Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 20 Apr 2013 13:18

An underutilized hub is going to charge high airport charges to break even. As for fuel prices, I don't know how much more expensive Indian airports are than any other global airport.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 21 Apr 2013 08:36

What has prevented the likes of AI others being too puny, from having non-stop services from top 4-5 metros in the US, to say BOM/DEL with further smooth connections to tier-2 cities in addition to flights originating from various European metros ?

As for gulf traffic, I do not see how it is any better for BOM/DEL to be a hub in comparison to having direct connections from gulf hubs to tier-2 airports. The hub concept will work for only long distance flights where travel time is more than 6-9 hours.

Dileep · Post by **Dileep** » 22 Apr 2013 11:55

Complaining about the Gelf airlines getting more services is like the SHQ who cooks crap (or nothing at all) complaining that the hubby is eating out.

If you want me to consider using your airport (say BOM) for my transit, you better provide:

1. Seamless transit. I land on the domestic segment, get in to the terminal, spend time there, and board the onward flight, with security check being the only hassle. Same way on the inward flight.

2. Reasonably good facilities when I spend my time in the terminal.

If you make me grab my luggage, load it into the cart, ride a bus to the other terminal, check in again etc, no sir!! I have nothing to give you.

I haven't transited in an Indian airport after Silk Air started their SIN service from COK.

Surya · Post by **Surya** » 22 Apr 2013 18:53

you should try seamless transit via Mumbai to connect to another foreign destination (not Air india)

EWR- BOM - KL

some ground staff will collect your passport and take it to the immigration guys

after a nervous wait of 45 minutes they willcome back.
then you are asked to leave you carry on bag (laptop) upstairs with no one to take care of it and go down to the bowels of the airport to identify your luggage

absolutely crazy

why its so hard to fix I have no idea

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 22 Apr 2013 19:37

The reason it is hard to fix is that, as far as BOM/DEL final destination passengers are concerned things are great. Nice airport infra now in Delhi at least and very soon in Mumbai too. This comprises maybe 80% of their incoming traffic. Who cares about the rest 20% from elsewhere.

The gulf airlines are doing the 20% a favor and letting us show the finger to BOM/DEL. If this does not motivate them enough to fix the issues for transiting passengers, there is no hope at all. Looks like they have gone into the whine mode instead of looking at the underlying issues.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 22 Apr 2013 19:39

After 3 yrs, I recived 4 copies of Frequent flyer card from AI.

I have not flown them in 2 yrs. That was nice at least, even though it took them so long. If they were to have non-stop services from DC I would fly them each time I visit home. The detour to NY/NJ with a short hop is a killer in terms of time and energy both ways.

Surya · Post by **Surya** » 23 Apr 2013 07:35

Bade

but they are losing out transit passengers to other places outside of desh too

Its one thing to figure out transfer between intl and domestic in BOM but what about intl to intl

thats a nightmare tooo

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 24 Apr 2013 09:22

You mean to say intl transfers in Europe ?

I do not know why they are operating out of both NY and NJ. If they move south to DC/Baltimore area then they can still serve the whole catchment up to Raleigh in the south. They already have services from Chicago to catch the mid-west traffic. They have left out west coast entirely and Houston/Dallas areas too where large number of Indians live.

Surya · Post by **Surya** » 24 Apr 2013 20:47

No I meant intl flt transiting through Indian airport

my experience was transiting through BOM on way to KL and singapore

other passengers vowed never to take this option

kmkraoind · Post by **kmkraoind** » 25 Apr 2013 16:33

Jet-Etihad deal: Why it reeks of crony capitalism - Firstpost

This is not to say that the deal is per se bad. In fact, by boosting competition on Gulf routes, it will benefit consumers. We can expect more fare wars. But the deal appears to be the result of cosy bargaining between promoters and policy-makers. It is being sold in the name of consumers, but it was conceived with business interests in mind, not consumers.

In the 2000s, the main obstacle to the growth of private players was the public sector Indian Airlines. Under Praful Patel, not only did we get an unviable merger of Air India and Indian Airlines, but also a crippling decision to increase an order for aircraft from 28 to 68 without any revenue plan. Net result: an airline with Rs 7,000 crore of revenues in 2004 took on Rs 50,000 crore of debt and killed its own viability. Even today, the airline is on life-support, with the government giving it a Rs 30,000 crore bailout.

Guess who benefited from Air India’s hara-kiri?

Two years ago, when Kingfisher was on the ropes, the civil aviation ministry could have thrown up the industry for foreign investment right away. But it waited 18 months to do so – till Kingfisher went into rigor mortis.

But now, with Jet itself sinking, bilateral traffic rights are renegotiated to benefit the airline and consummate the Etihad deal. Much as Ajit Singh, the Aviation Minister, may talk of consumer benefits, the driving logic isn’t that. If it was, he could have said seats will be increased on all routes out of India – and not just Abu Dhabi. And wasn’t this the same Ajit Singh who seemed less than enthusiastic about the Air Asia decision to enter into Indian aviation with the Tatas in tow?

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 27 Apr 2013 09:10

CU-T1710 (cn 201-01) The first batch-production An-158 - the first flight in Cubana colours

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Cubana/A ... 211eb7d5c9

Gagan · Post by **Gagan** » 27 Apr 2013 15:40

Air India had been parking its 777s in Washington Dulles last year. And it was actually cheaper for them to park at IAD instead of the super crowded and busy JFK.
Problem was that the Huge 777 on the short 45 min hop from IAD to JFK only had like 20-30 passengers.
They ended this in 6 months or so.

Kakkaji · Post by **Kakkaji** » 28 Apr 2013 04:01

I don't think any Indian airport can be a hub for international transit, esp when theer are options available in the neighbourhood such as Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Singapore. The reasons are:

1. The cost of touching down at, and flying out from, an Indian airport are higher than international norms. Fuel charges, airport charges, are all higher. I don't see them coming down to international levels in the foreseeable future.

2. Our regulations are stricter and less flexible. We cannot accommodate quickly what the international airlines may ask of us.

3. Our economy is at a lower level of development. The goods and services of international quality at an airport still cost more or are not available in India.

There is a reason why airports like Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Singapore in small, tightly-ruled countries are emerging as international transit hubs. They can provide the legal framework, the infrastructure, the security, and the goods and services that the international travelers expect, much quicker, and at a lower cost than what India can.

I am not even sure if we should aim for making our airports as international transit hubs, where non-Indians from country X travel to country Y transiting through an Indian airport. That is too far a stretch at this time.

Our strength is the current and potential traffic volume from and into India by resident Indians and NRIs. We need first to make air travel easier for these people, rather than focusing on becoming transit hubs for international travel.

Here is what I mean:

For ages, the two gateways for international travel to and from India have been Delhi and Mumbai. For Indians living outside these cities, they have to transit through these cities and it is a nightmare. My hometown is Kolkata. I have been traveling to the US for the last 35 years, and I hate the part where I have to fly to Delhi or Mumbai the evening before, land at the domestic airport, collect luggage, then take the bus/ van to the international airport, then re-scan and book the luggage, go through immigration and security, and board the international flight the next morning. It is even worse on the way back, because I am already tired from the long flight when I land in Delhi or Mumbai at night, then go through immigration, pick up luggage, go through customs, then go to domestic airport, re-book the luggage (sometimes you cannot do that until the domestic airline counter opens in the morning) and take the domestic flight in the morning to get to Kolkata.

I would love it if there several flights each day directly from Kolkata to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Singapore. Then I can go through immigration and customs at Kolkata itself, book the luggage once directly to my final destination, and be done with it. I am sure people from other non-Delhi/ non-Mumbai cities feel the same.

So, let Emirates, Etihad, Air Asia, and Singapore Airlines fly hundreds of flights every day into tier I, II, and III cities in India. It would have been nice if airlines based in India would have done it, but as of now they couldn't. So let the foreign airlines do it for now. Let India develop dozens of airports all over India as endpoints for international flights. No need to build hubs. Build the endpoints of international flights in India now.

JMT. And I am not a frequent traveler, so please don't pick on my lack of knowledge of the latest flight schedules.

manish · Post by **manish** » 28 Apr 2013 06:43

Kakkaji wrote: I would love it if there several flights each day directly from Kolkata to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Singapore. Then I can go through immigration and customs at Kolkata itself, book the luggage once directly to my final destination, and be done with it. I am sure people from other non-Delhi/ non-Mumbai cities feel the same.

So, let Emirates, Etihad, Air Asia, and Singapore Airlines fly hundreds of flights every day into tier I, II, and III cities in India. It would have been nice if airlines based in India would have done it, but as of now they couldn't. So let the foreign airlines do it for now. Let India develop dozens of airports all over India as endpoints for international flights. No need to build hubs. Build the endpoints of international flights in India now.

JMT. And I am not a frequent traveler, so please don't pick on my lack of knowledge of the latest flight schedules.

This is almost in line with the philosophy that drove Boeing to focus on Dreamliner with a point-to-point model when Airbus was gung-ho about mega hub-and-spoke model withe A380 Superjumbo.

And Kakkaji saar, it is already happening also. Look at the int'l pax figures out of BOM, our erstwhile Int'l 'hub' vis-a-vis those at BLR, HYD, airports in Kerala (Cochin, Trivandrum, Calicut), CCU etc - they are all growing faster than BOM now, thanks to newer airports linking them directly to rest of the world or to other regional hubs in ME and SE Asia. And these are the very destinations that have actually helped Emirates become our unofficial 'flag' carrier, more than the big airports in DEL/BOM/MAA.

One can almost say that the cities that formed the primary int'l traffic catchment for BOM now have fairly decent connectivity to overseas destinations barring sectors such as India-Africa. This is yet to happen for DEL which rules almost the entire northern market unmolested, at least for now.

But the trend will only increase going forward and is also supported by the proliferation of fuel efficient widebody twins like the A330/B777s at present and the B787/A350s in the days to come. Just look at the order no.s for these types of a/c vs those for the biggies A380 and B747-8I (which is almost dead, which is sad in its own way).

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 28 Apr 2013 11:21

yes the del/mum dominance is finished unless Jet/Indigo become mega sized international carriers. Jet just hooked into etihad and Indigo will likely avoid the shakedown acts of EU/NA and focus on east asian and gulf routes if the GOI backs it.

nobody wants to fly through del/mum unless there is no other option. its quite costly also for overnight stay minimum 4000 + taxi even in a airport motel kind of place. plus managing heavy khan std suitcases.

I visited the BIAL today morning to drop another set of family, the work on terminal extension both sides is structurally complete and so is the new roof with the flowing wave type shape. the existing verandah could well be enclosed and expanded the checking in area with another row of counters. capacity should go to 20 million pa from existing 12 mil, with better number of seats for waiting pax.

around 10 a/c would be able to hook into aerobridges and another 10 easily via buses.

all peace and progress onlee.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 28 Apr 2013 12:19

DEL/BOM do not have to be international to international hubs, but both have received >$3 billion each in investment towards making them decent domestic and domestic/international hubs. As it stands, the amount of bureaucratic stasis and inability to execute basic administrative reforms is such that both these, after so much investment, are being priced out of what they were built to do.

Things are so bad that the recent Jet-Etihad deal has resulted in Jet basically walking away from the entire idea of being a proper international carrier. Instead, they've inked a deal that makes them a hub to point flyer, flying between India and Abu Dhabi from various points, and Etihad then flying beyond. It's an ingenious approach, but an indictment of the civil aviation ministry that denied Jet the ability to do that out of DEL and BOM for so many years. Until the CivAv ministry wakes up, we'll be wasting all those billions spend on making DEL and BOM into capable hub airports.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 28 Apr 2013 19:52

Invest more in the domestic side terminals i say. Screw the fatkat nris and their vocal complaints

why should khan based munnas get all the meat.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 28 Apr 2013 21:27

Because we the NRIs pay more onlee and want direct connections home without filling up the kitty of BOM/DEL hotel mafia, the locals can do the hub and spoke dance with BOM/DEL no ?

manish · Post by **manish** » 28 Apr 2013 21:41

Singha wrote:Invest more in the domestic side terminals i say. Screw the fatkat nris and their vocal complaints why should khan based munnas get all the meat.

HYD already seems to have gone this way.

The domestic side of RGIA is far more impressive at present than the international one, and I dare say at present at least, it seems like a far more pleasant place to be stuck in than the BLR domestic.

However, I fully expect BIAL to pick up its game as part of the ongoing expansion work. One of the biggest benefits of having pvt players like GMR/GVK in this business is that they tend to realize pretty quickly about the side of the bread that is buttered and invest accordingly.

The only fly in this ointment at present is that the domestic pax numbers across the country are going down, whereas the int'l numbers are up quite significantly for most airports in the country, especially the smaller ones which are getting more and more direct int'l connections.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 28 Apr 2013 22:03

Err, aren't domestic-domestic transfers already quite posh and TFTA in places like DEL T3 and T1, BLR, HYD and even BOM now ? We aren't a sufficiently large country or a domestic airline market that we 'need' hubs for domestic traffic as much as for international to domestic dispersal. Point to point still rules, as far as I know. Only when even smaller town airports start becoming important sources of traffic will domestic hub needs become more prominent, and I'm not sure that's the case yet. Even DEL-COK, DEL-TRV and DEL-MAA have nonstops, though there are one-stops via BOM/BLR/HYD too. I'm all for making domestic-domestic hub capability smooth as well - I already stated that in the previous post, and even mentioned it ahead of domestic-international.

Rishirishi · Post by **Rishirishi** » 29 Apr 2013 03:27

India has to deal with 2 issues.

1
Air India must come under new and better management. It is not rocket science, just takes some political decisions. They need to give management free hand to improve the service to become a better airline.

2
Currently anyone wanting to fly to second tiers cities, for example cochin. If the person fly via Dubai, the bagege will arrive directly at Cochin. If he choses to fly via Del or BOM, he will have to clear customs and recheck the lugage (which involves a less then friendly transfer of terminals). Here the airport had provide a "transfer counter" just after the customs area.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 29 Apr 2013 03:59

The solutions do not require any MBA, even a high school dropout or an illiterate person can come up with better solutions than our babucrats who decides most things. They want people to check out of the airport with luggage after a long flight to BOM/DEL. When the lines are long they even encourage that. They want your dollahs at the nearby motels. It is as simple as that.

Even in the US you need to do customs and immigration at the first port of arrival, but the luggage re-check is not much of a hassle. You carry it in a trolley and deposit it just as you get out here at Dulles in DC. Clean and smooth as I have seen other do, though I did not have to do it myself, being the Dilli-Billi of massa capital.

manish · Post by **manish** » 29 Apr 2013 16:50

An interview with the Air India CMD has some pointers relevant for this discussion esp wrt to the B787 Dreamliners and the point-to-point model that they are supposed to be used for - Air India will expand aggressively this year : Rohit Nandan

New Delhi: Air India Ltd will connect Delhi to Rome, Milan, Moscow, Melbourne, Sydney and Birmingham with direct flights in a bid to expand its footprint, one-and-a-half decades after it stopped flying to many of these cities, the airline’s chairman and managing director Rohit Nandan said in an interview.

Air India will deploy its brand new Boeing Dreamliner 787s in these routes as it takes steps to compete with stronger rivals, including the Eithad Airways-Jet Airways combine, which announced a strategic partnership last week.

Some pointers related to the 'hub' debates we are having...

These flights will be from Delhi or Mumbai?
We will use Delhi as a hub and as and when Mumbai will have capacity—which I am told will be soon—it will be a natural second hub for us. It has always been our hub. That will cater to western and southern India markets.

So Delhi will act as your main hub?
We would not like to have an offshore hub [a reference to Jet’s hub being in Abu Dhabi now]. We would like to have a national hub.

On the question of domestic market focus...B787s on trunk routes to be made permanent.

We will use two of our 787s this year as a premium product in the domestic market to ply on metro routes. Earlier, we were flying them on the Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore route from Delhi, so two of these 787s will continue to cater to the domestic market from now on.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 29 Apr 2013 17:05

>> Delhi to Rome, Milan, Moscow

there is no use for these routes unless other airlines use delhi as a hub to generate load. again just a waste of tax payers money and give complimentary tickets to employees and politicians.

787 is of really no use to india - it carries only slightly more pax than 737/A320...and within india or to ASEAN/Gulf where AI can find passengers the range needed is no more than 3500km well below the range of the 787.

negi · Post by **negi** » 01 May 2013 02:58

I am with Dileep sir here; I have no soft corner for so called HUBs in desh they have a big ghanta to offer in terms of service even the much talked about T3 at IGI sucks donkey b@lls ; I don't know know who gets to design our airports but they don't know $hit about planning. For a huge T3 terminal the security clearance section is built like a small shady brothel in one corner it has a stuffy atmosphere and no room to accomodate enough people when people from 2 or more flights arrive at the same time for transfers.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 01 May 2013 09:22

well the BLR one is no better so we are hardly in a position to throw stones on T3.
dilli has a functional metro link from T3 upto CP with connections possible to multiple lines from there.
BLR airport expway has been suspended halfway because the Govt ran out of project funds! lol.

prashanth · Post by **prashanth** » 01 May 2013 10:33

Singha wrote:well the BLR one is no better so we are hardly in a position to throw stones on T3.
dilli has a functional metro link from T3 upto CP with connections possible to multiple lines from there.
BLR airport expway has been suspended halfway because the Govt ran out of project funds! lol.

Well, Delhi gets all the funds without questions while Blr is struggling to get approval from centre for the phase 2 metro, let alone an extension to BIAL. Unfortunately, it takes two hands to clap.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 01 May 2013 10:56

The project started well and has built up a lot of the elevated road but ran out of funds and the contractors melted away. God knows when it will restart.

The airport itself being private they can start terminal2 immediately as terminal1 starts to max out which will not take much time.

Btw has the dilli airport metro opened again....it was suspended for few months due to some german made bolts holding together support beams detected as premature failure....its also owned by ambani jr and charges more fees due to lower load factor etc but their trains and stations are two levels above the rest of dmrc kit

manish · Post by **manish** » 01 May 2013 11:07

Singha wrote:The project started well and has built up a lot of the elevated road but ran out of funds and the contractors melted away. God knows when it will restart.

The airport itself being private they can start terminal2 immediately as terminal1 starts to max out which will not take much time.

Btw has the dilli airport metro opened again....it was suspended for few months due to some german made bolts holding together support beams detected as premature failure....its also owned by ambani jr and charges more fees due to lower load factor etc but their trains and stations are two levels above the rest of dmrc kit

IIRC Navayuga was building it. I heard someone claiming that the fund flow dried up as the cos accounts were frozen in relation to the ongoing probe against YSR Jagan who is said to have ties to the project SPV/promoters.

Apparently the same fate befell the Kundapur-Mangalore NH-17 widening project which is yet another Navayuga project.

Take it FWIW.

manish · Post by **manish** » 01 May 2013 11:18

prashanth wrote:
Singha wrote:well the BLR one is no better so we are hardly in a position to throw stones on T3.
dilli has a functional metro link from T3 upto CP with connections possible to multiple lines from there.
BLR airport expway has been suspended halfway because the Govt ran out of project funds! lol.
Well, Delhi gets all the funds without questions while Blr is struggling to get approval from centre for the phase 2 metro, let alone an extension to BIAL. Unfortunately, it takes two hands to clap.

saar, this claim is pretty much true wrt to most dilli shakinah projects but the T3 as well as the Airport Express were privately funded PPP ventures, unlike BMRC 'Namma Metro' which is funded by Goi, GoKA and JICA.

manish · Post by **manish** » 01 May 2013 11:47

On a related note, it surprises me no end to see modern, educated, IT-Vity type Indians complaining about having to pay (a high price in many cases) for privately funded/built infra such as ports, airports and tolled roads.

In the absence of GoI funding, these companies have come forward and plonked down their shareholders' funds to build up the infra so one can hardly grudge them for trying to get some returns on it. If the prices seem steep, one has to direct the questions at the govt, and not the private builder/operator who is purely in it for the returns - just like any other business. After all, business cannot be run as a charity and the pvt infra companies in turn need to be successful and sustainable to ensure that the pace of infra development continues in this country.

In fact if anything, the pvt infra sector is one of the few sectors that is still tightly controlled under the old rules harking back to the License Raj. Babudom's favoured 'cost-plus' and 'profit ceiling' formulae for pvt cos are still very much in vogue over there, unlike IT-vity or automobile sector for instance.

I wonder how people complaining about the high tariffs would react if their employers in say, IT services sector were asked to clamp their tariffs to ensure that their returns are capped at 16% - sounds bad? This is how tariffs at pvt terminals inside major ports are set by the regulator, even to this day. You report excellent growth in traffic, revenue and bottom line due to your own efforts and efficiency, and you get handed down an order that requires you to cut the tariffs immediately to avoid exceeding the magical 16% ROCE limit. Nice, isn't it?

This is just one of the examples how the infra sector has been hobbled in this country. Is it any wonder that the infra sector seems to repeatedly crop up in corruption related scandals with allegations about rigged bidding mechanisms and concession agreements trying to favour one player or the other? There is little chance of making an honest profit with a playing field such as this.

The dilli T3 that everyone seems to have a love/hate relationship with, has accumulated looses exceeding Rs. 1600 cr IIRC. Everybody went wah wah when the glitzy terminal opened in 2010. But when the tariff revision order came down in 2012, the chicken came home to roost and everybody started calling the terminal operator names. All I can say is you get what you pay for - we pay high UDF, we get T3 (where AAI owns a nice 26% for those who don't know, just like it owns significant stakes in BOM, HYD and BLR pvt airports on top of the nice fat revenue share that accrues to them, rising to as much as 46% of topline

at dilli IGIA). We paid AAI rates and we got MAA/CCU (till recently).

In many ways, the comical situation is similar to the taxation on petrol in our country. The Govt. privatizes the infra assets partly on a long term basis, keeps a nice chunk of ownership in the operating co, gets a fat revenue share, slaps on high taxes on the services besides charging you for security (which is your fundamental right, why pay Rs. 225 as PSF? Do the family members of the Delhi Sultanate pay for their Z+ security?) and whatnot and finally turns around and tries to spread the blame all around when the public complains about high charges.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 01 May 2013 20:13

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2 ... base-video

Video of 747 cargo crash in bagram today. All seven crew believed died.

Can anyone comment on how such a 4 engined bird could float so suddenly out of control on takeoff ascent? If both engines on one side fail suddenly at that low speed would it enter that slow flat spin without enough rudder leverage to correct the twisting motion.

I am flying twice end of this month and chaddi shivering now.

member_23651 · Post by **member_23651** » 01 May 2013 20:25

Singha wrote:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2 ... base-video

Video of 747 cargo crash in bagram today. All seven crew believed died.

Can anyone comment on how such a 4 engined bird could float so suddenly out of control on takeoff ascent? If both engines on one side fail suddenly at that low speed would it enter that slow flat spin without enough rudder leverage to correct the twisting motion.

I am flying twice end of this month and chaddi shivering now.

Navigator of Indian origin: Rinku Summant, sadly was also killed in the crash.

From the comments in the article:

"The word from the smart people at pprune (incl pilots who saw this happen and fly the same aircraft) is that this was caused by a load shift, in which the cargo came loose and shifted to the back of the aircraft, causing the nose to violently pitch up. If this is true, the aircraft was unrecoverable."

"As a former Loadmaster in the RAF, as soon as I saw the video my reaction was that the cargo has moved. Only thing it can be providing the flying controls were checked before take off which they almost certainly would have been."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... illed.html

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 01 May 2013 20:32

Who has dashcams in afghanistan to be there at just the right moment?
Did the talibs rig this with insider help and then station the camera crew as was often done for iraqi insurgent video?

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 01 May 2013 21:25

Did Kol-Del-Hyd-Kol. Del and Hyd are top class. AAI did not do a bad job of Kol. However, the airport has a lot of un-utilized space. The AAI employees need to be removed and replaced by a professional pvt management company. i could already see stained carpets, untidy washrooms, AAI staff roaming around aimlessly in shabby dresses, etc.

Vamsi.R · Post by **Vamsi.R** » 03 May 2013 13:05

Jeopardising the lives of 166 passengers and several crew, two Air India pilots recently decided to give a quick tutorial in flying to two airhostesses. The lesson didn’t stop at that. Even as the aircraft was hovering at over 33,000 feet, both the pilots stepped out for a break, leaving only the airhostesses in the hotseat.

The blatant violation of air safety started minutes after the departure of Air India flight AI 333 from Bangkok to Delhi on April 12. The flight departed as per schedule at 8.55 am from Bangkok. Thirty minutes after departure, co-pilot Ravindra Nath allegedly excused himself for a loo break and got airhostess J Bhatt on his seat. “As per guidelines, it is standard procedure to ensure the presence of second person in the cockpit. This is to ensure that if the pilot sitting in the cockpit is not able to operate the aircraft for some reason, the crew can immediately alert the other pilot. But what actually happened after this was a mockery of air safety,” said an Air India source seeking anonymity.

After Nath left, captain-in-command B K Soni allegedly called another crew member, Kanika Kala, and asked her to take command by seating her on his seat. However, Soni did not leave the cockpit and was literally teaching the two women how to operate an aircraft. Soon after, Soni too made an exit from the cockpit. The aircraft was put on auto pilot mode and the two air-hostesses were left manning the flight for over thirty minutes. The pilots returned only when auto pilot got deactivated through some error.

“The entire drama unfolded in the presence of a senior cabin crew who, later in a complaint, brought the matter to the notice of the airline’s top management. All the four were derostered and later suspended,” added the source.

When contacted, Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) Arun Misra confirmed the suspension of all four AI employees. “Following a safety violation, the airline (Air India) has already suspended the people in question. We are conducting an inquiry into the matter," Misra told Mirror.

Captain Mohan Ranganathan, member of a government- appointed aviation safety panel, slammed the lackadaisical attitude of the DGCA towards enforcement of aviation guidelines. “The DGCA should be held responsible for increase in such cases as they have failed time and again when it comes to stronger enforcement of aviation safety guidelines,” he said.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 03 May 2013 14:14

The saving grace is these pilots did not go for a long nap putting the plane in autopilot , atleast they thought the hostess could fly them given some basic training

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 03 May 2013 15:03

I was thinking the trainees would be sitting on the pilots laps for better instruction and close monitoring

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 03 May 2013 15:54

Singha you bet ,Pilots are the most lucky when it comes to cabin crew ....wonder what kind of trade off this pilots asked for hands on training

manish · Post by **manish** » 03 May 2013 20:18

manish wrote: The larger, heavier 777X (that would be one heck of a beast!) is apparently about to go formally into development. Boeing's board is expected to issue Authority To Offer (ATO) for the 777X as early as April per reports.

The expectations are that the monster would have an even more powerful version of the massive GE-90 engines dubbed GE-9X and is expected to enter service by 2019.

Here it comes...Board clears Boeing to offer 777X for sale

Boeing has started offering the 777X to airlines and leasing companies, the last step before a formal launch event.

The new talks with customers cover "additional technical, pricing and schedule details" about the possibly stretched, re-engined and rewinged update of the 777 series, Boeing says.

"The timing of a decision to launch the programme will depend on market response during the next phase of our discussions about the airplane," Boeing says.

Boeing still plans to introduce the 777X into service by the end of the decade. General Electric, which supplies the GE9X engine, is aiming for certification of the propulsion system in mid-2018, which usually pre-dates a scheduled entry into service of the completed aircraft by at least a year.