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| Air India's whimsical behaviour | | Sonia Gandhi rarely travels abroad | | SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI, NOV. 2: The President and the Prime Minister, whenever they go abroad, have their own official aircraft, which is a refurbished and re-configured Boeing 747 from the Air-India fleet. Sonia Gandhi, although not holding any government post, must be reckoned as equally-- or even more-- powerful since she not only heads the party in power but also has a surname that spells magic to millions of Indians. But she rarely travels abroad, and on the few occasions she had done so, had flown scheduled flights, with a large retinue of course, or had planes chartered by her party.
After these three, the most powerful person in the Indian skies must surely be Civil Aviation Minister, Praful Patel. Patel is, discounting the first three, one in a billion! And look what happened to Patel last week. On a private visit to London, Patel was scheduled to fly home by an Air-India flight. He had arrived at Heathrow well in time for the flight-- a bit unlike back home, one may add-- and like everybody else had checked in. But then bad, old Air-India flies by its own standards and its own sweet, slow time, minister or no minister.
The minister checking in does not mean anything to the flight crew. They showed up for the flight at least an hour late. Naturally, Patel was annoyed. And he showed his annoyance by promptly switching flights. He caught a Jet Airways flight, which was scheduled to depart almost at the same time as Air-India, and returned safely to home and hearth. "I am the minister and I had the facility of switching flights at the last minute. But what about the average passenger who relies on Air-India and cannot change flights at a moment’s notice," fumed Patel on arrival in Mumbai.
Back to Air-India and Minister Patel’s lament. Just because a minister-- not just any minister but the minister for civil aviation--suffered at the hands of Air-India, it made headlines and, according to Patel, an inquiry has been launched. The average Indian has somehow grown used to Air-India’s whimsical and quirky behaviour. Thousands of passengers will have harrowing tales to tell about Air-India and Indian Airlines. It was only the other day that a New Delhi-bound A-I flight from New York was held up in London for as many as four days!
One can safely predict what will come out of the inquiry that Minister Patel has threatened to constitute. There could be some noise initially. Disciplinary action and such would be bandied about. But once the issue moves in that direction, the unions will take over.
They would allege that the government was not providing enough to the crew by way of transport, accommodation, allowances, etc; at stations outside the country or some such explanation for the delayed arrival of the crew. Some dirty linen will be washed in public. There could even be a threat to go on a strike. But finally nothing will come out of it and bad, old Air-India will continue to be just that. Happy flying!
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