minute walk into the terminal building, which bears semblance to the glass-house at the famous Lalbagh Botanical Gardens in Bangalore. Spread over 71,000 sq m, the building can accommodate 2,733 passengers per hour.
The terminal building provides free Wi-Fi access to the laptop users. Apart from baby care facilities for mothers, the three-level building also houses a clinic and a pharmacy run by the Columbia Asia Hospital. The airport has 53 check-in counters, 18 self check-in kiosks and provides for a seamless and single check-in process.
"Passengers do not have to queue up for baggage screening before check-in at the new airport. This is an international foolproof baggage screening process," Brunner added.
There are 18 shopping outlets and 15 food and beverages stalls in the terminal building. The international departure section houses one of the largest duty-free outlets showcasing leading international brands, and the Oberoi lounge which has dedicated areas for business and first-class passengers with a seating capacity of 100 people.
"But the most interesting feature of the international departure lounge is the coffee served by Paris-based Illy Cafe, which makes a debut into the Indian market," F&B operator HMSHost director (operations - India) JVS Rana said.
The airport has already generated a lot of interest among the airliner operators, who have drafted their staff before the inauguration as part of the familiarisation drive. Jet Airways deputy general manager (airport services) S Ravichandar said: "We are quite enthused about the facilities here. We are looking forward to the inauguration as the first aircraft to land here will be from our fleet."
However, controversies are far from over for Brunner and company. For, BIAL's insistence on closing down the HAL airport has been questioned in the court by the city's IT/BT head honchos who are citing time and cost constraints with regard to short-haul flights. The latter claim that BIAL is short on capacity utilisation.
Sporting a smile, Brunner said all that he wanted Bangaloreans to do immediately was to drive to BIAL to see for themselves the world-class facility.
Source: Business Standard
Haven't the AAI and the unions fleeced us enough.. After charging us with those taxes for all those years, what do they have to show for the airport except for some stinky hell hole that is not even fit for cattle to be tied in.. Kick the unionized AAI types to the other airports they have in other tier ii and other places.. or better still transfer them all to Kolkota.Amitayus wrote:I am bit perplexed with the left unions like AAEI's' response. It is clear as daylight that HAL and the NTR airport would be closed for good. After such a fierce agitation, why this deafening silence now? Or has there been any under-the- table settlement?