Plane Spotting at BLR

A short trip to Bangalore was quite exciting. On landing, it was great to be welcomed by a British Airways Boeing 747-400 in the Oneworld livery!

Oops, I forgot to turn off the flash!

When I see a British Airways plane, I am always reminded of their 1989 Aria On The Air advertisement, which remains fresh in my mind.... probably that's the recall power that the brand has created 

JetLite, pushed back and ready to taxi - one of the most unimaginative liveries around....

That's the Speedbird - British Airways Boeing 747-400. Seeing a Boeing 747 is almost like meeting an old flame!

A bright sunny day, as we leave the airport for the city...

Time to get back home. Crossword at BLR gave interesting ideas for reading. I would Flipkart those books now... 

As we board, dusk is around the corner

About to pushback!

Headwinds or Tailwinds?

This was quite a week for aviation.
ANA took delivery of its first Boeing 787 Dreamliner at Boeing's facilities in Everett, Washington on September 25, 2011 following which the aircraft flew to Narita, Japan to commence scheduled operations shortly.
It is believed that initially, Boeing had planned for the maiden flight by the end of August 2007 following a roll-out ceremony on July 8, 2007, which matches the aircraft's designation, 787, in US-style month-day-year format (7/8/07). That never happened, as there were many many issues - shortage of aerospace-grade fasteners, incomplete software, labour strikes and supply chain issues.

But all's well that ends well. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is here, definitely. It was nice to see the the Boeing 787 Dreamliner being brought into the launch function by enthusiastic Boeing employees, much like a bride being led to to the altar!

Photos on aviation spotting websites like Airliners.net and other news reports suggest that the 787 production line is now well oiled. A few Air-India Boeing 787 Dreamliners - to be designated as VT-ANA, VT-ANB, VT-ANC and VT-ANG are nearly ready and should be delivered soon. It is a different question whether Air-India would have the financial wherewithal to take their delivery. It would be tragic if the Dreamliner does not fly on Indian skies.
Then came a bombshell. This news did in a sense prove that life does come full circle. On September 28, 2011, it was announced that Kingfisher Airlines would exit its low cost business, Kingfisher Red, and instead would reposition itself as a full service carrier. When Kingfisher Airlines started operations in 2005, it was premium full service carrier, that, as many felt, relied on titillation - stewardesses chosen personally by the Chairman (that's cheesy enough), stewardesses clad in bright red short skirts - that was enough to set testosterones racing. But what started off well, leave aside the gimmickry for a moment - great food, great service on board, soon took a tumble. Air Deccan was acquired and the airline adopted a hybrid full service and low cost model, and then got caught up in economic headwinds and fuel turbulence! Things got bad - finances crippled in light of massive orders with Airbus and fuel costs, refuelling became an issue, punctuality reduced and menus shrunk (and became pathetic). I recently travelled on the full service version of Kingfisher Airlines on a morning flight. I was flabbergasted when the breakfast tray had no butter. Things had gotten so bad! But, this new announcement on recasting the business model proves that managers in India Inc. have become as tentative as those in the West.

A very seasoned senior corporate executive I have known for years now recently quoted Dominic Barton of McKinsey on Twitter - "The most striking difference between East and West is the time frame leaders consider when making decisions. Asians typically think in terms of 10 to 15 years. In US & Europe, nearsightedness is a norm."
That was true for a long time, but now, as the Kingfisher Airlines example proves, we too have started following short-termism. Perhaps, existence for the airline was the paramount consideration for cutting costs atrociously or now moving whole-hog into the full service domain. But is it not true that somewhere, the management neither had the patience or the conviction to stick to one model. Will they stick on, will they sell out? My bet is Virgin Atlantic and Sir Richard Branson which had lobbied with the Government of India for permitting investment in Indian carriers has a good chance - the head honchos are equally flamboyant, the business models would be similar. Let us wait and watch!
One airline, once known as Bloody Awful unveiled a new campaign this week that promised a return to the quality and efficiency that once existed in the aviation business. I am talking about British Airways.


The campaign is slick, impressive and to me, appears honest. But do European airlines stand a decent chance of competing with premium carriers from the Gulf or Asia is a fair question to ask.
Back home Jet Airways introduced a Boeing 737-800 with a new decor - Sky Interiors, with cove lighting and a curved cabin architecture that looks contemporary, gives a sense of openness and space. New flights connecting Bombay and Manila have been announced. I have heard the next announcement would be that of reopening the India-Shanghai-San Francisco sector. Truly they have benefited the most from the decimation of competition notably Air-India and Kingfisher Airlines. Today, this is the only full service Indian carrier that has some kind of brand loyalty to speak of.
But how long is Jet Airways to command that respect is another question. They are withdrawing certain privileges to Jet Privilege members effective October 1, 2011.
Their cabin crew, undoubtedly the better of the lot need a serious dress makeover - their yellow coats look like those of courtiers in the court of the Chinese Emperor, the pants and aprons looks funny. I have also observed a big differential in the basic courtesy extended to Business and Economy class passenger. Some Jet staff treat economy passengers like cattle. It seems they have taken Shashi Tharoor too seriously. That is not good indeed.

The carrier that impressed the most recently was Indigo. I travelled on the Bombay-Hyderabad and Hyderabad-Bhubaneshwar sectors recently. Being a low cost airline, I did not expect much from them. But from the moment I stepped into their A320, I was impressed. The cabin crew seemed to be genuinely welcoming, the cabin spic and span and smelt very fresh. To my surprise I was offered free beverages and snacks on all sectors. I needed cotton for my ears (always get blocked ears while landing), but since they did not have cotton, I was given endless supplies of water. The stewardess then noticed that I had a cold, she got me a big glass of warm water. I was impressed. I never felt like a king at Jet Airways, where I have been a frequent flier for the last 6-7 years, but I sure did at Indigo!

Another airline which impressed me recently was the no-frills Go Air. While the cabin crew had an atrocious artificial accent and looked like over painted mannequins, the flight was on the runway 5 minutes prior to departure time and landed ahead of schedule!
I also came across an interesting comment on Airliners.net - a comment posted on a picture of Air-India's yet-to-be-delivered Boeing 787 Dreamliner VT-ANC which said "Asians have all the money! India buys airliners like we buy candy. Indigo for example orders Airbuses like they grow on trees. Air India is deeply in debt though and is borrowing money from India govt to fund all these fancy new jets like 777 and 787."
That is true, especially when sees Emirates or Qatar Airways expand. Benchmarks in the airline industry will be set by Asian carriers going forward, for this is where the business is, this is where the volume is.

Are these trends in aviation headwinds or tailwinds?

Viens, Mallika, les lianes en fleurs... Always an Interconnected World!‏

What is a connection of the vaguest sort between Prannoy Roy, British Airways, Yanni and Lakmé cosmetics?
Nothing, I could not have imagined of any connection between them till yesterday when I remembered those days in 1989.

In the Doordarshan days of 1989, Prannoy Roy's The World This Week, which was telecast on Friday evenings, was the only quality source of international news. I was hooked to The World This Week. Every Friday, I would dedicate myself to watching the programme, even though staying awake after 10PM was considered late, by the small town standards in Yamuna Nagar.

And advertisements telecast during the The World This Week were a welcome break from the "Tandurusti ki raksha karta hai Lifebuoy" type of commercials. The advertisements I am talking of were especially classy.

One of them was the British Airways commercial, which uplifted me, my moods and aspirations. The advertisement showed multi-racial groups of gleeful people in white, red, blue and black clothing arranging themselves in a such a fashion that the aerial view showed a face, which smiles and winks. Afterwards, the face turns into the impression of the globe.

The music and the vocals that accompanied the visuals were sublime, that instantly had an effect of elevating me.

I remember walking to school in the North Indian winter mornings, in dense fog and the only things that would ring in my mind would be music of the advertisement.

Years went by. I passed my exams, moved to Chandigarh for my graduation in engineering. On one of the weekends in 1996, while I visiting my cousin, Apoorav, at Panchkula, I heard Yanni's Live at the Acropolis for the very first time. The next thing I remember was rushing to Sector 17's Deepak Radios to buy Yanni's audio cassette.

The last track on the cassette was Aria, which was the same music that I had heard over 7 years back in the cold wintry evenings at Yamuna Nagar, that continuously rang in my head over the years, that always inspired to egg myself on, that haunted me because I did not have that music cassette with me for all these years.



Years passed by.

As I moved from Chandigarh to Gurgaon to Delhi to Bombay, got busier in life, fell in and out of and back in love, the world moved on from cassettes to CDs to MP3s, from Doordarshan to cable to DTH.

But in all these years, my liking for the sublimity of the audio of this advertisement (and of course, Aria) did not diminish even a bit.

And yesterday simply out of curiosity, I googled the phrase "British Airways advertisement Aria". And that opened up whole big treasure trove of evocative, sublime memories. I discovered that You Tube had a video that had captivated me over 21 years back, and Wikipedia told me that the vocals were from a duet, Viens, Mallika, les lianes en fleurs... Sous le dôme épais (The Flower Duet), between characters called, Lakmé and Mallika, from Léo Delibes’ opera Lakmé, which was first performed in 1883.

I stumbled across a rough translation of Viens, Mallika, les lianes en fleurs... Sous le dôme épais, on Wikipedia, which is something like this:

Under the dense canopy

Where the white jasmine

Blends with the rose

On the flowering bank

Laughing at the morning

Come, let us drift down together

Let us gently glide along

With the enchanting flow

Of the fleeing current

On the rippling surface

With a lazy hand

Let us reach the shore

Where the source sleeps

And the bird sings

Under the dense canopy

Under the white jasmine

Let us drift down together

Such beautiful poetry!

What's more interesting is that the opera, Lakmé was inspired by struggle of the Hindu masses in British India and deals more particularly of an Indian girl named Lakmé who falls in love with a British soldier, Gerald!

What's fascinating is Lakmé is the French way of saying Lakshmi.

And more fascinating than that is the fact that the Tatas, who have historically had a very strong affinity for France, named their cosmetics brand Lakmé after this soap opera.

So, the bottomline is that while it took me almost 21 years to realise this, the world always was, is and will remain interconnected!

And I have one more item to add on my bucket list - watch the opera, Lakmé, once before I die, in Paris. Obviously, learning French remains there in my bucket list.

Viens, Mallika, les lianes en fleurs...