DGCA may double 6-month notice period for pilots

NEW DELHI: A bitter fight has broken out among Indian carriers over the issue of 'old' airlines trying to retain their prized pilots and 'new' airlines aiming to poach them for their expanding fleets. Things have come to such a pass that the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) is reviewing its over a decade-old rule of having six months' notice period for pilots. The old and established airlines have sought doubling of pilots' notice period to a year.

The DGCA has now sought individual views of all airlines. Highly placed sources say established airlines like Air India and IndiGo are in favour of one-year notice period, while 'new' airlines from the Tata Group like Vistara are against raising the notice period. Even some old airlines which are now going to expand their fleet are against the proposal for a year's notice period.

"There is differed opinion among airlines on this issue. Unfortunately nobody looks at this issue on the basis of legality. A final call will be taken after due dilligence by current DG B S Bhullar. His predecessors were not in favour of extending the notice period," said a highly placed source.

Delta raises the bar in Business Class with new enclosed ‘Delta One Suites’

This article first appeared on TheDesignAir

26 August 2016 | When airlines such as Qatar Airways have announced recently they are working on brand new Business Class seats and Emirates is working on new First Class suites, it was a surprising twist to see Delta, a US carrier, to leap-frog the Gulf-based competition with an adapted Thomson Aero Seating product by UK-based design agency Factorydesign.

Business Class ‘Suite’
The new Delta One Suite is the first Business Class cabin in the world to feature a sliding door for each suite – a feature normally saved for First Class passengers. The doors are a key part of Delta and Factorydesign’s collaborative efforts to improve customer comfort and privacy. The industrial design consultancy worked in close partnership with Delta and seat manufacturer Thompson Aero Seating throughout the design, development and engineering process to achieve this.

The word “cabin” is important in this announcement, as JetBlue’s Mint product offers 4 mini-suites on their aircraft featuring sliding doors, however, the rest of the seats don’t offer this level of privacy.

The seat may look familiar, and follows the traditional 1 x 2 x 1 staggered forward facing design that Delta has already adopted in many of its long-haul aircraft. In fact the product has more in common with SAS’ new Thomson Vantage XL seats that the London based design firm also worked on.

Privacy
The ability to add doors was driven by the A350’s extra width, explains Factory design’s senior designer Ryan Graham. “The high degree of customization possible with Thompson’s seating platform enabled us to

This Is How 300 People Escaped a Fiery Crash Landing in Dubai

Lessons learned from past tragedies have made modern aircraft much safer. The Emirates disaster is a prime example.


An Emirates jumbo jet crash lands in Dubai, suffers an apparent engine explosion, and loses most of its top section to fire. The plane comes to rest looking as though someone used a giant, flame-throwing can opener to rip off the length of the cabin.

Despite this tremendous mechanical violence, all 300 people aboard escaped with their lives. How did this happen?

The short answer is engineering and training.

The incident involving Flight 521, a Boeing Co. 777-300 on a flight from India, resembled the July 2013 crash landing of an Asiana Boeing 777-200 in San Francisco, which clipped a seawall, flipped, and then burned near a runway. Only three of the 291 passengers on that flight died—a 99 percent survival rate—while the jet was destroyed.

Pilot tells crew he ‘didn’t want a death on his flight’

A FURIOUS mum claims Emirates Airlines kicked her six-year-old son off a plane for having a life-threatening nut allergy because the pilot “didn’t want a death on his flight”.

Nicola O’Shea, a 43-year-old nurse from England, was flying from Gatwick Airport to Dubai for a week-long holiday with her three daughters Taylor, 24, Megan, 20, Logan, 13, Taylor’s partner Ricky, 27, and her youngest son Chester.

Despite claiming she told the airline about his allergy on countless occasions, she says the stewardess kicked the family off the plane.

“I was absolutely furious — I couldn’t believe they were kicking us off the plane because Chester has a nut allergy. It’s not his fault,” she told The Sun.

“To add insult to injury they were so insensitive. It was embarrassing having everyone on the plane watching us walk off.”

Air India To Recruit 500 Pilots, 1,500 Cabin Crew

Air India may recruit about 500 pilots and over 1,500 cabin crew in next two to three years to meet the requirement as the fleet size is expected to increase considerably, a senior official has said.

"We are planning to have 700 more pilots in the next two to three years keeping in view the fleet expansion. From last August till now, we have already recruited 250 pilots. So about 500 more pilots we are going to recruit. Advertisement for 400 pilots has already been floated," AI's General Manager (Operations) N Sivaramakirshnan told PTI.

Last year, Air India had sought to recruit 200 trainee pilots (senior trainee pilot license holders who come with A320 endorsement). However, it could select only 78. Now all those pilots are flying on various routes, he said.

Nearly 150 pilots are expected to complete their training by December this year. According to him, the present strength of pilots is 858 and the beleaguered airlines lost about 100 pilots during the last two years.

"We have plans to have cabin crew of 3,000 personnel. Besides the existing number, we are planning to take 1,500 more in the next two to three years," he said.

The official said Air India envisaged fleet expansion of another 100 aircraft in the next four years' time.

On training facilities for pilots, the official said currently they have three simulators in Hyderabad and four in Mumbai. The simulators in Hyderabad belong to A320 while the four in Mumbai belong to Boeing family.

"We are planning to order one more simulator for training on ATR aircraft in Hyderabad. RFI (Request for Information) has already been floated. By January next year we hope that it would be operational," he said, adding that the cost of the simulator would be about Rs 65 crore and an additional Rs 6 crore is needed for construction of building and other facilities for the ATR simulator.

Though Air India does not have any ATRs in its fleet, services will be provided to its wholly-owned subsidiary 'Alliance Air'.