DISASTER ON AIR

Taking a flight after three disasters in a week can be jittery.  The fact that I was not flying over Ukraine was reassuring. But I had my own woes. Initially all went well. Flight on time. Air hostesses in unimaginable hairstyles went about their job under several x-ray eyes. They advised what, when and how to switch on our gadgets. Then they advised “Kindly save your files before switching off your laptop” showed how much they care about our data on the laptop.

Take off was good. Then the disaster struck.  A lady cabin crew leaned and courteously asked “What would you like to have for lunch, sir?” What do you have? I asked. “Veg sandwich and Paneer Paratha”. I chose the second option. “Sir, it will be served at room temperature”. Whose room temperature? I forgot to ask. The ‘lunch’ served! Two paneer parathas, each rolled into a silver foil.  First bite. It was cold and as hard as a ramrod. In fact, if allowed, I could have carried a rod to push the stuff down my throat.  Cost of meal, Rs.400/-.  Somebody should have warned “Do not accept food from strangers or air hostess however impressive their hair style or make-up be”.  If same food is served to pilots, you can imagine how turbulent the flight would be.

The second important thing I learnt. We think airport taxis fitted with GPRS are safe. Not necessarily. In the signal free corridor they over speed.  The fine they need to pay their operators for over speeding is Rs.1000/-. To escape the fine, they switch off the GPRS. Just before reaching the airport they switch it on. The taxi bill reads like this: START TIME: 10:07:13 END TIME 10:08:10. HIRE DISTANCE 40.7 KMS. FARE Rs.796. So in about one minute the taxi covered 40 kms!

It shows, whatever controls you have, the violations are blatant.