A Tribute to Structure Engineer

Time passes with its own pace; very slowly but yet very fast to our imagination. In a moment the present become past, future to present and so on. Infinitesimal changes in universe gives an impression that nothing has changed in those 35 years but the time was changing every moment.

No one can believe that 35 years have passed and we all are ready to bid a farewell, to say him good bye. All eyes are wet in the hangar. After all this is an end of a long association, end of a chapter in structure, especially closely related to B 737-200.

On 31^st at 40 mts past 16hrs in our clock and a usual site of Ch-II hangar which was blessed with for years, a most disciplined, spiritual, courteous and affable person of Check II will be missing now onward. A person with a bag in his hand, smile at his face enters into Check II at sharp 0830hrs daily ;is now a matter of past. But every one is definitely going to miss him. He is none other than Sh U K Achan, a jewel of engineering whose glitter we will not allow to fade away easily.

It was a beginning of 1980; a lad join to engineering then no one knew that he is going to do many wonders in his career.

He is an authority in A/C structure in South East Asia. He saves crore of rupees by doing Lap joint modification of Boeing, Stabilizer modifications, L/G Fitting kit modification and fitting replacement. These were one of the biggest achievements to him and to his prestigious organisation.

Air Force will never forget his contribution to their fleet of Boeing as a person behind to keep that A/C a float in air. Many lectures on structure were won a standing ovation.

When he was entrusted to undertake the maintenance of A-320, once again he did it successfully by their team of dedicated persons in record time. Soon, Ch-II hangar was known for A-320 maintenance.   

He has many more feathers to express as his achievements in structural engineering to the company and to the Nation.

Air India is definitely going to loose one of the expert in structure who is even endorsed by the Boeing company and being considered as open TSM with regard to structure.

I on behalf of all the engineers wish him every success in his retired life and I am sure sir; you will be our source of inspiration forever not only professionally but spiritually too.

We will miss you.

PAGE 2

Once upon a time, come 28^th day of a month and it was a merry day for IA Employees when we used to get our two page salary slip. Salary was being ECS to our account by every 30^th day of a month, gone are the days; even bank employees get envy of ours.

Time passes and we became riches to rags. Every one, deep in debt, is struggling to meet the EMI before 10^th of every month.

Those who have access to Internet keep logging AME Times every 5 minutes for any new update of Sumit Halder with regards to PLI.

His updates are also missing like our 2^nd page of salary slip.

The state of bankruptcy now seems knocking our door step. Even small companies who would have dreamt of extending their facilities to national carrier are coming up with their dues bill.

Fuel companies, AAI, Wipro, etc each one has warned Air India to pay the bill or go on cash and carry business. They have threatened to stop cooperating Air India w.e.f 1^st June.

Post pilot strike, Air India bounce back so soon with more than 92%occupancy in Y-Class, it was beyond everyone’s expectation.

Employees are yet to receive their 2/3 rd of salary for the month of April, the question still remain where the money has gone?

Is it a deliberate move to xxxvoke further ----?

What is next?

A Road to Varanasi Airport

                                                 Work in Progress
For last one year work of underground sewage construction is in progress in all along the city.None of the city roads are clean and free to drive.
One can experience a long traffic jam and make it difficult to drive any vehicle.It is very difficult to walk even on the pathway.
This is to advise any of the traveller who intend to get their flight must start 2hours prior to departure of flight.
Airport distance from city centre is approx 30Km.
It is a 40 mts drive to The Babatpur,LBS Airport at Varanasi.

I.5 km stretch between Bhojubir to Atulanand takes almost 30mts to pass through as work is under progress and one can get trapped in heavy traffic congestion.

25 th Day of May-A Total Recall

(…….On the eve of the 25^th day of May –this was end of an era, we received one SMS and after that “A total recall”…)

No one related to aviation industry will forget this magic numeral in the history of National carrier, neither of engineer nor Pilots.

Ever since May 2007, number 7(25=2+5=7) haunt us (All the cadre).

No one should forget the circular, a turning point, which withdrew the SOD ticket and it was valid only for the staff on flight duty. May be this was the first mistake where we could not understand and united to retaliate though later on it was withdrawn.

Many instances of withdrawal of our flights from lucrative sectors, like Bangkok, Kualalumpur, Doha, Bahraine and Colombo, keep on provoking employees but in the beginning everyone kept quite. Damage was being done systematically.

We were heading for the disaster. Till now 25000 employees of erstwhile IA were not happy since many months. Mentally they were not at peace. Occasional incidents of tired pilots, pilot sleeping in the cockpit and overshooting of runway did make the breaking news.

Electronic media to its own reason magnified minor snags of national carrier and made it breaking news where as big accidents of Private carrier were ignored to such an extent that it was projected as a minor incident. Print media too reported against us results in lower market share day by day.

Someone of vested interest was getting his plan through to his satisfaction. Air India routes were being given to other carrier, bilateral agreement (No country in the world has such a liberal bilateral agreement as we have today) was killing our airlines, AAI literally discriminating in allotting the bay (Remote bay) and in prioritising arrival and departure sequence to Air India. Nothing was in its favour and the worst of Air India yet to come as an Air India Express Air Plane crash at Manglore in the early morning of May 22^nd, 2010 (2+2+2+1=7).

Bad days for Aircraft engineers were about to knock their doors. Series of incidents post accident happened. A plane from Banglore took off carrying the kin of crashed plane and landed Manglore with all the officials except Engineer. At Manglore no engineer was there to certify the aircraft and management somehow got the certification from Kingfisher engineer who was apparently not qualified to certify that aircraft. This was a violation of the CAR and GS of AIAEA reported that matter to the appropriate authority and spoke to media in a brief interview.

Management was upset for speaking to media and charge sheeted GS of AIAEA. Engineers went on flash strike against this gag order asking for revoking of this order. Soon, ACEU also joined the stir and 25000(2+5=7) employees of erstwhile IA (This was the figure quoted during the strike. The figure of employee keep changing on every reporting) joined in. GS of ACEU also charge sheeted. Later on both this union were de recognized by the management.

All the members of AIAEA unitedly and spontaneously reacted to Flash Strike; as a result Aircrafts were on ground for ours which were later on recovered by officers. Aircrafts flown back to the base and thereafter a disaster was waiting to follow Engineers. Many engineers were terminated and suspended, remaining was asked to proceed to the transit station for one year posting. All the facilities which were availed till now withdrawn. People within humiliated us saying it was not a right moment for strike. Outside we lost the public sympathy. Our family life shattered. Engineers who were terminated and suspended faced the real challenge of life. Unity has strength and we showed it first time ever. Soon we broke down by calling off the strike after the High Court order.

Humiliation does not end here, Pilot were accepted to do the PF(Though they are authorised only to do PF in case of diversion thereafter flown back to base where a higher inspection schedule is to be carried out by Engineers) and started giving the message to other employees that our contribution was not required. At one occasion one of the Captains flown to a station leaving flight engineer at ground.

After a lot of struggle beyond the boundary of airport, except few, many of us were taken back. Engineers are lying low with low level of confidence. Memory of the past still not faded away and it will take a longer period to recover.

Is not it seems that we are now haunted by number 7 or 25 or 2007? But still there is one hope----

----“Nothing last forever in this universe and so the troubles in one’s life too”. A change, a light in the darkness, all of us is waiting for a morning after a long dark night.

The Ganga Arti at Varanasi

The City of Varanasi is situated at the bank of the Ganga. The ganga arti is performed here also as it is done at Haridwar,in U.P.

One must visit to see the Arti being performed at Dusashwamegh Ghat at 1900hrs.
This can be enjoyed best by hiring boat @Rs.10/= to Rs.15/=per person.

ATM Machine at Varanasi

The holy city of Varanasi is a place of pilgrimage to hindus and buddhist.Round the year tourist from all part of our country and neighbouring country eg Nepal,China,SriLanka,Indonesia and Japan keep visiting this place.
They face many problem in the ciy.
Withdrawal of money is one of them.
Most of the ATM Machine in the city are placarded Machine not working since saturday afternoon till Monday morning.
If you are in the city and require money please take care of it.
Use ATM to avoid inconvenience in the city on Saturday before 1300hrs.

Embarrassment

A new batch of our colleague are all set for going to resume their offices at outstation, there is a cause of worry too. List of engineers for outstation posting are still awaited and more likely to be declared within days.
This piece of information is just to inform all of us that please take the necessary steps to minimize the cause of embarrassment which we encountered soon we get our relieving order.
The last para of the Relieving Order reads as under:-
“They (Engineers) are advised to report to Station Manager of respective stations for further assignment of duties.”
Our leave and passage are being maintained at the base and to avail this one has to take permission from our DGM. For any purpose and every purpose we are reporting to our GM/DGM.
Even for our movement to attend any training/or QC related queries, he is not authorised to issue a SOD ticket as he does for other categories of staffs unless we get a letter from DGM.
For any technical problem pertaining to the Aircraft we alone are the authority next to DGCA on behalf of our GM (E-QA&TS).
Thus, it seems a typographical error on part of secretariat who could not edit the last para of our relieving order and it may be copied from the personal department R O which are issued to traffic/security/personal staffs while on 1 year posting to outstation as they report to SM.SM is authorised to do all above said job for rest other categories of employees.
If it is so please get it corrected.
Our letter must be in line with approved CAME whereby we should be designated at outstation as BASE MAINTENANCE MANAGER instead Station Engineer and on resuming duty one should report to GM (Engineering) and CC to Station Manager (Stating that he has joined as BMM and Mr X has been relieved)

SAYING NO

Passengers while boarding are not concerned about the constraints of airlines but they expect a better service, clean aircraft (internal and external).good looking interior and smiling face of the crew who must be caring at the entry into the cabin, during the flight and at the time of deplaning. However, expectations of passengers start getting turned into displeasure while entering into the airport lounges itself when he met our counter manager. He literally shouts to passengers and gives an impression as if he only handles all the nation’s travellers (Market share only 15%) and carries the airline’s burden on his shoulder.
None of the above requirement is being met by our airlines though we spent hefty amount on all account.
We all are accustomed of saying No in the very first opportunity of our job. This starts from the first stage of booking a ticket.
*A passenger intended to go by our flight, approaches booking counter. Person seating behind the counter is not eager to ask him/entertain him. Instead he will ask; yes tell me what is there? Passenger seeking anything will be first denied by him. Slowly and slowly he will come into the mode of helping him. It is not that he has sold a ticket but it is a winning situation for our passenger who got a ticket of Air India. What a relief.
*On the day of departure, he tries to call our call centre but of no use. Even if someone picks up the call, he will confuse the caller of domestic or international by his answers. Passengers start scratching their head. No SMS or telephonic call will follow about his flight status unlike private airlines. But it is credit to our passengers, he reaches airport.
*At the airport, it is a self help. His all dreams of being helped by a good looking young girl got shattered as most of the staff recruited in line with Jet or Kingfisher for the purpose are not as young, good looking and helping as of other airlines. It may be some flaw in their recruitment (not to discuss) at this stage.
*May I help you desk-usually person on duty will be moving around every where in the lounge except his own cabin. It seems saying help me searching my cabin.
*Back in the Aircraft-Cabin in-charge is worried how many passengers are there in J-class and Y-class? She keeps on asking this question every one irrespective of commercial guy. If J-class has more occupants, she goes into depression and forget to greet our passengers at the boarding point, pretend to busy counting the catering in the fwd and rear galley. She worried as she could not save for herself and for her colleague in such situation.
*Mystery of missing passenger-When every thing goes as per schedule, our commercial guy will still be searching the last one missing passenger. The flight often gets delayed due the reason of missing pax.No one is there to take some corrective measure as accoutability is yet to be fixed on this account.
*In flight-While serving, their way of asking about the choices of Veg or Non-veg is like scolding the passengers. If some one has pushed the Call button in Y-class she will not respond.
*Landing-Passengers got confused when they found our cabin crew started dragging their bags in flight towards galley 10mts prior to landing. Not to elaborate as reason known to all of us but passengers get astonished what are they doing? This happens only in Air India.
*Behind the curtain-Maintenance crew struggle for the whole night organising men, spares, a/c equipment and tools etc to do the maintenance work. No initiative was taken for years to improve the working condition by procuring sufficient tools, jack etc to minimize waste of man hours. But the job is still done as we can not dare to say No. Once said; results in long EXILE, Suspension and Termination.
*Three helpless guys (Engineer, Technician and Helper) at departure point of the aircraft witness the drama everyday since years. They are silent spectator. Once the A/C taxied out, we are there to say “Good Bye” to Captain and hundreds of passengers, wishing them a happy journey.
We too move slowly and slowly towards our office, head down, deep into the thoughts of what went wrong? Are we too old to fly (79 years of flying since 1932)? Where do we lack? Is not it a wonder that still we survive in Indian Sky? etc etc….until a phone call of our officer break our thought process in the same old fashion voice “Tumhara Jahaj gaya? Now you have been allotted flight AI-xxx.
Our direction changes towards a new bay, different A/C, a different set of people but all the above said series of process remain same.
Every day is a new day.Rising sun brings all the positive energy along and we too are waiting for a new report. May the report of Dharmadhikari in November bring a new hope to us?

FLIGHT OF CONFUSION

Few days ago before the Pilot strike, a group of passengers keep waiting at security lounge whereas boarding of the flight was over. They could see Aircraft parked from large window pane of new terminal of LBS Airport Varanasi. They do hear the boarding announcement but could not proceeded for boarding as they were holding AIR INDIA boarding pass but the aircraft which was visible to them had IA logo. Finally, flight rolled out 25 minutes after its schedule time unless commercial guys identified them, getting angry but kept quite when the above reason were explained by the passengers. They were not wrong. Their reason for confusion was valid and any one in foreign land can get confused with the situation explained as above.
Each one of these magazines(SWAGAT of IA & NAMASKAR of AI) placed in our cabin is plenty in numbers apart from others such as INDIA TODAY, WEEKS & FEMINA etc. excluding the news papers.
Our cabin crews are really confused not only while announcing to welcome our passengers(guest for Kingfisher)on board but in the very 1st steps at the entry ,They could not decide whether they should say Swagatam (SWAGAT)or greet them by folding hands to say “Namastey” (NAMASKAR).
The confusion of our cabin crew multiplies many folds by the time passengers enter and face the crew at the pax entry door. They (Cabin crews) forgot by then to greet by any of the Indian way of greeting followed since long by erstwhile IA or AI. They just turned their faces toward galley to hide their confusion and passengers loose the opportunity to see their beautiful (wrinkles hidden by thick make ups) angry looking faces. It seems at times asking our guest why they chose our airlines. However our passengers shrug their shoulder in surprise and want to know what had happened to her suddenly? Ponder, Some thing wrong, they must have boarded in wrong plane (A/C) but assured by the sound of “go ahead, go ahead”(Aage Chaliye this is J-class),your’s is just behind this barrier.
Confusion not only ends here, while announcing, at one occasion, they announce IC-xxx then at other occasion AI-xxx. Passengers start looking the face of each other. Some times they took out there boarding pass, which is either of INDIAN, or of Indian Airlines (At many transit station still Indian Airlines boarding passes are available) or other co passenger’s boarding pass who may be holding AIR INDIA. Now he gets assured of his right boarding.
Who is at fault?
How long this will continue?
And many other unanswered questions keep on creeping in our mind.

Different Angle

(Undermentioned opinions may not be in good taste for many of us but it is some plane truth of ours. Please do not take it otherwise.)

In our day to day job of departure of a live aircrafts is a finest peace of coordination of more than 15 departments apart from few (Oil co.& ATC,AAI etc) out side agencies. The very first moment, aircraft rolled out to a predefined destination we too turned our faces opposite to the aircraft as if we were totally detached with it and no relation what so ever which we showed few minutes back.
The reason of our lost glory is lie in the later part of job with which we are inspired of. Our seniors have never shown any attachment with the designation through which they passed through. They keep on ignoring their juniors as they had no benefit with the people of that cadre. Assistant aircraft engineers were ignored in the cadre stating unless you get the licence you are of no use. Resultant is that few of us are still moving around Technical cell & S I office. Subsequently, even aircraft engineers were ignored for their own benefit and so on.

On the contrary, a first officer does not know even how to adjust his own seat in the cockpit is given a due regard by their fellow staffs and that is how the cadre get the importance in the industry for years. In spite of these we feel proud in saying that they know nothing (10th pass) but the fact is that they are well organised, they do the thing unitedly. Their leader knows all the 850 pilots by name. Their approach to a problem is more scientific.

We lacked in much aspect of our day to day affairs for years. We were self cantered and had poor communication amongst us as a result we failed miserably and started searching some relief out of pilot strike.

Once engineers were entrusted with the job of station managers but were denied. Had it been engineers at outstation as Station Managers, we could have every thing in our hand today.

Nothing has lost. Dy CAE and CAE (waiting for promotion) may be transferred for three years to out station as Base Maintenance manager (as per CAR) after promotion. All the facilities as extended to Station manager must be extended to them as he is senior to the grade of SM. Take the job of marketing too in your hand as the Oil company does (Their SMs are engineers).Of course he will have their assistance with engineer who is doing one year posting. This is the way all the stagnation in our cadre will be shorted out in a moment. This require different angle of thought both by management and by our cadre. I am sure with the given opportunity many of us will enjoy the job of marketing, power, money and decision making managerial approach. This sounds different but there is no other way to uplift our cadre.

It is enough doing same job at all the ladder of our cadre. Do the thing differently to get romance in our job. Do coordinate to prosper, learn to sacrifice than advocating for something when you are not affected but do all shorts of incoordination when affected.

A Guide to Ooty

Recently we had a visit to Karnatka which extend from Banglore,Mysore,ooty to Coonoor in Tamilnadu.
Durai was our Guide cum chauffeur who was all along during the six days visit.
we started our journey from the capital city Delhi by 1330 AI flight.But the decision of departure during day time was not good as we arrived there by 1630hrs.One has to take care the travel distance of 60 Kms from New Airport to the city centre Majestic.It was a heavy rain during 1700hrs at Banglore and traffic came to a total halt during this period since 3 hrs.we lost a day here due late arrival and water logging in the city.
On arrival at majestic we stayed in a budget hotel Shree Trupti Hotel,Gandhinagar.It is an adjacent lane of Majestic.One can enjoy lot of restaurants around this with all the taste of Mughlai to Chinese.

we hire a taxi Tata Indica with a Driver (Sh Durai)who later on proved to be a very good guide during our complete tour.Early in the morning,we planed to visit Mysore.
At Mysore,The places to visit are
Tipu Sultan Museum,
Shree Rangnath Swamy temple,
Chamunda Hills,
Vrindawan Garden,
Mysore Palace,
Philomena church and of course the city of Mysore itself.

Parking of cars are not a problem at all the tourist places with a nominal charges of Rs.10/=each and everywhere we have to pay for Still Digital camera charges of Rs.10/=except one or two places where one has to pay Rs.20/=

Mysore palace is a place to must see where one has to pay entry fee of Rs.20/=for adult and child up to age 10 years is free.Timing is 1000hrs to 1800hrs.

Vrindawan garden is place where one should visit only after 1700hrs so that one can enjoy the garden and thereafter musical show which starts at 1900hrs to 2100hrs.Here one has to pay Rs.50/= for the digital camera.Video Camera are charged @Rs.100/=
This takes around 2 to 2 and half hours for the trip.

Philomena Church is one of architect marvel.This is a church i saw where live confession of the devotees.One can visit this any time.this is the only place where you do not have to pay an entry fee.

It is advisable to get your booking first for the hotels in Mysore and avoid visiting Mysore and Ooty on saturday & sunday.Hotel rooms are costly and one can find a weekend local rush on these places.

Ooty is approximately 180 km away from Mysore and it takes around 6Hrs by car to pass through Hilly terrain and the forest of Mudumalai.

Bandipur is a place on the way to Mudumalai forest while going for Ooty.One can enjoy Safari at Bandipur and enjoy the sight of wildlife.

Gudlur is a place(49 km before Ooty) famous for Nilgiri tea and many herbal plants in the area.One can see a wide spread beautiful tea garden in the area.People here are Keralite though it is in tamilnadu.Kerala border is just around 20kms away from here.

Pykara falls(22 Km before Ooty)It was a fall but one can see it in full flow only in rainy season.Here also one has to pay Rs.2/each as entry fee.One has to walk down to 2km from the place of parking.Honestly,it is not worth to waste your time.

Shooting point just 11km before Ooty is worth for photography.One can halt its driving for an hour and shoot for your long cherish memory.

Ooty
It is a small busy town on the hills.There are many places worth visiting such as-
Botanical garden,
Rose garden,
Boat house,
One must taste and carry home made chocolate here.

Dodabetta

This is a place 15 km away from the Ooty.This is a highest peak as being told to us on this Nilgiri.

Coonoor

This is again a smaller town on the hills 18km away from the Ooty.I found this place is much more peaceful and of scenic view than Ooty.
Places to visit are
SIMS Park,
Lambs view,
Sleeping lady view,
Dolphin nose and
View point.
View point is a place from where one can shoot the virtual images of hills view which look like above stated view.