Woman pilot makes skilful emergency landing after plane loses nose wheel

A woman pilot averted an air tragedy on Sunday by her deft handling of a Guwahati-bound aircraft after it lost one of its nosewheels during takeoff from the Kumbhirgram airport in Silchar.

The ATR aircraft had 48 passengers. Its five-member crew comprised three women, including the pilot.

Captain Urmila Yadav, circled the Air India flight AI-9760 over the Lokapriya Gopinath Bardoloi International (LGBI) airport here for about one hour before she made a skilful emergency landing.

Earlier she asked the crew to shift some goods from the cockpit to the rear to reduce the load on the front, to facilitate safe landing.

The passengers thanked the pilot for saving their lives.

Gogoi's pat for pilot

Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi congratulated Captain Urmila and co-pilot Yashu. “Hats off to you and your co-pilot for your daring and courageous act which saved the precious lives of passengers,” he told her over the phone, an official release said.

Narrating his experience, noted Assamese linguist and a senior official of the Assam Agricultural University Sumanta Chaliha told The Hindu the passengers got wind of the emergency situation only when the crew gave flight safety demonstration for the second time after flying for about 30 minutes.

“When we asked the crew if anything had gone wrong, we were told that there was a minor technical snag and it was being taken care of. However, after some time they made a formal announcement of an emergency landing. We came to know that the aircraft lost one of its nose wheels. A woman passenger seated in front of me fainted and several passengers started crying. I was calm and composed, leaving everything to God.

“We came to know that the aircraft flew extra time to burn fuel midair and as soon as the aircraft landed the engine was switched off. It came to a halt quickly. While getting down I noticed that one of the nose wheels was missing.”

It was the Air Traffic Control (ATC) of the Indian Air Force at Kumbhirgram which noticed that something had fallen off the aircraft after it took off. It then alerted the LGBI ATC.

“We knew that the aircraft was coming with a wheel of nose assembly missing. The pilot was informed and asked if she would land or fly off. When she said she would land, she was asked to do a mandatory low pass so that the ground staff could inspect the nose assembly. We requested her to hold over Guwahati for sometime till we cleared the runway. A Kolkata-bound Spicejet flight was allowed to take off and an in-coming Air India flight from Delhi allowed to land. After the runway was cleared, the aircraft was allowed to land. The pilot really did a skilful landing and handled the entire situation very well. If the aircraft had made a normal landing without knowing that one of its nose wheels was missing then anything could have happened,” said an ATC official.

The scheduled departure of the flight from Silchar was 7.20 a.m. but it was delayed due to inclement weather. The flight took off at 9 a.m.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/other-states/article3511868.ece?homepage=true

Steep hike in airfares puts NoRKS in a fix

S. Anil Radhakrishnan

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Private airlines, including those based in the Gulf, have exorbitantly hiked the airfares from various destinations in West Asia to Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, and Kozhikode in the State, putting the travel plans of hundreds of Non-Resident Keralites (NoRKs) into disarray.

Along with the steep hike in the airfares to the State, the non-availability of seats, especially in the most sought-after Economy class, in the flights of the foreign airlines that operate to the three airports has come as a big blow to the NoRKs and their families. The one-way airfares from the Gulf to the three airports that was in the range of Rs.6,000 to Rs.9,000 for the Economy class before the Air India pilots' strike has been steeply hiked and is now in the range of Rs.30,000 to Rs.62,000. The fares that were hiked by 50 to 100 per cent by the private carriers immediately after the strike began went up by 500 to 600 per cent in July.

Cashing in on strike

The steep hike in the airfares have been resorted to by the private airlines in the country and the foreign airlines to cash in on the cancellation of flights of Air India and Air India Express as a result of the strike by the pilots owing allegiance to the Indian Pilots Guild and the forthcoming summer vacation in the Gulf countries, sources in the travel trade told The Hindu. In the Qatar-Thiruvananthapuram sector, the fare for an Economy class ticket on July 1 and 3 was Rs.60,317; in the Dubai-Thiruvananthapuram sector, it was Rs.49,037 on July 1 and 3; in the Dammam-Thiruvananthapuram sector Rs.36,718 on July 1, 2 and 3; and in the Kuwait-Thiruvananthapuram sector Rs.62,574 on July 1. The minimum fare after the pilots' stir in these sectors was Rs.16,887, Rs.13,962, Rs.15,983 and Rs.14,410, respectively. In many Gulf-Kerala sectors, the Economy class tickets have been sold out and the NORKs are forced to travel in the Executive class. An Executive class ticket in a foreign airline operating in the Qatar-Thiruvananthapuram sector in July will cost Rs.88,361.

Airline sources said several flights of Air India and Air India Express had been cancelled and frequencies reduced to the Gulf sector.

Travel trade sources said the airlines would hike the fare in the Kerala-Gulf sector after August as there would be a heavy rush of NoRKs returning after the holidays and Onam.

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/article3510732.ece?css=print

An opportunity in the Air India crisis

New Delhi: The crisis in Air India worsened on Friday with the airline management sacking 25 more pilots and writing to DGCA to cancel the licenses of 11 dismissed office bearers of the Indian Pilots Guild (IPG) after over 200 striking pilots refused to return to work.

"Air India is escalating the matter rather than resolving the issue," Tauseef Mukaddam, IPG spokesman told reporters, making it clear that their agitation will continue.

He said the pilots have sought time for a meeting with Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh to find an amicable solution.

In a statement tonight, Air India said it has terminated the services of 25 striking pilots "taking a serious view of the situation". With this, the total number of pilots who have been dismissed since the agitation started on Tuesday has gone up to 71.

AI has also written to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) asking it to cancel the licenses of 11 office bearers of the IPG whose services have been terminated.

On a day when 23 international and domestic flights were cancelled causing hardship to passengers, the airline said it was putting in place a sustainable contingency plan to mitigate the inconvenience caused to them.

The minister briefed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh about the developments and later appealed to the pilots to resume duty. Though the minister ruled out invoking the provisions of Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) on them, he said their strike was illegal.

AI also moved the Supreme Court seeking contempt action action against the agitating pilots for not heeding the direction of the Delhi High Court which had declared their strike as illegal and barred them from any protest action.

The apex court, however, refused to intervene and asked the airline to negotiate with the pilots and "sort out" their differences.

A Supreme Court bench headed by Justice T S Thakur said the pilots "have done nothing for obstruction of justice or to bring disrepute to the court. Your problem is with them. You sit with them and sort out the differences. Don't resort to contempt proceedings."

However, it said if the strike is illegal, then the airline can take action against them.

The Civil Aviation Minister said Government was open to talks with the pilots but made it clear that they must first resume duty.

Under the contingency plan, AI said its international schedule, disrupted due to the agitation, will soon be formalised and set in motion.

"To address the issue of inadequate pilots available for flying duties of wide bodied airacr, Air India is also looking at wet leasing opportunities for another four to five flights," the airline statement said.

The airline would operate seven flights to the US via Europe, out of a total of 16 using wide-body aircraft. Executive pilots would operate the flights, Commercial Director Deepak Brara said in Delhi.

Under wet lease, the lessor provides flight crew with the leased aircraft. The planes are planned to be leased for a short period, airline officials said.

AI said passengers have been moved to other airlines as far as possible. In view of the disruptions, the airline has also waived penalties on refund, cancellations, date change and rebooking for passengers booked to travel upto May 14.

Today's flights from Delhi to London, Chicago, New York, Toronto, Frankfurt, Paris, Hong Kong, Osaka, and from Mumbai to Jeddah, London and Newark were cancelled.

Ajit Singh earlier said all unions have to rise above their "personal interests".

"If they want to talk, they should come to work, and all issues can be discussed..The High Court has declared their strike as illegal," he said.




The IPG has been refusing to return to work unless the management takes back the pilots whose services have been terminated and the order derecognising IPG withdrawn.

The cash-strapped national carrier is losing revenue of Rs 10-12 crore a day due to the stir, apart from a daily incremental cost of Rs 3-5 crore, officials said.

The IPG, whose members have been reporting sick, are protesting the national carrier's move to send pilots from both Air India and erstwhile Indian Airlines in equal numbers to get trained for flying the Boeing 787 Dreamliners, the first of which is likely to be inducted later this month.

The pilots protesting against rescheduling of Boeing 787 Dreamliner training and matters relating to their career progression have showed no signs of relenting.

The IPG has a strength of about 250 pilots while the Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA) has over 1,200 membership out of a total of 1,600 pilots. The remaining are mostly executive pilots.

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Air India stir: A case of sibling rivalry?

New Delhi, June 9:  

“Should one partner get all the benefits in a merger?” is the question that the Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA), the outfit of the erstwhile Indian is asking about the reasons behind a section of their Air India counterparts being on agitation for over a month now.

These pilots have been on agitation protesting various management decisions, including offering training on the Boeing 787 to pilots from the erstwhile Indian.

Declining to go on record as they would not like to comment on ‘fellow travellers', senior ICPA executives told Business Linethat the Boeing 787 was an ideal replacement for the A-330 aircraft and pilots from the erstwhile Indian should also be given a fair chance to operate it.

AI-Indian merger

Erstwhile, Air India and Indian were merged in April 2007 into the new entity called Air India. Before that happened, Air India had a different set of pilots who were mostly flying wide-body aircraft such as the Boeing 777 and Boeing 747 on long-haul routes to the US, Canada, Europe, Far-East and the Gulf.

Indian had its own set of pilots who largely operated the smaller Airbus A-320 or the Boeing 737 family of aircraft that were deployed in India and to neighbouring countries in South Asia, the Gulf and South-East Asia. Further, erstwhile Air India had ordered 27 Boeing 787 aircraft, the delivery of which is to start sometime this month.

And herein lies the bone of contention. While conceding that across the industry, pilots who fly wide-body aircraft get paid more than those who fly narrow-body aircraft, ICPA sources claimed that in other airlines the pay disparity is not as much as it is in Air India.

“In foreign airlines this disparity is about Rs 30,000 to Rs 40,000 net per month but in Air India it is twice as much,” a senior ICPA official said.

ICPA officials also maintain that flying the Boeing 787 which will be operational on domestic routes as well will give them a chance to improve their flying hours. And though they do not spell it out in so many words this will also add to what they earn every month.

In May last year, ICPA had gone on strike demanding more flying hours so that they could come closer to the hours that Air India pilots fly.

And now it is the turn of pilots owing allegiance to erstwhile Air India going on agitation.

“It is exactly like two kids fighting and saying, you have given to one and not the other… so one says fine I will go stand in a corner. Look beyond that. You cannot lay claim to one aircraft and say this is mine,” ICPA officials say.

Pooh-poohing claims that pilots of Indian had got a salary hike, ICPA sources said that this was an “oversimplification” of facts. “We have improved our salary structure by ensuring that we get 72 hours of flying a month instead of 45 hours but we are still not at 80 hours (that AI gets) and our hourly rate still remains what it was in 2007,” they said.

Salary structure

ICPA officials also pointed out that when pilots start out in Indian and AI, the salary structure is similar – about Rs 4,500 gross for an hour. But after 7th or 8th year an Air India pilot gets almost twice as much as a pilot from the erstwhile Indian.

“This is because their jump per month of service is exponential while pilots from Indian get Rs 175 per hour for every additional year of service. So at the end of seven years we get less than Rs 1,000 while an AI pilot gets Rs 7,000-8,000,” they add.

What is also irking ICPA members is the fact that 90 per cent of the airline's losses are from wide-body aircraft, flown by Air India pilots, and they are being made to pay for this.

Further, ICPA members also question the logic behind getting foreign pilots for the wide-body aircraft. “AI will need foreigners to fly the 787. Why do they prefer a foreigner to us?” they ask.

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/todays-paper/tp-economy/article3511681.ece

‘Significant' rise in air fares, DGCA admits

New Delhi, June 9:  

Domestic air fares have risen “significantly” between April and May this year compared with the same period last year, senior officials of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said on Saturday.

The DGCA, which has come to this conclusion by looking at domestic air fares on specific days of the month, will now broad base its analysis over a longer period of time to see if any trend is discernible on the sudden spurt in fares.

“There has been a spurt in fares in the last few months but they have not breached the upper levels mandated by the DGCA,” officials said.

Officials indicated that the rise in air fares was largely due to Kingfisher reducing the number of aircraft that it operates. Due to financial stress, the airline has seen its fleet reduce from 64 aircraft earlier this year to 16 aircraft now. The airline is now about 100 daily flights, down from more than 400.

While the peak summer rush normally leads to an increase in demand for air travel and consequently higher fares, the sources said it was also being analysed whether the average costs for the airlines have also gone up during the period.

Travel agents point out that there has been a 20-30 per cent increase in domestic air fares in the past few months. And what is compounding the situation is that air travel demand has increased 10-15 per cent year-on-year.

The President, Travel Agents Association of India, Mr Iqbal Mulla, felt in the past couple of years domestic fares had gone completely haywire.

“Airlines are becoming opportunistic. Neither are they doing anything good for the customer or for the industry. If the fares are unreasonably high you lose a passenger forever,” Mr Mulla said.

He suggests that there should be a regulatory authority to ensure that domestic air fares are “viable for airlines and beneficial for the passengers.”

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/todays-paper/tp-economy/article3513060.ece