I’ve been a regular visitor of A.net, FL350, and A.net India for quite some time now but never really tried to be a part of it. So here’s a go at it. My first trip report:

IC 840 HYD - DEL 31st July'2006

Background

I needed to travel to DEL on monday night as had to be with family for a ceremony in a few days. Also, was not feeling well for the past 2 days and desperately needed some time off work. Although I could've travelled on S2 on a staff ticket as they have an interline with AA, for whom my brother works, I however chose to travel by IC on a staff ticket  making use of my dad's free ticket and wanted to see what the Del base IC crew were upto..

Dad got my ticket done a few days in advance in Del and delivered it to me. I was all set to go on a 15 day leave on Sunday morning when suddenly I receive a call from my office !!! I was hoping they were calling to say goodbyes and have a safe trip, but heck..who was I kidding, I knew they were calling me back to work due to an "emergency". I had an option of either answering it and reporting sick or ignoring the stupid reliance cdma ringtone of mine.

I decided the latter

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31st July 2006

IC840

STD: 1910

ETD: 2010

ATD: 2030

VT-EPS Airbus A320

Seat: 4F

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I live close to the airport and a friend dropped me at the N.T Rama Rao Airport around 1800 hrs, I got my open ticket endorsed for this flight from the IC counter outside and entered the terminal and procedeed towards the X-Ray machine as I had a bag to be checked-in. Got an Indian Airlines Hyderabad Security Checked Sticker on the zipper and the x-ray machine helper wrapped my bag with a security tape.

I procedeed towards the check-in counter and handed my ticket to the check in lady and asked her the flight position. Now the ticket that I was travelling on was entitled for an upgrade. The lady replied that there may be a chance of an upgrade and advised me to meet the Duty Manager for the same. I went up to him and gave him my ticket and he gracefully upgraded me to 4F, a window seat on the starboard side. I came back to the lady and received my Orange Boarding Pass and the check-in baggage number tag stapled to it on the pax part.

At this point of time there was an announcement that the flight was delayed by an hour and the ETD is now 2010. I had more than an hour to kill and decided to visit the IC Executive Lounge located just before the check-in counters. I was greeted with a smile and was offered a seat. The lounge had a good collection of newspapers, magazines, eatables, a PC to browse the net (probably full of spyware) and was pretty decent if compared with the other IC Lounges across the country.

This is what they had:

-Cheese, Tomato and Cucumber Sandwiches (with tomato ketchup)

-Soft Chocolaty Brownies

-Fried Amritsari Tikkis

-Patties

-Tea

-Coffee

-Soft Drinks

I had a nice cup of tea with 2 sugar sachets, 2 brownies, and 2 sandwiches. Read The Times of India and the Business Standard which had a very interesting article on the prospective merger of IC and AI.

It was 1945 hrs now and I started wondering if the flight had further been delayed or was leaving as expected so decided to fold back all the newspapers I had read and keep them in an orderly and re-readable condition. This was a heck of a task and I failed. The lady at the desk smiled looking at me and asked me to proceed for the flight and she would take care of the mess.

I came out of the lounge to see that the Flight Information Board had my flight’s number on it with the two green lights blinking consecutively notifying me that the Boarding was on, and I think it was on for some time now. I rushed with my bag towards the security area and got myself checked and my boarding pass stamped twice. Fortunately the security area is not as crowded as the DEL airport where it takes a minimum of 15 minutes at T1A and 30 mins at T1B of standing in a line before meeting the ‘JAAT’ CISF guy who checks you with a metal detector. I then took the escalator to the first floor and headed towards the gate that leads to all the Aerobridges. To my horror there was a queue of passengers waiting to board some aircraft and I had to join them. I asked the one standing in the end about the flight he was traveling on hoping he was on my flight and I was not the only one outside the aircraft, he looked at me in a cynical way and said 840.  Phewww !!! I was.

I took that gate where another CISF ‘jawan’ checked the stamps on my boarding pass and on the carry on tag and allowed me in the corridor. I noticed that there was an electronic display board upon the entry of this ‘hawai-setu’ that said Aerobridge 4 (the one that has a black background and red lighting dot bulbs making alphabets) and there was a sign board below it that had ‘IC 840 – DELHI’ printed on it. Is it not possible to write that on the electronic board ???

Anyways, I proceeded towards the aerobridge where an IC staff was waiting to collect the boarding pass stubs, I tore it myself and handed it over to him, to which he raised an eyebrow . Further down the bridge I saw the aircraft’s white fuselage with the old IA logo in orange visible. I entered the aircraft to be greeted by a hello from a hottie attendant (hereby referred to as ‘hottie’ from now on) and a namaskaar from a grumpy oldie (referred to as ‘oldie’), both of whom were working today in the business class. IC A320 generally has 2 FAs’ working in the front in the business class with a max load of 20 pax and the 3 FAs’ working their arses out in the economy class with 126 passengers who are a mixture of second class train passengers and those typical ‘Hyderabadi babus’ who demand from anything to everything. There’s one thing that I’ve seen common between the IC, S2 and 9W passengers specially economy class, almost all of them need to go to the lavatory as soon as they board and a bottle of water before they are seated. Why cant passengers take care of their calls while waiting for boarding at the terminal and have water from the water ‘pyaau’s (booth in hindi) available at the airports?

Anyway, I stowed my Compaq under my seat, checked my life vest under the seat, though I won’t need it anyway on this sector and started reading the local daily evening newspaper. I thought I was the last passenger to board, but voila no prizes for guessing, we’re all now waiting for some VIP. I sometimes pity those cabin crew who dont know how to react and take sh*t from passengers blasting them for IC being a babu oriented airline and delaying a full flight just because of some mantri coming in late…well, they have no role in this…and they cant do anything about it, can they???

The hottie crew pulled the curtain that separates the J class with the Y class and started their services. They served a welcome drink with choices of

-Coconut water

-Sweet Lime

-Butter Milk

I had a bad throat so decided against having it. They then served cold towels, to which the pax seated in front of me asks “is this vegetarian?”  and some candies/cotton wool. I like the tamarind candy that is served and took a couple of them and an Alpenlipe for the descent. After a little while there was an announcement on the PA from the cockpit with a loud and husky voice – “Crew to close and arm all doors, cross-check and report”.

The aft crew then called the fwd and advised them about the arming of the doors and after arming the fwd doors, the grumpy oldie went inside the cockpit with the red and white trim sheet for the cockpit briefing. As soon as she came outside, she called the aft crew and soon the pre-take off announcements began. The safety demo was done with none of the business class pax watching the hottie ‘dance’ except me.

Anyways, the lights were then dimmed and I decided to take a nap after this long day, took out my eye patch and dozed off soon. I was woken up by the hottie just before landing with the announcements for landing on. Got my seat back into position for landing and started looking outside for anything interesting. On our approach to the piano bars on the runway just before landing, I saw an AI 777 being parked at the extreme end, probably for repairs, and it has been there for a few days I heard later from a Del base 9W cabin crew who’s a friend. Anyone knows why?

We soon reached our parking bay as it wasn’t too far from the point we got off the runway and into the taxi-way. As soon as the aircraft was parked, the entire population at the back came rushing towards the business class as if it’s an evacuation, which by the way is normal on most of the Indian sectors. I too had to get up and take my space in the aisle with my laptop in my hands. Another PA announcement from the cockpit to disarm the doors got the cabin crew busy and the oldie went inside the cockpit to advice. The seat belt sign now went off and the hottie opened 1L. It took another 2-3 minutes for the stairs to be positioned and we all then disembarked. I thanked the crew and got a strange look from the oldie as if she’s not used to being thanked by her passengers. We took the coach arranged for the J-class and soon arrived the arrival terminal.

This terminal had been under renovation for quite some time now. The ceiling had been doubled and the toilets been renovated. Baggage took no time and mine was among the first lot. Collected it and met my folks outside waiting for me. Damn! It feels nice to be back in Delhi.

Constructive Criticism, Comments/ Suggestions are welcome.

aM