i dont there has been a coverup on airlines side mr.jasepl.

i saw a press release mailer on the incident from the airline a week ago. but i dont cover the aviation beat, plus ours is a monthly. and MidDay loves stories like these.

Air India has uncles doing their PR who dont know a bloody thing about the business or media handling. Jet and Kingfisher (and Indigo) have middle-aged M I L F types doing the same job. You will be surprised how much the reporting improves when the pallus drop. :) AI PR uncles stand little chance.

there is a lot of uncertainty about the flights because of strike situation and the A332 is very coveted in operations these days. so they are going all over: the China flights are not being sold as properly: i am surprised they are even getting these loads!

i have been on these China flights in normal times and the regularly scheduled 777 is usually full in economy and quite ok loads in Business (16-20 out of 35).

lots of Gujarati businessmen going on bi-annual shopping trips buying up cheapo chinese maal in bulk which will later be sold in Mumbai and Gujarat. route could be a gold mine, certainly higher yielding than the Gulf routes.

ToI, The Hindu, etc. are all citing MiD Day.

Captain SPS Suri (also GM of ops) claims that he did file a report. CMD and (new) DGCA both gave the usual "I'm completely clueless about my organization" quote.

I have no clue whether the captain did or did not report the incident. If he didn't, it's obviously not acceptable - passengers were injured and the aircraft reportedly had some damage, so a report is in order.

However, I would take this with lots of salt, and not jump to conclusions...

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry9000/5.0.0.822 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102)

No ones jumped to any conclusions. Not yet anyway.

And where is the "captain suri said" from ?

The original report which everyone is citing...

Link: http://www.mid-day.com/news/2012/jul...turbulence.htm

It seems like a lot of sensationalizing, along with some clear facts (the plane flew through turbulence, one person was bleeding). The problem is that it's very hard to see whether the claim that the pilot did not report the incident is sensationalist or not...

Quite honestly, the rest of the "incident" is a non-story - aircraft go through turbulence, and if people ignore seat belt signs during severe turbulence, they might get hurt.

Swaminathan and Shobha Nimbalkar both are actually reasonably competent - however, they 1) have their hands tied with all the red tape that surrounds AI, and 2) are probably are more interested in taking chai breaks than actually managing the situation.

Agreed. Hence why, as was said above : "the problem isn't with the passenger getting up or the crew failing to prevent the injuries, or the pilot's experience or expertise. It's about the pilot's alleged failure to report the incident and his attempt to cover it up."

And order is restored again, name-dropping and all.

Personal childhood friends, are they?

It's a double whammy, considering the two sources involved. :D

Why should facts come in the way of a good sling fest. :p

MAA HKG I can find L fares on CXKA 2 days in advance (did a search in April)
As of today 7:49
CX 632 MAAHKG all fare classes=9

I think you should be a little careful and not name people involved on the net: just some friendly advice.

well the point i was making is that PR is more than just sending out media briefings. The KF, 6E and 9W PR people are on first name terms with the person doing the aviation stories at my media-dukaan and vice-versa. The people at Jet counter seem to know these journos on first name basis as well result of which, they get phookat upgrades all the time at counter when going on holiday. Even in December, when KF was already bankrupt, they arranged a pool party in a resort outside Delhi for Media people where daaru flowed like water. All this matters as it results in journos helping to create positive vibe.

AI PR uncles dont come close to the private airlines people in this game and this shows in the perceptions.

in this specific case, most mags and newspapers just ignored the story even though AI sent out press notes. Unfortunately, Mid-day picked up the story. And not surprisingly its a journo with a repuation for ambulane chasing.





as a market, PVG is a lot diff from HKG in terms of commercials.

given their current state, they will pick up passengers at any fare A-Z. Talk to any ex-IC manager now with AI, and these fellows are effectively taking over AI, and the obsession is with generating cash. "Cash Positive hai kya?" is a common refrain you hear around those parts: reflection on Sunil Arora and his leadership. Fellow is there long after Patel-saaheb sent him packing.

Not worth a new thread and wasn't sure where to put this, but where does AI get its exchange rates from? Was looking at a BOM-DEL r/t fare and the INR fare converted to AUD is expensive than converted to USD,while AUD has been stronger than USD for most of the last month.

Lets not even bring up the less than ideal exchange rate. 9W's site seems to be converting to AUD/USD almost at interbank rate for the day.

:confused:

IATA rate of exchange from the GDS

WOW 60 pax and crew of 11, talk about personel service!!!!