Bharat Rakshak

The Maharaja witnessed his first in-flight Mughal-e-Azam at 30,000 feet above sea level on Saturday, as two members of the cabin
crew—one male and one female—slugged it out with the pilot and co-pilot.

Endangering the lives of 106 passengers and grossly violating safety norms, the airline staffers came to blows in the cockpit and galley of the Indian Airlines Airbus A-320 as the aircraft cruised over Pakistan en route to Delhi via Lucknow from Sharjah.

There were unconfirmed reports that at one stage the cockpit was unmanned, as the crew was busy fighting outside. Things allegedly degenerated to the point where the captain threatened to divert the plane to Karachi, likening the situation, sources said, to a "hijack".

Singha wrote:I think the co-pilot came out to fight, the pilot remained in his seat but verbally supported his co-pilot it seems.

Wolfgang Prock Schauer plans to step down as the Chief Executive Officer of Jet Airways on October 15 and Nikos Kardassis would take over as the acting CEO.

In his address to mediapersons, Wolfgang Prock-Schauer said he would take up the post as Chief Executive for British Midland International (BMI) in Europe where the rest of his family resides. “I am not leaving because I don’t have hope for this airline. I think it is clearly the best positioned airline in terms of network coverage, in terms of product quality. I want to specifically highlight in terms of the people who work here both at the management level and down to all the flight attendants and people we have at the airport. So, it is a really fantastic team we have here.”

Crisis ridden Air India meanwhile is trying to retrieve the situation in a U.S market where it has poor ratings. Starting December 1, India's sarkari airline is going to meet a long standing demand from passengers in the Washington DC region to connect directly to New Delhi.

"Direct" but not non-stop, since the flight will be a Washington DC--New York--New Delhi-Kolkata shuttle. The current New York-Delhi non-stop is just getting an extension at both ends. Still, it's the first step in directly linking the two capitals with the same aircraft.

For the longest time, European carriers such as BA, KLM, Air France and Lufthansa have had a run of the US-India route, especially from the East Coast, with transit through European hubs. But now gulf carriers such as Qatar Airways and Emirates are muscling into the market, enticing Indian flyers to fly through the Doha and Dubai, instead of through London, Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt etc.

Air passengers have told how they had to tie a Dubai-based taxi driver to a seat after he went berserk on a flight from the UAE.

The 28-year-old had to be restrained after assaulting crew members and fellow passengers on the Air India Express flight from Dubai to Mangalore, India.

The violent incident happened just a week after a mid-air brawl broke out between pilots and cabin crew on a flight by the firm’s parent company,
Air India.

Eyewitnesses to the latest incident said the passenger even threatened to open the door of the plane while it was in flight.

Eventually, passengers and cabin crew restrained him by tying him to a seat.

Nikhil Manale, a passenger on the plane, told 7DAYS: “We were shocked by his behaviour. He was uncontrollable and abusive.

“There was absolute panic on the plane. Everyone was scared that this guy might do something extreme and create more problems.

I never expected such a thing to happen on a plane when it was in mid-air.”

Madhukar Suvarna, another passenger, said he tied both the man’s hands and legs to a seat so that he could not cause any more problems.

“He was behaving like a madman, running up and down the aisle and spitting at passengers. He even tried to open the door,” he said.

Air India Express flight IX812 left Dubai at 1.30am on Sunday and the trouble started 30 minutes after its departure as the cabin crew started serving meals.

The passenger was said to be sitting awkwardly in his seat and pressing his nose against his fingers.

Thinking that he was sick, cabin crew went to help him, but the man became violent and started lashing out at anyone nearby.

“I have heard about passengers behaving rudely to cabin crew but this is the first time that I have heard of a passenger assaulting cabin crew and abusing fellow passengers,” said Chellam Prasad, the station manager of Air India at Mangalore Airport.

She said the man was not drunk but appeared to be stressed. She added that he told a doctor at the airport he was upset he had not been granted leave to go to India during the Eid festivities.

The restrained passenger was handed over to the airport security as soon as the plane landed and police are investigating the case.

Air India said the man worked as a cab driver in Dubai.

Prasad said the only male member of cabin crew on the flight, Nayan Purohitf, had been punched in the face and suffered bruising and swelling around his eyes and mouth.

kmkraoind wrote:Govt to infuse Rs 5000 crore in AI

Pathetic, without describing what are the cost cutting measures, tax payers are pouring 5000 crores on Air parasites.

http://www.indiapress.org/gen/news.php/The_Pioneer/

FLASH | Sunday, October 18, 2009


US plane forced to land in Mumbai for airspace violation

PTI | Mumbai

A US aircraft with 205 American Marine commandos on board was on Sunday made to land at Mumbai airport for allegedly violating the Indian airspace.

The chartered plane was on its way from Fujiriah in Middle East to Bangkok, an airport official said. The aircraft was using a civilian call sign, officials said.

"A US aircraft with 205 US Marines on board, on its way from Fujiriah to Bangkok, was forced to land in Mumbai while overflying Indian airspace as there was some confusion about its call sign," a Mumbai International Airport Limited spokesperson said.

The aircraft landed at Mumbai airport at 0752 hours and has been parked at a remote bay, the spokesperson said adding, all passengers are on board.

Indian Air Force is looking into the issue, the spokesperson said.

Tanaji wrote:Air Parasite posts a loss of 5,548 crores

http://business.rediff.com/report/2009/ ... e-loss.htm

That is 15.2 crores a day, 63.3 lakhs an hour, 1.05 lakhs a minute and 1759 Rs per second of loss just by existing.

Suppiah wrote:Parasites that have been forced to suspend their plunder can resume it from December, at least partially..

AI gets Rs.800cr of our hard earned money to waste again..and this is only the first tranche...

Tanaji wrote:

Suppiah wrote:Parasites that have been forced to suspend their plunder can resume it from December, at least partially..

AI gets Rs.800cr of our hard earned money to waste again..and this is only the first tranche...

The feeding trough is getting ready to be filled for the parasites. 400 crores in Jan

http://business.rediff.com/report/2009/ ... in-jan.htm

Suppiah wrote:We need a flag carrier about as much as we need a flag software company, flag car marker, flag TV maker, flag condom maker etc. If we need one at all, IMHO GOI should announce that any Indian airline owned > 50% by resident Indians (not someone based in Karachi ) should qualify as "flag carrier" for 3 years if they come out tops in some well defined criteria such as capacity, accident rates, ontime etc. It can come with some benefits such as being sole carrier for PM/President etc., though I doubt if any airline with commercial sense would call that a benefit.

manju wrote:OT, but need some infor for personal travel..

Am travelling from USA to India via Paris (Charles De Gaulle Airport)- only transiting. Do I need a French visa? I have Indian Passport.

French emabssy English webpage sucks- could not get any useful info and no one seems to answer the phone either.

Thanks in advance

Suppiah wrote:Sorry for interfering in personal travel plans, but WTF do we Indians need to transit through airports that treat us so bad, they insist on visa even for transit? There are many beautiful countries to transit through that do not insist on it, and some even give day trips free...Singapore, Bangkok, Taiwan, HK, Colombo, Taiwan, Korea, the list is long...if western routes are more convenient then there are places like Istanbul, even ME though I am not sure about connectivity.

Suraj wrote:This website is a very useful tool to figure out the 'do I need a visa' question.

The Mono-pulse Secondary Surveillance Radar at the Chennai Airport broke down on Wednesday evening.

It was restored on Thursday evening.

AAI officials said each MSSR usually has two calibration performance monitoring equipment. But, the Chennai radar had only one and that also failed on Wednesday.

Following this, the Air Traffic Controllers were unable to provide radar separation for flights in the north-west and south-west sectors, besides those over-flying Chennai Air Traffic Control.

On Thursday afternoon, the equipment was brought from Mangalore. Radar operation was restored around 6 p.m. on Thursday, sources said.