Dream a little dream - And then dream some more

 पाप से धरती फटी अधर्म से आसमान अत्याचार से कांपी इंसानियत राज कर रहे हैवान

The above lines made famous by the “oye-oye” movie (which I’m sure still gives Gloria Estefan the heebie jeebies) Tridev resonate like little earthquake shivers through the earth when you see what the national carrier is going through off late. All in the name of a Dream - A Dreamliner.

DISCLAIMER – Most of the technical information in this is from my own knowledge and a couple of friends who fly or are under training to fly the Dreamliner with airlines other than Air India.

So let’s see why Dreamliner is destined to give enough hiccups to the entire national carrier for a while.

Firstly, the premise of the entire IPG strike was the fact that their cousins from the ICPA were being allowed to run the dream without the necessary experience. The battle swords were drawn and blood spilled all over the floor which will not be forgotten easily. There is a lot of truth which is coming to the fore now, the proof of the pudding is in eating it. Traditionally ICPA pilots have operated the Airbus family (the 319, 320, 321 and the 330) which clearly runs by laws (normal, direct, etc.) and has a high level of automation and it uses one very nice feature where the aircraft flares on its own (through a set of reactions from the pilot or almost, it is called Flare-Mode I think), hence over a period of time(15yrs+), the Airbus pilots have indeed “forgotten” how to flare on your own decision rather than wait for an input from the aircraft that tells you to flare. A friend of mine from another middle-eastern carrier who will be in the 3^rd or the 4^th batch is running scared on this account. I believe lots of Airbus pilots are giving the Boeing instructors in Singapore nightmares in the day when they don’t flare. Luckily it is still in the simulator. So the ICPA pilots on the Dreamliner have had a few “hard” landings which have been ignored as yet. But these are tell tale signs of what is to come. There are a lot more issues that the Airbus guys have getting adjusted to the Boeing way of doing things which is exactly why the manufacturer stipulated a much longer (and more expensive) training for the Airbus pilots. The Middle-Eastern carriers can afford this and have a well set pool of identified pilots to do this who undergo an “orientation” before they are sent for the training.

Secondly, the Airbus 330 pilots from ICPA have really not operated any long sectors yet. They have done a lot of switch-and-run sectors but really nothing long term on a pattern. I believe the longest operated sector would remain Paris on the 330. Now here is where I start to speculate. Crossing the North-Atlantic requires a basic MNPS training and certification, this is specific to North Atlantic only and is a part of performance based navigation. Most Air India pilots do this sector every other week perhaps (AI101, AI102, AI191, etc.) and have this exposure and training, however, the Indian Airlines pilots have never been through this, which brings me to a very glaring loophole. Two Indian Airlines pilots operated a delivery flight under the call sign (AIC170) on 18-Sep bringing VT-AND to India. Now this involved a North Atlantic crossing, I am now beginning to wonder how they managed that or were there Boeing pilots running that sector with them. If they did indeed cross the North Atlantic it would be glaring violation of the set protocol. By the way someone did post a picture of the ICPA operated AIC170 on 18-Sep did turn back after entering the MNPS portion and resumed its schedule only when it was back over the mainland. A quiet changeover from the ICPA pilots to the Boeing pilots? I don't know. Now I do see why the Air India pilots have an upper hand on this.

Figure 1 - An extract from the North Atlantic MNPS Airspace Ops Manual (2005 Edition)

Figure 2 - The actual flight path of AI-170 delivery flight (Snapshot courtesy - Flightradar24.com)

Thirdly, the gang at the top which comprises of the “Tridev” are really not a liked bunch on either side of the wall. There are rumours abuzz that the ICPA pilots have already refused to fly with the “tridevs” on all occasions, and are flying with Boeing instructors only. Their smug pictures on the newspapers have people even more miffed than you’d imagine. The tridevs have been in management jobs for a while and let’s be honest, have lost touch with flying. I’d wager a couple of bucks to see if the total time the tridevs put together logged in the last year was 1000hrs. The other day listening to “Year Indeeyaah Ate Jeero Three” on the frequency had me in splits for a bit. It was quite evident that they were behind the aircraft with the radio calls interspersed with a lot of “uhh”, “hmm”, “aan” sounds while responding to the calls. I don’t blame them, they were doing management jobs for a couple of years and this is the equivalent of a CEO deciding to become a salesman again, you know how it’s done, but time has moved on the rules of the game have changed. So it beats me why they chose to come back like ghosts to haunt the fleet which has enough problems of its own already. Now the tridevs have already done two of the three deliveries till now, which kind of reminds me of the kid who likes to hog seats in a school bus. If they were really management material, my better judgement says they would've given opportunities to the other type rated captains and first officers to bring the aircraft on the delivery run rather than hog it all for themselves. So there you go, they are not really making any friends. To make things worse putting your own wife on the type ahead of anyone else in my opinion reeks of nepotism more than anything else.  So technically all the delivery runs (as of 10-Oct-2012) have been done ONLY by the “first” family of Air India.

Finally, the entire integration process is still underway and seniority lists and other work is not complete yet. Why not go by the book instead of bringing in some people selectively and send them on these flights? A question worth asking is, barring the "Tridevs" who else has had the opportunity to operate sectors at will on this type? I have always said that I lost my friends to the fourth stripe, which in anecdotal terms meant the attitude that they gained when they went from being a first officer to a captain was mind boggling. Similarly, I find it weird that the "Tridevs" have chosen to turn on their own colleagues and friends who have stood by them from time immemorial.  

The above are just an extract of the issues I believe will face the fleet in the near time to come and I can't see anyone with answers yet. 

In conclusion I will quote the lines that complete what I started the blog with जिनकी होगी ताकत अपूर्व जिनका होगा निशाना अभेद जो करेंगे इनका सर्वनाश वो कहलायेंगे त्रिदेव

When honor's at stake, this vow I will make: that it's all for one and all for love

The lyrics of the Bryan Adams, Sting & Rod Stewart song come to mind when you see the present situation in the #IndianSkies these days.

"When its love you give, then in love you live,

I'll be the rock you can build on,

be there when you're old,

to have and to hold"

The pilots of #AirIndia for long have lived this promise, treated the airline like their "personal property", I can't seem to use any other phrase for the simple reason that I can't imagine ONE organization in the world where the operations is not paid for six months and the staff reports for duty every single day without fail, without derailing the operations and most importantly without a single incident. (Incident in aviation terminology is defined as an occurrence, other than an accident, associated with the operation of an aircraft that affects or could affect the safety of operations).

It is important at this point in time in order to put things in perspective :-

1. Most airlines in the world are going through tough times, Singapore Airlines, Lufthansa & Emirates have all posted losses. American Airlines has filed for bankruptcy. Rising oil costs and falling fares are seeing an average of one major airline folding every month across the world (Malev, Jat, BMi, SpanAir).
2. Privatization is not the bane of all problems, there are many examples of such which have fallen right through. Many airlines went through privatization before they collapsed.
3. A lot can be blamed on the merger, but I for one believe that it was a decision taken at a point in time where it was believed that a lot of synergies exist which could have been capitalized. But a clear lack of understanding of a highly specialized service industry made things difficult. It is one of the factors but not the only factor.

So let's tabulate what is it that is being asked for :-

1. Pay salaries upto March 2012.... which means they still are okay with over 4 months of salary not being paid. I can't imagine anything else except passion and a commitment to make things work will bring such an attitude. They could have been unreasonable and said pay up or else.... But no, the pilots are still trying to make things work.
2. When the 777's were ordered, they were supposed to do 15+hrs of non-stop flying, which brought about sectors like Delhi-Chicago, Delhi-New York, Mumbai-Newark and lets not forget, Delhi-Melbourne/Sydney (during the commonwealth games). Now these flights are operated with 2 sets of crew (2 captains & 2 first officers) in order to adhere to FDTL. Now since you had a government babu placing an order based on a L1 situation he didn't realize the importance of a crew rest area (which almost all ULH 777s across the world have). So now you have a Rolls Royce with no seats in it. So what happens, Air India does a makeshift arrangement and allocates 2 business class seats for the crew to rest up. But again, these poor pilots are sitting in the middle of people who want food and service and have paid a lot for it. Now the only other way out is to put them in first class where the seats are segregated and they don't interfere with the normal operation of services on the flight.
3.  Commonality of flight deck is a big thing,which means that if a pilot is on a 777 he can convert to a 787 with a short 5-10day course, while a non-boeing pilot will take upto 45 days to do the same. Now it makes a lot more economic sense to send the 777 pilots for this. However, as you'll read below, common sense seems to elude the powers that be.

If the pilots didn't screw things up, the pertinent question is who did then?

1. The Govt. of India instead of sending civil aviation professionals and experts in the midst of one of the most complex mergers ever insisted on sending Jt. Secretary after Jt. Secretary, Courteousness eludes most of the bureaucracy and imagine putting them in a service industry and that too a highly specialized service industry. Any professional appointment from outside like Baldouf were sent packing in under 9 months. So it is not Air India that is responsible for sucking money faster than a blackhole, it is the government that should have put in the money and demanded results instead of putting in the money and then trying to run the show.
2. The consequence of multiple sackings (unceremonious) meant that you either toe the line or get out, so there came the birth of the "yes-men" in the management, so now you have a weak management that cannot stand up to do anything tangible. So all that you have now are a bunch of well paid people who do not have any stake in the future of the airline, but are merely biding their time in the airline until they can get a better posting elsewhere.
3. To make things worse, an attitude which reeked of semi-fascist regime, it was decided that the best way to rule was to divide. So what can be the best way to create a rift? Let one section fight with the other. How do you achieve that? Simple, pass on entitlement to someone else. The one who is entitled will fight for their rights quickly putting them on the war path with the other side. So send the IC pilots to convert to the 787, despite the fact that they do not have long haul experience or most importantly commonality of flight deck. It takes 5-10 days to convert from a 777 to a 787, while it would take 40 days to convert from an Airbus320 to a 787.

So let's see who has to gain in various situations :-

1. Shut down Air India - Lots of land to be sold in prime area in various parts of the country.
2. Privatize Air India - Sell it for a song, make a lot of money mid-way.

Either way the pilots have nothing to gain, so why going on an agitation is going to do anything for them?

Let's face one fact, that those who are most concerned about the organization are the ones who will step into the situation irrespective of if it concerns them or not. It is time we respect them and support them. All they ask for is a dialogue with the Government which is being denied to them.

Don't lay our love to rest 'cause we could stand up to you test. We got everything and more than we had planned, more than the rivers that run the land. We've got it all in our hands.

Source: http://lyrics-a-plenty.com/a/all_for_love.lyrics.php

Don't lay our love to rest 'cause we could stand up to you test. We got everything and more than we had planned, more than the rivers that run the land. We've got it all in our hands.

Source: http://lyrics-a-plenty.com/a/all_for_love.lyrics.php

Don't lay our love to rest,
'cause we could stand up to you test. 
We got everything and more than we had planned, 
more than the rivers that run the land. 
We've got it all in our hands.

Chadta Suraj Dheere Dheere Dhalta Hai Dhal Jaayega

लोग हमेशा चदते सूरज को सलाम करते हैं और ढलते सूरज से सब दूर रहते हैं, क्यूंकि चदता सूरज रौशनी लाता है और ढलता सूरज अँधेरा. अँधेरे में तो साया भी सात नहीं देता है लोगों से क्या उम्मीद करें

These were the profound words that were told to me many years ago by someone I hold in high regard. The very worldly wise paan-wala who has rarely said things which are untrue. His company for the last 20+ years has kept my ears close to the ground and head firmly on my shoulders. 

Flashback four years.

If you recall air travel many years ago, as passengers you had two terminals to choose from depending on which airline you flew. More often than not, every city had a terminal dedicated to "Indian Airlines" and the other terminal for "Private Airlines". Delhi, Bombay, Bangalore all had separate terminals for the erstwhile Indian Airlines, which was uncrowded, had far better facilities and usually had the friendly Indian Airlines staff ever willing to ensure that you caught your flight even if you were a few minutes late. This like I said was many moons ago. A sense of pride was instilled in employees of "Air India + Indian Airlines + Alliance Air" (now known as NACIL or Nonsense Accentuated Company of Incompetent Legislature) in the fact that we stood out, we had an identity, we had our own fr***in terminal. Eat that you private airline fliers, we at Indian Airlines care about our passengers enough to give them the best. The facilities were envied by every other airline, then one day Jet Airways took the bold step and said they would work towards their own terminal in Bombay. But then every flier in those days on Indian Airlines had the luxury of not being crowded into serpentine check-in lines followed by longer security lines and then even longer boarding lines. Especially the early morning crowd out of Delhi, doing a 5:50 departure to Leh or the Army charters were fun.

Then one day despatch was abuzz with rumours that BeerJet had forayed into the airline business and they had sent gifts the size of a Ukulele case to almost everyone of any relevance in Indian Airlines, Airports Authority of India, ATC services, et-al. A couple of days later the news doing the rounds was that the Alliance Air counters at the Delhi & Mumbai airports were being wound up and merged into the Indian Airlines counters (after all we were one company). Well that seemed like the good part of the news. And then the bombshell was dropped, the area was being cleared to make way for Check-In counters for BeerJet. Well the bearded man sure knew how to get his way around things for one. And then slowly we figured out that he signed up Indian Airlines ground services as well, so guess what, while we were waiting for a tug, we'd see one zip right across our faces (remember Alliance Air used to be at the far end of the Delhi tarmac) to the other end to push out a waiting BeerJet 320 after which they would come to get us. It was not surprising when ATC wouldn't give you lower levels 200miles out and then ask you to do an orbit and then you figure out that while you did that orbit an aircraft at a lower level went ahead of you, and more often than not it was a BeerJet. Then you had these pretty-young-things who would hog the mic at airports making "guest" announcements repeatedly in a well orchestrated script. Well, maybe I read too much into situations and circumstances, but let's speculate things even if it is circumstantial. It has never been easy making the government machinery move, however when BeerJet came about things did happen albeit quickly for them. I'm not sure if it was intent or content that made things happen for them, but sharing OUR terminal, OUR ground equipment, OUR aero-bridges, OUR staff used to get me infuriated. At that time it was clear that our obituary had been written and we were merely collecting for a coffin for the erstwhile "Indian Airlines + Alliance Air" combination which had been a revenue generator.

Flash forward four years.

The bearded man is in trouble, the king of good times has fallen on bad ones. Beer is finally a four letter word. No one gives a rats ass of what happens to them. The aviation industry's parasites have shown that they can gnaw away at an airline finish it, feed on its carcass and move on to the next. But more often than not it is the airline that courts its own trouble. Reality, the erstwhile friends of BeerJet have deserted them.

The sun my friends has set. 

With every setting sun in the west, rises a new one in the east. 


The new sun now is IndiJOe Airlines, with their snazzy adverts (remember the czech+baniya model crooning to something in my window, earth below)  and similar posturing as was BeerJet four years ago. You see them do the same thing, except this time they're out for the gullet. Get slots, Get Pilots, Get terminal space, Get Mic space, Get get get get get.... 


Given sufficient time, the new found friends of IndiJOe will start gnawing at them shortly and will eventually result in their demise, when another sun will rise in the east. Why are they blind? Can't they see what has happened to the various others who courted the devil and danced with him, who today are the devil's dessert? In this day and age, my heart aches just a little bit every time I look at the far side of Delhi or Bombay terminals and remember how we used to have this colorful parade of Orange tails in unison almost as if harmony flowed through the space. A small sense of pride remains that I was a part of this history. You can go ahead and rename all the taxiways and parking bays all you want, but Old Lufthansa Hangar will remain the landmark for many generations to come.


And to IndiJOe all I have to say is "आज जवानी पर इतराने वाले कल पछतायेगा, चदता सूरज धीरे धीरे ढलता है ढल जाएगा"

 

A Flight Too Far

Watching the news and reading the papers these days seems to be fraught with news of how 100+ people have miraculous escapes. The primary driver of 40"+ LCD-TV Sales, Arnab Goswami - Times Now even had a 1 hour show dedicated to such an escape. How is he driving the adoption of 40"+ LCD/LED TVs is by putting 12 people together in the same screen which makes it impossible to view properly in a normal 32" TV and is a sure blinder if you have the tiny 14" portable color tv that run on CRTs.

Coming back to the point of miraculous escapes, it is incredible the level of fear that is being induced into people who have little or no idea about how flying works or worse are scared of flying. It is almost systematic fear being induced to help didi overcome her failure of being the party that takes care of the Railways by making it sound like a safer option, even if the scores there are by far the worst ever. As I write the blog, I'm tempted to quote from a newspaper that yesterday a train rammed into... wait for it..... an earth cutting machine on an unmanned level crossing that killed 3 people, yet, it finds no mention in most places. Is this a battle between a now near bankrupt consortia of Air India, Kingfisher, IndiGo & Jet Airways vs. DiDiS Ministry? Well if it is, it sure as hell is a losing battle, for both. 

Let us look at something that came in the papers a few days ago, a couple of politicians running election runs hire a private plane (no I cannot call it a Jet, cos it was a prop) and are landing into Lucknow, the pilot notices that a Saudi Arabian Airbus 330 is backtracking on the runway and won't be able to complete his take-off roll in time, and is fairly well out and way above MDH (Minimum Decision Height) and says to himself "ummmm.... welll, I could land on top of that Saudi Arabian aircraft, but the mess I'm gonna make will result in a lot of people being dead, so let me not do that", and initiates a normal procedure called missed approach. That helps avoid the unwary contact of two planes in motion, the result of which is usually called a crash. Coming back, the pilot makes a decision well in time, well in advance and well planned and does what is routine. But what he doesn't know is that he is carrying polticos who are vying for coming to power in what has now been the metaphorical Achilles heel state for them. So guess what, pull out the two most common cards anyone would, religion and accusations. So out come the guys from the airport and make a statement that somehow.... in a deal that got struck in some weird "Inception" like parallel universe... the state government did not want that aircraft to land and possibly even wanted them to make the unwary contact mentioned earlier to eliminate them from the race. Well, they are what they are, and show me someone who trusts a politician and I'll get you all the gold in the world, the media picks this up and puts out a story about how 200+ lives and some "important" politicians could've died. And for someone who's been flying for a while now, I'm thinking, "hmmmm.... go on, keep talking... how interesting".

Again, a couple of days ago an Air India Express Boeing 737 rejected take-off after discovering that a just landed SIA Cargo 747 had turned into E4 to exit but stopped short of the threshold making his tail jut out onto the runway. No one was hurt, maybe a little rattled, but that is what happens when you brake suddenly to avoid an obstacle while driving a car as well. So what, my friend, is the big deal? Something big enough for Mr-Scream-A-Lot Arnab to warrant 1 hour of air time to cover this 'incident'.

Now let's see how this is portrayed visually. The channel puts up a horribly mocked up animation of the incident. The kind of animation we saw in the 1980's mega-serial Ramayana. Yeah, you have sparks flying, and sound effects that could have won the Emmy's .... in 1960. Now the whole animation is done in a way to make sure that the visual impact is nowhere close to what could have happened. In absolute terms, they are trying to make you imagine things. To give you an analogy, every time a news channel is covering Kashmir, it is customary to show the stone pelting, PLO look-alike protestors. Having landed into Srinagar quite a few times it can be safely said that you're as safe in Srinagar as you are in Bombay, Delhi or Calcutta. There are pockets of unrest but most of it is normal.

Try speaking against it, and you are gagging the free press, the fourth estate, the infallible.

In a country fascinated by witch-hunts and trial by media we seem to be willing subjects to this misinformation being spread around.

Here is the real deal, pilots spend hours on the simulators preparing for exactly such situations. Engine failures, loss of hydraulics, aborting take-off rolls at high speeds, going around, yada yada yada. Almost everything that you can think of is practiced relentlessly in the simulators. In fact flying is more about preparing for anything except the aircraft taking off. Now that is the reason they don't allow others into the flight deck. Excerpt of a take-off briefing goes something like, "..... below 80kts you will do nothing, contact the tower, cancel all alarms..." any normal person hearing this will be thinking, "why are they talking about this? is there something wrong?" but being prepared is the name of the game. In an emergency, you don't have time for,"Aji sunte ho, tanki mein paani bhar gaya hai, pump band kar do".

Remember flying is safer than it ever was, Right now you need to drink a lot of beer and fly a lot to make sure that the aviation industry remains alive and kicking. The industry needs you to fly, more than ever before. You need to take that flight to make sure that we tide over this bad phase. Remember, the aviation industry survives on the need to travel. All that stuff about tele-presence, give it a break, there is nothing like meeting someone in flesh n blood (especially if you want to draw some). Imagine the amount of partying you can do in a different city when you're out on work. Imagine the lovely free breakfast buffet you get when you're in the company paid hotel. Fly y'all fly. Unless you fly, we don't get paid.The panic the news channels are spreading is irrelevant, I stake my job on it.