Air India, is it that bad ??

On my recent trip, rather than taking a foreign airline ticket, I decided to book direct flight tickets with Air India, I wanted the firsthand experience of Air India and forget how badly it has always been criticized by the media. I was booked. Even I had doubts if the plane would take-off or would it be cancelled like we read in the papers all the time. I reached the airport a cool 5 hours before time, because I wanted to see the Mumbai Airport Terminal 2 at length. It was mid-night flight, the flight took off... The crew began offering beverages, snacks, to the passengers who were awake and hungry. Mine was a special meal so I was the first one to receive my food. I asked for additional bread, to which the air hostess politely replied, "On the returning from the end", yes indeed when she returned she handed me some more and after some time, she again asked if I wanted anything else. Meanwhile, the guy in the row ahead of me, was so drunk that he passed out in the alley, within minutes another guy in the front row seat also passed out.  So on my outward trip I came to one conclusion, that the crew was very well trained, and they did a great job overall, there was literally nothing which was out of order.

On inward flight, a big tour group of some 40 odd people boarded the plane, not to forget, they very jolly and friendly amongst their group. The moment the flight took off, before the air hostess` could give us anything, the people from this group started distributing wafers, gathiyas, kachoris to one another.... and then they started distributing to the co-passengers also. They were repeatedly warned to take their seats but then they would not listen, despite their wives being with them, they misbehaved and kept drinking. The Air India Employees were not able to provide food/beverage services in their regular fashion because of this confusion. Had this been the case in a popular airline then, they would have been hand cuffed or duct taped to their seats like the poor guy below.

Further, the guys from the group even started clicking photos of the Air Hostesses, in all unruly behavior. It was certainly an embarrassment to our whole culture. Some Europeans were also on board, I bet they would have pledged that they`d never fly on any airlines from India, nor have a layover at an Indian airport by mistake. 

Finally we landed in Mumbai and I had a new image of Air India in my mind. I can proudly announce that the service which was offered by Air India was actually awesome, but it is us who fly on board are not allowing the crew to function properly. If we don`t allow them to carry out their task efficiently then we should not complaint either.

Dear Brothers and Sisters from India, how well behaved are we when we fly with foreign carriers, then why not behave well in our own Air India flight ??

Mumbai Aviation: A Soon To Be Extinct Species

Mumbai Airport, or as locally called the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, is perhaps the most important place in the whole of India.

Be it Business, Glamour, Travel or a Fun trip, a person is most likely to land in Mumbai. This airport began operation as early as in the year 1942, this is one of the few airport in the world which is located in the middle of the city and not in the suburbs or the out skirts of the city. This airport is the hub for India`s flagship airline the Air India and its competitor Jet Airways. Time and again this airport has seen developments in the limited space, but there is no room for further development or to make a ground making change because of the lack of additional space. This airport has 2 very long runways, but then they cannot be used simultaneously due to their intersecting nature. 

Unlike the EU airports, this airport functions 24 hours round the clock, even with just a single runway operation this airport comfortably manages over 250,000 aircraft operations and almost over 3 million passenger pass through this airport annually. In February, 2014 Terminal 2 began operations which was perhaps the best terminal building which could have been ever built. It is not just a terminal or a building, it is a museum, it has tons of artwork, paintings, statues, etc, where seeing all the display items would need a 4km walk, pretty amazing. Having traveled to London`s Heathrow Airport, New York`s JFK Airport, Boston`s Logan Airport, Abu Dhabi Airport, Bangkok`s Suvarnabhumi Airport and a couple others, I can proudly say that India has made a big statement and shown the world what they can achieve when they are hell bent. A person having a connecting flight may miss the next flight as he may be so engrossed with the art work in this airport.

What is missing in Mumbai Airport ??

Being a huge business district, Mumbai definitely attracts a huge set of travelers, but what Airports Authority of India (AAI) failed to understand is that for airports to expand they must be extended horizontally and not vertically, but there is no space for the horizontal expansion,  and there you go, this is a need for a new airport at a new location close to Mumbai. The solution was Navi Mumbai Airport, which is a decade old plan and has been delayed by a number of reasons.

Will the Navi Mumbai Airport be enough ?

For starters the Navi Mumbai airport will have 2 parallel runways just like London`s Heathrow airport, which was built in the 1960s....

Seriously ?? Mumbai is putting up a plan which was used by the Brits 50 years ago, this clearly shows the lack of planning and management. Is Mumbai 50 years behind the United Kingdom?? Heathrow airport is operating at 98% capacity which means, newer airlines are not given additional landing slots. So if Mumbai has a new 2 runway airport then in just 10 years, because of tremendous demand, the airport will be operating at full capacity and there shall be need for a third airport, which shall take again 2 decades of planning and construction.

Seeing the forecast, it seems that Mumbai actually needs a 4 parallel runway airport just like the one in Los Angeles Airport (LAX), because Mumbai is in the centre of Europe Africa, Asia and Australian sub-continent, which means if there is infrastructure, foreign airlines may consider it as their secondary hub also. This location could act as an onward connection for flights between Europe-Australia, Africa-China, Gulf-Far East & a lot of other combinations.

Mumbai Airport fared far better than most of the other airport in the Asian sub-continent a couple decades ago, but now even underdeveloped economies like Indonesia, Taiwan, Philippines have better planning and better airports to give their economy a boost, seems like the planners have not thought the process all the way through.

An important lesson which we can learn is that Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Qatar and other gulf cities have all got huge just because they focused really well in the aviation business, they literally stole the charm from the European airports by planning and operating better. Another example to consider is the Suvarnabhumi airport of Bangkok, currently they are working on a 2 runway system, but they reserved enough space to construct a total 5 runways, a country like Thai is setting the priorities right.

Mumbai, a city which never sleeps, is actually sleeping in the Aviation department, and lesser aviation business means, hurting the local economy, AAI, do something, Mumbai is the Los Angeles of India.

Emirates: The Flying Supremo

A small desert nation, with nothing but oil, started as a small time airline, by leasing a couple aircrafts from other airlines, began its venture in the flying business.

No one could ever imagine then that it would spoil the party for the giants like British Airways, Lufthansa, Qantas, American Airlines and so on. Emirates is one of the few airlines in the world to solely operate wide bodied, twin aisle aircrafts in their entire fleet for the regular passenger flights. Perhaps in modern day time, it is the only airlines running a successful flying business with profits and still expanding at an exponential pace.

Today Emirates is the worlds leading airline, transferring the highest number of international passengers. Their home airport, the Dubai International Airport (DXB), is operated 24 hours round the clock where they send their flights packed all round the world. 

During the night, when the North American and European airport are sleeping (thanx to the locals who don`t allow the flights to take-off and land there during nights) Emirates silently packs and blasts almost 200 heavy bodies out of Dubai. And they fly back to Dubai by the end of the day. What American and European airport can`t achieve with even 5 runways, this Dubai airport is possible to achieve using just 2 runways,  by operating 24 hours round the clock.

What makes the Emirates this big ??

The most important aspect of Emirates is the location of their hub, it is literally at the center of the earth, it is at the cross-roads of the world. Secondly, it has more oil than any other part of the world. Thirdly the Dubai rulers have shown keen interest in starting, expanding and supporting this venture. Today, Emirates operates only wide bodied aircrafts, which have longer range and are more fuel efficient, this enables them to operate flights to smaller distances like Mumbai, to the medium haul distance like London, long haul distances to Sydney and the ultra long haul distance to Los Angeles, which is almost 16 hours of flying over the poles.

Dubai is located strategically at a point where it has become an important transit hub where there are connection routes to transfer people between

-Asia and North America

-Indian Sub-continent and Europe

-Europe and Australia-New-Zealand

-South America and China

...

...

...

Almost every un-imaginable connection is possible, from this one place and we call it

"Majestic DUBAI"

Emirates Fleet

The Emirates fleet consists of wide-bodied aircraft, including the Airbus A330, Airbus A340, Airbus A380 and Boeing 777, as well as Boeing 747-400 freighters operated by Emirates SkyCargo. The only narrow-body aircraft is an Airbus A319CJ which is being operated by Emirates Executive charters. Emirates operates the world`s largest fleet of Boeing 777s and the Airbus A380s. The B777 and the A380 both have been the main reason behind the hidden success of this young airline. At this point, it has over 200 aircrafts in operation and over 300 aircrafts on order, which means, there shall be a time where there will be almost 500 Emirates flights zooming around the world.

Emirates Threat

The airline is by all means cannibalizing all possible flying routes by offering better service at a lower price. It is the undisputed choice amongst business travelers and first class travelers. Once an interviewer asked, where will they deploy their new aircrafts after USA looked to decline them more landing right, to this the airlines officials answered saying that, if they weren`t allowed more rights to fly to that country, they`d simply return all the Boeing crafts back, there could not have been a bolder response to this. Similar had been the case when the Europeans thought of declining them more landing rights and they politely cancelled order of 70 aircraft of Airbus A350-XWB. Literally there is no stopping to this airlines, they have lesser words and more of action.

Futur-ama

They have already carved a niche in the global aviation sector. Now they are in process of constructing a new airport, The Al Maktoum International Airport, which on completion will have 5 parallel runways, and tons of gates, and all the Emirates operations will be shifted to this new airport and the existing Dubai airport will become the hub for Flydubai, the low cost carrier.

With the Al Maktoum Airport, they will be able to manage an impossible 1.5 million flight movements annually, and manage almost 200 million passengers, which is more than double of what Atlanta`s Hartsfield–Jackson airport(world busiest airport at this point) can manage today.

May be in the year 2025 I would write how poorly the Atlanta Airport is doing that moment...