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Spiderguy252

Hello, all. It's been a while. Smile

This TR has been in the making for a long time - I initially floated the conversation within a miscellaneous discussion late last year that I was one of the fortunate few to fly the sole Air India Boeing 757 'once upon a time' (Summer 2007), and expectedly, I was asked to recall the events of the time and make a Trip Report on it. Obviously, I promised that I would but underestimated the time it would take for me to craft the same in the midst of all the work that came my way in close to the twelve months since. Sumantra was one of the unfortunate casualties - he has been expectant for the longest while. My sincere apologies, and hope this write-up below makes up for it. Smile

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2007 feels like a long time ago; it saw me in my second from last year of school. As is the case in the Gulf countries, there is an extended break for the summer in the months of June, July and August and it is usually at this time that folks travel to their destinations of choice - be it to visit family or friends, or to jet away on a holiday.

Either way, the heat in Kuwait at that time of the year is pretty oppressive, and a getaway of some kind is usually recommended. In my near 15 year stay in KWI (Dec 1994 - Jul 2009), never have I experienced the sauna-like atmosphere of mid-July, which is as bad as it gets, especially when put together with a sandstorm or two.

To give you a bit of perspective, here is how things are in August, after the weather has supposedly left the peak of the year:

In the pre-merger world of Air India, it is also a time when they are left scrambling for aircraft to cater to this traffic lest their Gulf competitors swallow them up (which they end up doing anyway). Enter a little known Turkish charter company - Golden International Airlines, who offered AI a wet least of a type even AI with its diverse history had never seen in its fleet - a Boeing 757!

Registered TC-GLA, the frame was manufactured six years prior in 2001, and has now seen a varied ownership history of carriers like Mexicana, Saudi Arabian, Atlas Jet and UTair. It is now with an airline called Katekavia (anybody got a clue?), and now carries the registration of VQ-BQA.

Here is a brief history of the frame:
http://www.airfleets.net/ficheapp/plane-b757-30044.htm

Anyway, AI probably accepted it with glee and for some reason chose to base it out of KWI instead of an Indian airport, and a triangular service to COK and MAA was chalked together hastily, and tickets began selling around two weeks before the first flights in June.

The titles were replaced with AI's of course, which contrasted poorly with the rest of the livery. Anyway, by the by.

(At this point it is probably worth mentioning that India and Kuwait had gotten into a spat before that particular summer about an increase in bilaterals between the two nations. Kuwait had requested a larger share of the pie to accommodate the then up and coming Jazeera Airways and their Indian ambitions, and the DGCA out here had initially refused.

The Kuwaitis were unnerved and threatened to put a stop to all flights between the two countries, and India blinked within a week and conceded ground to Kuwait, accepting all their demands for an increase in the number of seats.

I suppose it's at times like these when you wish our babus play hardball. What if they had kept their foot down and told the Kuwaitis to p*ss off? Sure, AI and (then) IC would have had to can their KWI flights for a bit and shed the pretense that EK and QR were mopping up all of the traffic anyhow. On the other side of the table however, we would have seen the majority of the KU Airbus fleet collecting dust in the summer conditions I described above. Panic would have set in, and the Kuwaitis would have - sooner rather than later - pleaded with India to lift the ban, with their tail between their legs.

Of course, we are the silent elephants so none of that happened. Kuwait demanded, Kuwait threatened, Kuwait got. Moving on.)

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Now I cannot seem to remember the exact date and time of travel, but it was sometime in the late morning hours of mid-June, 2007. This was a time when KWI was close to deserted during the morning hours (with the majority of the traffic arriving and departing post sundown) so we whizzed through the airport highway and check-in, which took all of five minutes.

The ground staff were outsourced to KU, and the boarding card from what I recall had the KU logo on it as well.

Immigration didn't take long either. The only departures in that bracket were a BA 747 to LHR, an Iran Air to Mashad, and our flight to COK/MAA. I waved at a few friends of mine who were off to the UK, and made my way to Gate #21, the gates that were at the far right and led to the bus gates.

I noticed a narrowbody with a blue and gold tail out on the apron in the distance as I passed Gate #23, but didn't think much of it at the time - probably thought it was the Iran Air flight. Keep in mind that I only had a passing interest in the airline industry back then (this was around a couple of months before I joined this forum. Smile

), and was expecting a shoddy old A310 - the then workhorse from the AI stables. I had last flown an AI A310 in December 2005 on MAA-COK-KWI (originated in BOM, convoluted route, don't ask me why) and saw no reason why the aircraft would be different on this leg, leave alone a 757.

Alas, we were bused to the blue-tailed jet and it was only then that I noticed the red Air-India (note the pre-merger dash) titles and I wondered whether AI had decided to go for a livery switch or something.

My confusion grew when I entered the cabin through the front door and saw two disinterested Turkish FAs casually watching us as we made our way inside. And even more so, when I saw that the cabin was entirely of one class! I had never flown an LCC until then, with my first flight being on a Jazeera A320 on KWI-BOM the following summer.

We were parked right behind the aerobridged gates of one face of the terminal, and below is the only photo I have from the trip - taken from what you can now consider an ancient Samsung 'smartphone', on my way back from the washrooms:

The seats were IndiGo blue and very thin. The frame wasn't old back then - clocking around six years as mentioned, but the cabin still had a slightly dilapidated look and smell to it. I also recall that all the luggage bins were shut, and the passengers had to click them open one after the other and put their stuff in. No sign of the FAs (there were 4 in all), they likely didn't care.

We were relatively up front. If I had to guess, it was probably row #4 or #5, as I could clearly see the port engine blades from my window - which in turn was smoggy and blurred a touch. I could also make out the jumpseat diagonally to the right, which was also one of the emergency exits.

Once the flight was loaded (around 70% occupancy), we taxied away to one of KWI's two active runways. The FAs performed their safety demos at this time, in Turkish and English, and disappeared once again. To the left during our taxi, I spotted a majestic South African Cargo 747, which was a sight.

We then continued our taxi to active, spooled up our engines and off we went into the desert sky. The 757 is much like an A321, with a moderate climb out and a neither here-nor-there decibel level off of the engines.

Right after the seatbelt signs were switched off ten minutes after wheels up, out came the FAs again, this time with a food cart in tow. They quickly and efficiently handed our 'lunch' across - a cold sandwich, some ketchup and a piecemeal salad, and disappeared once more. 20 minutes later, they came out like clockwork, collected the trays and poof. AI usually caters drinks (including alcohol) on their international runs but there was none of it on this flight.

Cruise was largely cloudless over the Persian Gulf. An hour and a bit of it saw the oil tankers below thin out, signifying that we had made our way into the expanse of the Arabian sea. These were the only visual clues, as the aircraft in question was bereft of any kind of IFE. This wouldn't have been a problem if it was today, but we (my mom and myself) literally had no entertainment between us for the duration of the flight. (No, the Samsung phone couldn't do much). There was no in-flight magazine in the seat pocket, nor were there newspapers onboard. The flightdeck made a grand total of zero announcements in all three airports of KWI, COK and MAA as well as in the air. We could have as well been a pellet of cargo shuttling between random airports without a word being spoken.

And mind you, the boredom got to us. It was daytime all the way through and we had all rested well overnight so sleep was out of the question. Food was done with by the time we had passed Qatar and there was no second snack or anything like that so we couldn't tide the time toying with that either. It literally felt like flying to the end of the world in total silence.

Until Land Ahoy! I saw the lush green coast of Western India a couple of hours after we had presumably entered the Arabian Sea. Our flight path probably saw us hit the coast of Maharashtra somewhere South of Mumbai and make our way down from there. Of course, I didn't know this at the time as I foolishly thought descent was near. But no, we flew like that for another hour and a half with the landscape rarely changing from its foresty, hilly texture bar a few towns and cities every now and then, with none of them being Kochi. End of the world, like I said.

Of course, we had to descend some time. That came an entire four and a bit hours after take-off from KWI. We hit COK's sole runway with a thud and speedily taxied to the peach coloured terminal, parking next to an old Gulf Air A320 that was leaving for BAH.

We had an hour or so to kill as we waited for the COK bound passengers to disembark - around 80% of us on board. A security guy came in and did his thing of identifying hand luggage to each passenger, and left. My mom impatiently asked him how much time we'd be on the ground, and he sympathetically replied that it would be the entire hour.

Nobody else got on the flight at COK for our last leg to MAA, but I noticed the captain circling the aircraft and taking notes after staring at the port engine for a good five minutes. He also conversed with an Air India maintenance guy of some sort, but I didn't know what to make of it.

When we finally taxied out of COK, the shadows had started to lengthen, and a light drizzle had begun. The FAs did their safety briefing for a second time, coupled with the hilarious announcement of 'Welcome aboard this Air India flight to Kuwait.....via Chennai'. I didn't understand why they had to do everything in Turkish as well; how does a wet lease work exactly? This is COK-MAA for crying out loud!

TC-GLA roared through the runway yet again, and with a light load of just 30-odd pax, made its way into the clouds in quick time. My mom was a little more relaxed on this leg of the trip, as she had commented that she was slightly freaked out with the pax being largely men on the KWI-COK leg. Another person her age had however made her way up front and sat on the other side of the aisle, and they made smalltalk - complaining about the lack of food on offer among other things.

Descent into MAA saw us take the 'over land' approach, and we didn't get to go halfway to IXZ and back. The FA on the jumpseat at the front of the cabin was nodding off to sleep; too bad she had another six or so hours to go before she could head back 'home' to KWI.

The shadows were really lengthening by the time we touched down and made our way to the ratty old terminal. A smoky 9W ATR followed us, and we docked next to a 9W 737-700 in the old livery - can't remember its registration, sorry. But it didn't have winglets.

That summer saw 9W get their first A330s and 77Ws and a new livery to boot. Likewise with AI and the 77L. Indian aviation was changing fast, and I hopped onto the bandwagon by signing up on here, and the networking has been rapid ever since. Smile

What happened to TC-GLA? It wrapped up its lease in October of that year, went tech a couple of times, flew DXB-BOM a few times as well. Emirates would have surely been quaking in their boots at the competition that had befallen them that summer.

So interesting day in all. In the years to come I've recognized that it was a fortunate opportunity to fly a type that I had little chance of flying (the Boeing 757-200, unless I was RNing my way to KTM), but believe me - at the time, this was the most boring flight in the world and I wouldn't wish it on my worst non-av enemy.

Hope this TR didn't bore you though. I tried to piece together as many details as I could from what has been eight years ago now, and the pictures interlined here and there will probably help. Drop in your comments below if you enjoyed the read! Smile

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Yeah.

Nimish · Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2015 7:58 pm Post subject:

Wow - very nice Varun - and you remember a remarkable amount considering how long ago the flight was!

BTW - the 757's take off is supposed to be 2nd only to a rocket Twisted Evil

! Far greater angle of attack than the 320/ 737. Of course in this case, the pilot might have chosen a more conservative take off.

Quite sad that there was nothing to do on the flight - and that you guys got bored. These days it's almost impossible to get bored on flights - what with mobiles/ tablets/ IFE/ GPS on phone etc....
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We miss you Nalini!

sumantra · Member Joined: 28 Oct 2007 Posts: 4685 Location: New Delhi

Let me start off with a thanks for something we have waited long for.
Let me start off by thanking you for making the wait absolutely worth it.
Nimish just puts it better, and very promptly, as well.
Let me start off by admiring your graphic memory, and the level of detail you notice, remember, and then put into words. Delectable.
Since I have started off in many directions, can I also request member iflytb20 to also try and put his memories of a similar flight, into a trip report?
Putting together a trip report with attractive pictures is no joke, and I see that you have done it brilliantly, to put things into perspective. All this with the characteristic wit we associate with a trip report from you.
The sauna picture Smile

, pre- and post- pictures of the unique bird, its history, the Air India leasing business, the shock of seeing a weird aircraft, uninterested FAs, announcements (and inaccurate ones, as well) also in Turkish, a ghastly (the pun on Yatrik's ghAs-phUs was a bit unintended) food service (and to imagine, that this is Air India we are talking about!), zro announcements, and being compared to a pallet of cargo (ha ha!), the COK airport agent politely replying `1 hour' (delightfully described: I could visualise it!), Emirates quaking in their boots (hilarious!), `wouldn't wish it on my worst non-av enemy'...a piece of art...need I say more? Thank you!
Actually, I will say more.
So your flight log shows that you may have actually travelled on TC-GLA one more time. Hmm...wow, I will hesitate to say more here, but wait, there is something else.
And yes, I guess the only time our aviation Babus actually showed the nerve to go eye-ball-to-eye-ball, and not blink, was with the AI entry into *A, where they once again showed that why the Indian Civil Services examination is one of the toughest in the world, and those that make it, are indeed the creme de la creme around: when their Brownian motion can be channelised with a steady field, and we get a strong current.
Cheers, Sumantra.

Spiderguy252 · Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2015 1:37 pm Post subject:

Cheers, Nimish and Sumantra.

sumantra · Member Joined: 28 Oct 2007 Posts: 4685 Location: New Delhi

ameya · Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2015 7:45 pm Post subject:

Superb TR Varun.

You should write more often, even if it is a vanilla flight like your last 6E flight

Enjoyed a lot. .

Turkish announcements ! Prolly the crew was bored and spoke in all possible languages they knew !

Thanks for typing this . .
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jbalonso777

Varun, a great TR, thanks for sharing this gem!

sumantra · Member Joined: 28 Oct 2007 Posts: 4685 Location: New Delhi

Spiderguy252 · Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2015 12:23 pm Post subject:

himmat01 · Member Joined: 19 Dec 2006 Posts: 1392 Location: DEL

A bit of irony in the lease of these B757s and B767s. A committee headed by JRD Tata had finalized B757 for IC and B767 for AI. These recommendations were overruled by the PM favor of A320 and A310 respectively.

Both B757 and B767 finally flew for AI albeit for a very brief period.
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Save Maharashtra!

sumantra · Member Joined: 28 Oct 2007 Posts: 4685 Location: New Delhi

stealthpilot · Member Joined: 19 Dec 2006 Posts: 2325 Location: BLR, DXB

Wow great TR!!! How do you remember all this stuff?? Everything from the history of the aircraft to the detail and .... an AI 757!
Nice window shots of a 320 + 330 + 757 Wink

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eP007

Spiderguy252 · Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2015 1:41 pm Post subject: