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Air India to screen UNEP’s cartoon film on board

Mumbai, Sep 2 (UNI)

Air India in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) will screen the short cartoon film ‘‘Ozzy Ozone’’ on all its flights till the end of September.

 Air India is the first airline in this region to screen this animated film specially produced by UNEP which began yesterday. This film will introduce the comic character ‘‘Ozzy, Defender of our Planet’’, who will explain the significance and role of the Ozone layer and how one can protect it by eliminating CFCs wherever possible.

 Air India under the chairmanship of Mr V Thulasidas, Air India’s Chairman and Managing Director had established a Corporate Environment Core Group to act as a focal point with whom UNEP would interact on various environmental issues. This was Air India’s joint effort with UNEP to ensure ecological stability, sustainable development and environmental well-being of planet Earth, a press release here today said.

 Commenting on being the first airline to screen the film, Mr V Thulasidas said, ‘‘Air India has always played a proactive role in raising awareness of environmental sustainability and we will continue to take such unique initiatives with the same creative energy as part of our association with UNEP’’.

http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.Print.asp?DocumentID=452&ArticleID=4931&l=en
Two Decades of Protecting the Ozone Layer to be Marked

International Ozone Day to mark the signing of Montreal Protocol on 16 September

Vienna Convention to Celebrate Two Decades of Protecting the Ozone Layer on 21 September

“An extraordinary success story – but saving ozone layer an unfinished business,” says UNEP

Nairobi/Paris/Vienna, 13 September 2005 – The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and governments around the world are preparing to celebrate two key milestones on the road to recovery for the world’s stratospheric ozone layer: the Montreal Protocol and the Vienna Convention.

“The campaign to protect the ozone layer represents an extraordinary success story – but until emissions of CFCs and other ozone-depleting substances are reduced to zero, saving the ozone layer will remain an unfinished business,” said UNEP Executive Director Klaus Toepfer.

This year’s Ozone Day theme is “Act Ozone Friendly – Stay Sun Safe”. Although levels of ozone depleting substances in the stratosphere now seem to be at or near their peak, the ozone layer will remain particularly vulnerable during the next decade or so. People must therefore be reminded to protect themselves and their children against the increased ultraviolet radiation reaching the Earth’s surface, which can cause skin cancer, cataracts and other illnesses.

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Celebrations of International Ozone Day are being organized by governments worldwide, for example:

The private sector is also getting into the action. For example, India’s largest international carrier, Air India, and one of the country’s leading banks, the Bank of Maharashta, are hosting outreach events and producing awareness materials.

• Airlines that travel close to the stratosphere have been encouraged to show UNEP’s Ozzy Ozone video as part of in-flight entertainment; so far Air India, British West Indies Airline and Air Mauritius have agreed to show the video during September. (In addition, Air India has produced a special issue of its in-flight magazine “Namsakaar” on ozone layer protection with the potential for reaching some one million passengers.)

http://www.unep.org/ozone/Events/ozoneday-2005.asp and

www.uneptie.org/ozonaction/events/ozoneday/2005_main.htm

  © United Nations Environment Programme

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Air India becomes first Indian airline to align with UNEP 
  

India's international carrier-Air India -- has become the first airline in the country to align with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), an international body working with governments of various countries for the protection of the environment. Some of Air India's environment friendly initiatives include a full fledged effluent treatment plant as part of the chemical cleaning and planting workshop. Even fire extinguishers which contain halon- an ozone depleting chemical are removed from the aircraft and sent to a vendor on the expiry date for recycling.

Air India also plans to change to an eco-friendly vapour absorption system for the air conditioning plants to avoid use of CFC's ( Chlorflucarbons) another set of ozone depleting substances. "Environmental issues as we already told you, we are already complied with the requirements. But now when we are poised for a expansion plan, we thought it's lot more needs to be done for protecting the environment. So, we have decided to team up with UNEP, which has got more exposure on the global environment and then take their expertise to and we work together with them so that our processes and program can be improved," said Babu Peter, Director-Engineering, Air India. "We have already formed a core group within the company which will interact with the UNEP, and then in the coming years, we will formulate the programs like identifying crust areas where improvements can be immediately made and also countrified. For this, we will take inputs from the UNEP, their expertise and work with our people and we will also think of employing a consultant," he added. Air India's initiative could not have come at a more opportune time.

On Friday, the UNEP and governments around the world are preparing to celebrate two key milestones on the road to recovery for the world's stratospheric ozone layer: the Montreal Protocol and the Vienna Convention. "The United Nations program is like a environmental ministry and its major role is to provide assessment of all natural resources that our world has, what is the condition of various environmental entities like water, ocean, air and how various factors and human interventions are affecting this environment. So, to provide some kind of early warning and assessment of situation and to give some kind of correction now role is to inspire, inform and enable the people to actions to preserve our environment," said Rajendra M Shende, Head, Energy and Ozone branch, UNEP. India's flagship carrier has provided a platform for other airlines and has thus set the ground rules for aviation sector in India.

 

-- Edited by karatecatman at 16:59, 2006-09-02

www.uninews.com

AI strives to procure relief aircraft for LA-bound passengers

Mumbai, Sep 4 (UNI)

Air India is making efforts to procure a relief aircraft by this evening to ferry passengers of Los Angeles (LA)-bound flight AI-137 of September 2, from Delhi via Frankfurt, which had developed a technical snag prior take-off. Efforts are on to dispatch by this afternoon an aircraft from Mumbai so that it would be available for operation to Los Angeles. However, due to curfew time at European points, the aircraft would leave for LA only after midnight with all 290 pasengers on board, AI said in a release here today. Due to peak season, all the aircraft in Air India’s fleet were fully deployed and no alternate aircraft could be made available till now, the release said. Efforts being made to transfer passengers to other airlines was proving to be difficult since it was peak season for westbound travellers and no airline had excess capacity to accomodate additional passengers, it said. The technical problem arose due to a malfunction in the weather radar. Air India tried to locate this part locally and with other manufacturers but could not obtain one which satisfied the reqirements, it said.

 Meanwhile, passengers have been provided accomodation at Delhi and Frankfurt, the release added.

 

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Update:

Also explains why a particular 777 is parked. Should address may of our queries about this aircraft!!!

 

200 Air India passengers stranded at Delhi airport
 New Delhi, Sep 4 (UNI)

The non-availability of a crucial equipment spare for a Boeing aircraft has caused about 200 Air India passengers to Los Angeles and Frankfurt to remain stranded at the Delhi Airport for two days now.
 Confirming this, an airline spokesman said AI-137 of September two was delayed due to the malfunctioning of the weather radar on the jumbo and passengers had been stranded for two days.
 ‘‘We tried to source the spare equipment from all over but to no avail Air India spokesperson S Venkat said today.
 He said a relief aircraft, Boeing 747-400, would be flown in from Mumbai to carry the passengers to their destinations.
 However, the time of departure of this relief flight had not yet been finalised due to the ‘‘curfew time’’ at the airports in these destinations. During curfew time at night, no flight is allowed to take-off or land at many airports.
 Due to these restrictions, Venkat said the flight could take off only after 0100 hours on September five.  
 Air India has been facing heavy expenditure due to the grounding of three other aircraft - one Boeing 777 and two Boeing 737-800s.
 The state-owned carrier has cancelled its Delhi-Amritsar- Birmingham-Toronto flight and slashed its services to Chicago on two days each week, sources said. The cancellations are happening at a time when the peak travel season is approaching.
 The airline is paying heavy amounts, running into crores of rupees, as lease charges for these three aircraft, the sources said adding the lease rental for one B-777 is estimated to be around 750,000 dollars per month.
 While the leased Boeing 777 aircraft has been on ground since June this year due to the lack of a spare engine, the 737-800s were not being operated because of lack of pilots, they said.
 Pilot shortage has also hit its subsidiary, Air India Express, which is now going slow on launching its planned new routes to the Gulf from Mangalore or Amritsar.
 A large number of pilots have left Air India as well as the Indian for greener pastures in the new airlines emerging in the country, affecting operations of the two carriers.  

-- Edited by karatecatman at 18:12, 2006-09-04

-- Edited by karatecatman at 18:33, 2006-09-04

Unfortunately for AI, this is just further reason for business travellers to avoid flying AI completely. Thankfully they're not taking one of their 310s off the milk runs to try flying them BOM-LAX with 6 stopovers along the way!

Not been to the International side for some time.Will drive accross when I get the chance.Maybe DABTH would know.

regds

MEL

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www.uninews.com

200 Air India passengers stranded at Delhi airport
 New Delhi, Sep 4 (UNI)

The non-availability of a crucial equipment spare for a Boeing aircraft has caused about 200 Air India passengers to Los Angeles and Frankfurt to remain stranded at the Delhi Airport for two days now.
 Confirming this, an airline spokesman said AI-137 of September two was delayed due to the malfunctioning of the weather radar on the jumbo and passengers had been stranded for two days.

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Want to know which 747 it is?

NDTV in its 8.30 pm bulletin on Sept 4, 2006 provided the clues. "Crash landing", "Old jumbo and Air India has said it can;t do anything about it.", "blown tires".

(In fact Sonia Verma the news reader seemed to have a smirk when she read this item. She also interviewed a passenger who started his journey from Bangalore to connect onto this flight. Kept saying Air India wasn't talking.)

 

NO prizes for guessing.

 

It's VT-AIM   ----------------- SUNDERBANS

 

 

 

 

 

What?? Use 737s on 4-5 hour flights?? Gosh, AI is crazy....But then, this is the best (and cheapest) strategy that can be adopted currently till new aircraft are bought/leased.

karatecatman wrote:

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One plan is, and which Air India has made public is: Dramatically cut down Air India Express flights. Get the AIX planes on to lease to Air India. Redo these 737-800s into 2-class configuration with updated IFE. Use them on the Far East and Gulf routes. Being new, AI reckons they can worked hard. 

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vivekman wrote:

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What on earth is wrong with Sunderbans? Or should I say what on earth is right with it??

Does anyone know how was the safety record of this aircraft when it was with Air Canada?

 

 

 

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Well if u can get its regn no then maybe it wud be easier

rgds

the_380

vivekman wrote:

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An AI 777 lying in the Santacruz hangar since June? Strange!

Mel, have you seen this aircraft in the hangar lately? Does anyone have any ideas which 777 this is. VT-AIR is flying for sure. Clicked it in the second week of August at BOM.

karatecatman wrote:

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Meanwhile, a Boeing 777-200 ER aircraft taken by AI on lease from the US-based Bristol company has been lying idle at the Santa Cruz hangar since June due to lack of spares for one of its Pratt & Whitney engines.

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Well VT-AIR is not a ER version and the article says that it is an ER version.VT-AIK operated the YYZ route on 4 Sep. and VT-AIL operated the route on 3 Sep.

So the aircraft in context is VT-AIJ parked at DEL for the past 3 months.I am sure there's no plane at BOM but it is at DEL because I saw VT-AIJ parked at the remote stand today in the evening.

Cheers,

Mayank