Newly hired pilot Bob Haygooni tells the story of how he strolled into the cockpit during a flight to meet his new co-workers. He was shocked to discover the crew basking in the yellow glow of newspaper-covered windows. For whatever reason, the pilots decided that blocking their view was a better choice than shading their eyes with a hat or sunglasses.
Haygooni claims haphazard practices like this were common during his 16-month stint with the airline. He finally couldn’t take it anymore and quit. If this report is true, it may explain why the government-backed airline lost $US1 billion in taxpayer money last year and is close to being shuttered. [New York Times]
Pranoy
Friday, May 27, 2011 at 10:52 AMI remember my childhood in India and relatives complaining when they had to fly into the country via Air India which almost ALWAYS had a bomb threat against it. Back in the day there was no choice and now competition is killing the carrier, whilst murmurs that the original owners, TATA, should take over from the government float about.
Ash
Monday, May 30, 2011 at 2:04 PMIts not the competition thats killing the airline, its the fact that theyre all outdated Boeings that are being held together with stickytape. The government is not investing any money in it due to corruption, and the customer service is probably the worst in the world. As an Indian, I would NEVER fly with this airline if I can help it. I remember going to India with my mother and younger brother beside me in Air India. One of the stewards started chatting to a guy in the row infront of us. The steward started to openly swear in Hindi while he was talking to him, not caring if anyone around him heard. I was shocked at such disgusting language. But even the crew have no respect for their national airline, nor the government, and now nor Indians or the world. Get rid of this shameful excuse for a national airline I say.
olearymo
Friday, May 27, 2011 at 1:13 PMOkay, be realistic about this though. How much does actual line-of-sight play in modern piloting? Apart from take off and landing, the windows are really only a supplementary thing.
Modern airline planes are fly-by-wire, auto altitude, radar, etc. The pilots weren’t missing anything.
Granted, it seems disconcerting, and I’d prefer they didn’t, so they can see things radar might not pick up (individual birds? I dunno) but it’s not like they were ‘flying blind’.
porle
Friday, May 27, 2011 at 6:41 PMi recently took an air india flight, still terrified of flying since.this plane was an antique, and took one of the hardest landings i have experienced.