Airliners-India.com

avbuff · Member Joined: 22 Dec 2006 Posts: 5031

http://www.ptinews.com/news/312497_Pilot--cabin-crew-member-scuffles-on-AI-flight--injured

New Delhi, Oct 3 (PTI) A pilot and the member of a cabin crew were injured when they scuffled with each other mid-air on Air India's flight from Sharjah to Lucknow this morning.

"A pilot and a cabin crew of Air India's IC-884 Sharjah-Lucknow-Delhi flight were injured after they had a scuffle over some issues mid-air," an airline official told PTI.

The incident took place at around 0430 hours when the flight was over Pakistan, he said adding the flight with 106 passengers and seven crew member had left for Lucknow at 0035 hours Sharjah time.

The flight reached Lucknow at 0600 hours where the matter was reported.

The airline management has derostered the pilot and the cabin crew member till the investigation into the incident was over.

This is suppose to be an all IC crew right? being an A320 IC cabin / flight deck crew?

As an aside the loads were really good.

behramjee · Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2009 8:59 pm Post subject:

http://www.dnaindia.com/money/report_air-india-floats-eoi-to-lease-seven-planes_1294811

confirmed that AI has plans to lease out B 77Ls and A 310Fs.
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avbuff · Member Joined: 22 Dec 2006 Posts: 5031

AI is reshuffling its FRA - N. America operations from winter.

Current operations:-

* AI 191/144 BOM-FRA-EWR(B77W)
* AI 127/126 DEL-FRA-ORD(B77W)
* AI 121/120 AMD - FRA (B77L)

From winter 09:-

* AI 127/126 BOM-FRA-ORD(B77W)
* AI 191/144 AMD-FRA-EWR(B77W)
* AI 121/120 DEL - FRA (B77L)

Phadnis · Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2009 10:42 am Post subject:

jasepl · Member Joined: 26 Jul 2008 Posts: 4257 Location: bund-bay

Phadnis · Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2009 3:08 pm Post subject:

me111993 · Member Joined: 04 Sep 2009 Posts: 3225 Location: MAA/AMD

Ai's AMD-FRA is not doing that bad, because if so they would definately not upgraded AMD to a B77W, they would have shut the route completely. The reason for this move would have been, the number of PAX going from AMD to EWR. Although, the way they are using their FRA hub, not alot was expected on their India-FRA flights as they bring in 900 seats from India and outbound seats to the US are only 600 odd.
If they are focusing solely on US, they can have their 77L's operate flights from and to India, while 2 77W's could then continue onwards to EWR and ORD, evening out capacity on both routes...
Cheers
me111993
Also happy diwali and newyear everybody!!

JETFLY787 · Member Joined: 15 Aug 2007 Posts: 343 Location: LON,UK

AI shud extend the new DEL-FRA 77L to IAD and shelve the tag on JFK... AI will definately lose more money by flying the 77L on a short JFK -IAD due to fuel costs.. Rolling Eyes

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Nimish · Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 10:43 am Post subject:

Phadnis · Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 11:18 am Post subject:

me111993 · Member Joined: 04 Sep 2009 Posts: 3225 Location: MAA/AMD

It seems awfully stupid on AI's part to upgrade an already loss making route to a larger aircraft. Even though the so called psychological factor will play an important role in attracting more PAX travelling to EWR, I don't see AMD being able to sustain a 77W for long. It beats me that how can a 77W be used for AMD and a 77L for DEL. AI coulh have so easily extended the DEL flight to IAD, also giving a boost to their India-FRA operations. I keep exploring options to try and find some sort of a jusrification to AI excellent descision making but fail to find absolutely anything!!!!

iah87 · Member Joined: 17 Apr 2007 Posts: 2567

jasepl · Member Joined: 26 Jul 2008 Posts: 4257 Location: bund-bay

Jaysit · Member Joined: 19 Dec 2006 Posts: 4346

Why on earth is AI still retaining the ridiculous 191/144 flight numbering system for its EWR flights?

Note that this is merely a rhetorical question. I don't expect an answer because we all know that AI and common sense and logic don't go together.

shivendrashukla · Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2009 9:05 am Post subject:

Drunk pilot delays AI fight to New York by 45 min

Phadnis · Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2009 10:37 am Post subject:

Bloody ridiculous article. Why is this even news, and what relevance does the pilot's drinking have to some vague concept of AI 141 being 'zero-delay flight'? Confused

After all, I'm pretty sure the flight still reached JFK on time because AI have shrewdly kept ample block time for the flight - it almost always lands at least half an hour earlier than it is supposedly scheduled to, even if it departs late from Mumbai. Perhaps even earlier with favourable tailwinds. Terrible reporting - this article is TOI, I presume, Shivendra?
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The way I see it, you can either work for a living or you can fly airplanes. Me, I'd rather fly.

Spiderguy252 · Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2009 12:21 pm Post subject:

shivendrashukla · Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2009 12:57 pm Post subject:

avbuff · Member Joined: 22 Dec 2006 Posts: 5031

AI/IC to upgrade their daily MAA - DXB from A320 to an A321. A new product will be offered.

777-237LR · Member Joined: 19 Dec 2006 Posts: 140

AI, IA may work as separate divisions
24 Oct 2009, 0330 hrs IST, Saurabh Sinha, TNN
NEW DELHI: There's finally tacit approval in the corridors of power that the merger of Air India and Indian Airlines has not achieved its
objective of creating a mega airline but instead could have played a substantial role in bringing the Maharaja to the ICU where he is now battling for life.

Highly placed sources said though the aviation ministry is not going to demerge the combined entity, National Aviation Company of India Ltd (NACIL), a plan is being worked on to let the erstwhile IA and AI work as separate divisions under a common umbrella.

"We have had discussions on this issue at the highest level in the ministry and a consensus is emerging on letting the domestic and international divisions operate without expecting them to act like a single company. The airline management is working out a way to achieve this. It's better they live separately without getting divorced than die together," said highly placed sources.

Instead of the promised economies of scale that should have led to huge savings, post-merger the new entity NACIL is incurring a monthly cash loss of Rs 400 crore. While all airlines are suffering at the moment, NACIL's woes are compounded by the fact that AI and IA employees don't see eye to eye on any issue.

AI and IA employees have long said massive differences between them on all fronts like work culture and pay scales could have never led to the plan working out. As the ministry eyes an equity-cum-aircraft purchase assistance of close to Rs 14,000 crore over next three years, Parliamentarians have begun assessing the impact (read damage) caused by the merger. CPM leader Sitaram Yechury-led standing committee on transport is studying this issue.

The IA officers' association has submitted a letter to this committee in which it said that the merger was not successful and the reasons for that. "Merger happened two years over ago. But processes, systems, flights, operations, duties and responsibilites are separate and distinct as if two companies still exist," it says.

The six strategic business units linked to NACIL in areas like engineering MRO, cargo, ground handling and low cost carrier are yet to take shape.

These SBUs were supposed to have taken employees from the airline wing so that NACIL could boast of a competitive employee-per-aircraft ratio. "Most importantly, networks have not been rationalised. AI Express, AI and IA continue to operate on common routes at common timings to the detriment of all three airlines," the association says.

NACIL has also not been able to fly the domestic and international flights on the common code of AI so far, an important pre-condition for joining Star Alliance. As a result, announcements like "Air India announces the departure of its flight IC xxx" from one Indian city to another are still heard at airports across the country. This has even led to a private Indian airline trying to pip NACIL to the post by entering Star Alliance before it.

"IA pilots have not been paid the flying allowance of August while AI pilots have been paid subsistence allowance of that month just two days back. It's an attempt to divide and rule," said Captain V K Bhalla, who headed the recent executive pilots' stir.

iah87 · Member Joined: 17 Apr 2007 Posts: 2567

Earlier it was announced that AI would discontinue BLR-MCT flight. But apparently it is still there but with a different routing - BLR-HYD-MCT-HYD-BLR. So instead of a nonstop it is now a 1 stop via HYD.

And AI has added MAA to the HYD-AMD-Kuwait to make it MAA-HYD-AMD-Kuwait and back. Although I dont know how many would take a 2 stop flight to Kuwait when there are already 1 stop and nonstop flights from MAA to Kuwait.

Jaysit · Member Joined: 19 Dec 2006 Posts: 4346

Phadnis · Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2009 12:53 pm Post subject:

iah87 · Member Joined: 17 Apr 2007 Posts: 2567

The most annoying (and much delayed) item in this merger is on the website and the IT side. If they can merge the website and code share every flight with AI code (while retaining the IC code temporarily), we will then have an idea of how many overlapping flights there are.

avbuff · Member Joined: 22 Dec 2006 Posts: 5031

Given that AI as an entity is a sarkari daftar, I guess expecting either the management or employees to cooperate is useless.

And be it AI or IC their website is a national shame. It is difficult to visualize Pune, Bangalore, Gurgaon, Hyderabad and Mumbai on one side and AI/IC/AIX's awful websites on the other hand.

Nimish · Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 12:36 pm Post subject:

rhumbline · Member Joined: 28 Sep 2007 Posts: 443

Jaysit · Member Joined: 19 Dec 2006 Posts: 4346

avbuff · Member Joined: 22 Dec 2006 Posts: 5031

One of those very few well written articles.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/business/global/31airindia.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2

MUMBAI — In what has been a bad year for airlines everywhere, Air India has suffered from a series of particularly painful — and at times embarrassing — misfortunes.

The struggling government-owned carrier’s already uneven reputation has been further tarnished in recent months by rats on a plane, a strike by senior pilots and a midair fistfight between pilots and flight attendants. In September, a flight to Riyadh was grounded after a passenger saw sparks coming from an engine.

The embarrassing chain of events and the airline’s dire financial situation — it is expected to lose more than $1 billion in the current business year, and the government tentatively pledged about $1.1 billion in bailout money to it recently — has prompted many to ask: Why is the Indian government still running an airline?

The question is particularly relevant in a country that has more poor people than any other nation and where just a tiny percentage of the people fly. Frequent domestic and international fliers prefer airlines other than Air India, which has lost significant market share since the country liberalized commercial aviation in the 1990s.

Rajeev Malik, an economist with Macquarie Securities, said Air India’s problems are becoming a metaphor for India’s incomplete economic reforms: policy makers have a long to-do list but they are handling the tasks inadequately or not at all.

“There is little certainty over the final outcome,” he said.

Many analysts say government ownership is a root cause of Air India’s most pressing problems. In 2007, for instance, the government forced the airline into a poorly conceived merger with Indian Airlines, which was also state-owned. Politicians have influenced the company’s dealings with labor unions, leaving the airline with a much bigger and better-paid staff of 31,000 than it can afford.

Sanat Kaul, a former board member of Air India who also was a senior official in the aviation ministry, said policy makers had frequently overruled the airline’s management on major decisions and had been “erratic and irrational” in removing top executives. Since mid-2003, for instance, the airline has had four managing directors, the carrier’s highest-ranking manager.

At well-run government-owned airlines like Singapore Airlines and Emirates Airlines, which is owned by the Dubai government, politicians hire experienced professionals and give them significant authority, analysts say.

Employees, too, say Air India is rudderless.

“We feel like an orphan. Every three years we get a new mother and a new father,” said Capt. Shailendra Singh, president of the Indian Commercial Pilots Association. He said he had repeatedly asked government officials and the newest managing director, Arvind Jadhav, “What is your plan?” So far, Captain Singh said, “They cannot come up with one.”

A spokesman for the airline, Jitendra Bhargava, said the carrier had a three-year turnaround plan. Acknowledging that Air India’s losses were big, he attributed them to high oil prices, intense competition and a sharp drop in demand. He estimated that Indian carriers received only 13 cents of revenue per mile that each passenger was flown, compared with 40 cents in Western countries.

“All airlines worldwide are in a problem. The Indian airlines are in more of a problem,” he said.

Air India lost $1.1 billion on revenue of $3 billion in the most recent fiscal year at current exchange rates, or 37 percent of revenue. The two largest privately owned competitors also lost money: Kingfisher Airlines lost about $350 million on revenue of $1.1 billion, or about 30 percent; Jet Airways lost $209 million on revenue of $2.8 billion, or 7 percent.

Mr. Bhargava said Air India’s performance could not be directly compared with those of other airlines because it did not outsource functions like ground handling and because policy makers required it to fly unprofitable routes to remote areas and to religious pilgrimage destinations.

The government bailout proposal calls on Air India to match $1.1 billion in aid with a similar amount in cost reductions and increased revenue, said Praful Patel, the minister for civil aviation. Air India needs to fly more passengers, lease unused aircraft and defer the delivery of other planes, he said. A committee of senior ministers has to approve the plan.

But Mr. Patel said the government was not interested in privatizing the airline.Air India is under a lot of social responsibility,” said Mr. Patel, who has led the ministry since 2004. Without it, “a large part of India would not be well connected in case of an emergency.” Moreover, he said, Air India transported government employees.

Air India was founded in 1932 as Tata Airlines by J. R. D. Tata, a member of the Indian business family, and Nevill Vincent, a former pilot with the Royal Air Force. The government took a minority stake in the airline after independence in 1947 and nationalized it fully in 1953, though Mr. Tata stayed on as chairman of the board.

Several efforts to privatize the airline have faltered because of political opposition. In 2001, the government scrapped a plan to sell a stake in the airline after Singapore Airlines walked away from a proposed deal in which it and the Tata Group would have taken operational control of Air India.

In the last 15 years, both the airline’s reputation and its market share have eroded. While it continued to fly years-old planes, and passengers complained that its staff treated them in the surly manner Indians have come to expect from government employees, more nimble rivals like Jet Airways and Kingfisher flew shiny new planes and built reputations for indulgent service. Air India has recently begun adding dozens of new planes to its fleet.

The series of unfortunate events in the last two months has only heightened the perception that Air India is troubled.

Late last month, a flight to Toronto was delayed 11 hours as employees hunted rats that had scurried onto the plane while it was being cleaned. The airline worried that the rats might chew through wiring.

That same day, senior pilots began calling in sick to protest the airline’s plans to cut their pay as much as 50 percent. The incident disrupted dozens of flights for four days, ending only after senior policy makers promised that pay packages would not be reduced without negotiations with the senior, or executive, pilots, who are not represented by a union.

Earlier this month, pilots and flight attendants brawled in front of passengers on a plane flying to India from the United Arab Emirates. One attendant said a pilot had molested her and shoved her. The pilots said that was not true. One of the pilots told a local reporter that the cockpit had been unmanned for 10 minutes during the fight, a claim that the airline has denied.

The public travails of Air India have been “worse than the drama in a bad Bollywood movie,” said Mr. Malik, the economist, referring to India’s film industry. But, he added, “even the worst Bollywood movie has a happy ending.”

Phadnis · Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 11:01 am Post subject:

Nimish · Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 1:58 pm Post subject:

Phadnis · Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 2:30 pm Post subject:

avbuff · Member Joined: 22 Dec 2006 Posts: 5031

Jaysit · Member Joined: 19 Dec 2006 Posts: 4346

Better to be on Neptune than on Air-India-stan, a place where only half the people work while the other half sit around and collect paychecks.

The only reason AI still exists in its wretched form is because of entrenched interests in the GOI (corrupt politicians and bureaucrats making $$$), union interests (the Shiv Sena run thuggish unions in Mumbai making $$$), and various mid-level employees looting AI's assets. These people don't want the goose that lays the golden eggs (for them) to change one bit.

Maybe one day the assorted children on here who whine about how great AI is and how awful the rest of the world is to decry AI will grow up, pay taxes in India, and begin to wonder why their taxes go to fund this bloated organization.

avbuff · Member Joined: 22 Dec 2006 Posts: 5031

http://www.ndtv.com/news/india/air_india_receives_terror_threat_security_increased.php

Air India has received an e-mail warning of a terror attack after which security around establishments of the national carrier across the country has been beefed up.

"We received an e-mail last week which we passed on to the security agencies concerned. The Bureau of Civil Aviation has also issued an alert. On our part, we are taking all the required security measures," an Air India spokesperson said in Mumbai on Saturday.

The airline had received a similar e-mail in April, threatening to blow up its headquarters at Nariman Point in Mumbai.

"I am not aware about any such threat. Air India has so far not communicated to us on the issue. However, we monitor security measures on a regular basis," Deputy Police Commissioner, Brijesh Singh, said.

Nimish · Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 2:15 pm Post subject:

Nimish · Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 2:22 pm Post subject:

Nimish · Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 2:28 pm Post subject:

tayaramecanici · Member Joined: 03 Jan 2007 Posts: 648

t is interesting to analyse the make-up of the present AI employees, this will give you a understanding on the quantum of and quality of calibre left within that organisation.

It was 1977 when morarji pvt AI. Since then from being a responsibile manager/director a culture of diminished responsibility has set in, with no one held accountable for the continued decline.
The staff present in AI is made-up of 3 categories in the ratio of 5:3:2.

50% can't care a rats a£$e if the a/c flies/grounded, pax get scalded by burning coffee or gassed to death in its stinking toilets. They are bloody sure to get their monthly wages, free bees and bounty of loot from the company stores. This lot can't be bothered to look for another job if AI was shut down, this is the only wretched organisation on the face of this earth that this lot could have ever found employment.

30% are made up of sons and daughters of AI employees, bureaucrats etc etc. This lot consider it their birth right to be in AI. Operations dept which incl Flt deck crew and Cabin have the max number of this lot. 3/4 of this lot would fail to get employment in another airline and has to hang on to dear life AI for survival. I had come across one such employee, a Lady pilot, daughter of a ex-IAC director of Ops. She got her wings at Nagpur flying club and the instructor would always grumble about her flying skills and how she has managed to get thru because of daddy dear. Many years Later, after i had given up my plans for flying, i heard this bird being pulled up by DXB ATC as she took-off (A310) straight into a CX (B747F) landing into DXB. She was not cleared by the ATC for T/O, she was on a route check.

20% is made up of honest workers, who have a simple and healthy policy in life. They come to work, do their duties to the best of their ability and go home. They try not to get disturbed by the work enviourment. They have their own domestic reasons for not leaving AI, a child in school, college, ailing relatives etc. The airline tiks over because of this lot.

I joined AI in 1987 and then itself there was a strong feeling of the airline dying a slow death. AI has survived since then only because of realpolitik where every new govt saw it as a Milking cow. PP was the latest with the B777 orders. To make matters worse the continued fall of AI has seen the consequent rise of EK and 9W which have exploited this politico-bureacrat corruption malaise to their advantage.

Right now you can see that the present govt cannot justify the survival of this milk cow feeding 35000 useless indians at the cost of $3-4b. Especially when the same amount can be spent on Health, Water, Sanitation or Infrastructure for improving the lot of over a couple of millions. The political commentary within India is focused on this airline, as a test of the UPA govts resolve to pvt industry.

Soon the Frogs (employees) in the Pond(AI) will realise there is a world outside, harsh or good depending on their individual calibre.