I knew the A340 had climb issues, but that bad? How northerly a course was it taking? In my time in India I flew a lot to LHR, but that had a really interesting and bizzare routing via Pakistan, particularly on the return leg to DEL, when the flight would cut through Turkmenistan, over Afghanistan, cross the Hindu Kush mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan, cut almost due south to central Pakistan, then make a hard turn east over central Pakistan before entering India just east of Lahore and then flying to Delhi on a mostly easterly heading. I imagine that would be a much more southerly routing than the YYZ-DEL and would effectively avoid the higher sections of the Himalayas. Where did the YYZ flights come in from? Over Kashmir?