ሰላምታ ሆንግ ኮንግ - Selamta Hong Kong!

And we are travelling again, now to Hong Kong, to celebrate Diwali with family there!

Checking in for our flight - we are travelling on Ethiopian Airlines, which operates a fifth freedom flight between Incheon and Hong Kong, which then flies onwards to Addis Ababa...

I am flying on Ethiopian Airlines after 35 years - the last time I flew on Ethiopian between Addis Ababa and Bombay in 1981, on board their Boeing 727!

And I was eagerly waiting to board their nextgen Boeing 787 Dream)liner...

Neeti finds it really strange that these things about aviation delight me... but that's how I am!

Boarding from Gate 125...

A glimpse of the aircraft from the aerobridge...

The colourful wings of Ethiopia...

The IFE welcomes us on board...

Their inflight magazine Selamta proudly says they have been flying for 70 years...

The IFE gets switched on...

A United Boeing 737 besides us...

The United flies this Boeing 737 between Narita, Tokyo and Incheon...

"The Spirit Of Africa"

This was one of the best inflight meals I had in a long time - a delicious and hearty chicken curry with rice, vegetables, salad and a pannacotta...

Approach into Hong Kong!!!

We are welcomed into Hong Kong!

And now looking forward to some restful time here in Hong Kong!

Plane Spotting At BOM -- Part V

So, I am back in business again...

I have often been asked what do I fancy in planes.... Well there is an indescribable thrill in spotting a plane. A sudden rush of adrenaline pumps me up... 

Why?

I don't know. Who cares why when there are so many beauties around...

This latest series of Plane Spotting At BOM from this morning's trip to Bangalore. Boarding a 0635 flight to Bangalore from here in Mumbai, brought me up close to a bevy of heavies from near and far... Enjoy!

The Ethiopian Dreamliner, pushing back, with the red beacons flashing...

The Boeing 757s and 767s on the BOM-ADD has been upgraded to the Dreamliner!

Pushed back and ready to taxi...

Turkish Airlines Boeing 777 - Turkish used to fly the Airbus A340 and the Airbus A330 on the BOM-IST route. I was a bit surprised to see the Boeing 777 here...

Incidentally, a few years back, in 2011, a Turkish A340 skidded off the main runway 27-09 here, into to mud, forcing a shift of flights to runway 14-32

There goes a Kuwait Airways Airbus A340 - they usually fly in A320s into BOM

The Kuwait A340 makes its way to the runway

Kuwait Airways A340 on its takeoff roll....

Sunrise at BOM....

Singapore Airlines Boeing 777 getting ready to depart for Changi...

I am yet to see their Airbus A380 here!

I love this bird from Plaisance! Air Mauritius used to fly in Boeing 767s in the early 2000s. They moved on to the Airbus A340 equipment and now the Airbus A330...

I will always sweet memories of flying on Air Mauritius!

And now we push back.... and its time to grab a few winks!

Smell The Coffee!

Even though I have largely been a tea-drinker for the last 15-odd years, I do occasionally enjoy a cup of very strong coffee with a hint of cream and just about a pinch of demerara sugar.

Coffee for me has this amazing ability to "wake me up", to heighten my sensory faculties, to leave behind that amazing bitter after-taste in my mouth that keeps me "high" for a few hours. And the aroma of coffee is  nothing but simply magical.

Coorg was the place where I discovered the best coffee. I cannot forget that day in January 2011, sitting in the veranda of that 100-year old colonial plantation bungalow and sipping on an amazingly aromatic thick black coffee liquor. It was a lazy day, bright and sunny with a rather cool breeze blowing. All around were sounds of silence, green plantations and the aroma of freshly brewed coffee wafting in the air.

That was sheer bliss for me!

More recently, Bru introduced premium world coffees in the market, Bru Exotica - coffees from the Killimanjaro, Brazil and Colombia. I could not resist picking up a bottle of Killimanjaro coffee despite its steep price of Rs. 300 a bottle, simply because this coffee supposedly came very close from my motherland, Uganda.

Talking of Ugandan coffee, which has been very prized for long, during Idi Amin's reign of terror, the economy had collapsed and the Shilling crashed alongwith the onset of spiraling inflation. In those trying times, coffee was the unofficial currency for Ugandans in the countryside. The resilient Ugandans used to risk their lives carrying coffee in their canoes all across Lake Victoria to Tanzania or Kenya for some money that was worth more than wads of Ugandan Shillings. (My Dad has lucidly described the resilience of Ugandans in his blogs). That's how they survived. Today, however, Uganda has regained its prestige in the world of coffee, but climate change does threaten it.

One coffee that I would really love to try is the one from ancient land of Ethiopia. The Ethiopian civilization is quite old. It predates Christ and goes way back to age of Solomon the Great, who supposedly was madly in love with an Ethiopian queen, the Queen of Sheba. (Indeed, Ethiopian women are really pretty - ask me, I recently saw the flight crew of Ethiopian Airlines in Mumbai - they were all lissome and sharp featured!)

Legend has it that Ethiopia has been the cradle of coffee. A sheep herder once saw his flock chewing on some berries and getting high. Those berries, with time, came to be known as coffee berries!

In 1981, our family did pass by Addis Ababa for a few days. I was 5 then - too young to have coffee. But today, I am a big boy(!) and I would love to go back to Ethiopia, smell and drink Ethiopian coffee and also visit the great heritage of this ancient civilisation - rock carved churches at Lalibela, monasteries at Axum that are believed to house the legendary Ark of the Covenant and tablets of the Ten Commandments, the Blue Nile monasteries of Bahir Dar, castles of Gondar and the grand Rift Valley! Ethiopia also has a rich culinary heritage - injera (much like our Indian dosa), fit-fit, wat and many other delights!

It isn't hard to understand why they say "Smell the Coffee". But for me, smelling the coffee right in the morning is a big NO. I would rather wake up saying to myself something I adapted from a dialogue from one of favourite films, Jerry Macguire - "I have rolled with the punches, but today is another day!"

That does keep me going, till about afternoon, when I sometimes indulge in literally smelling the coffee!

Headwinds or Tailwinds? - Some More Random Thoughts....

A few weeks back, I had written a blog titled "Headwinds or Tailwinds?" on the latest in aviation, including the launch of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

I received an interesting comment on the blog post from a gentleman, Mr. Rodrick Rajive Lal, who observed:

Yes, we have shrunk distances! The Dreamliner goes a long way from the Boeing 720s and 707s that I used to fly with my parents from Addis Ababa to Mumbai. Then planes had to land in Aden to refuel because they burned a lot of fuel while taking off from Addis, blame the altitude! Then came the 767s, one of which crashed of the Comoros islands after it was hijacked. The moot question is, Do we need aircraft for long distances, or do we need aircraft for shorter hops? The Second question is, in spite of the hype, will the Dreamliner sell? The Airbus A380 is a high capacity aircraft. I wonder whether it will sell in large numbers because it would not be cost effective to fly below its full capacity! The same goes for the Dreamliner, will it be cost effective, will it be a money spinner, would you like to bet your money on it?

So true, we have come a long way in air travel. But the whole charm of flying in a Boeing 707 was something that is almost indescribable. My mind still has vivid memories of the very regal Air-India Boeing 707s in the early 1980s and that of the Zambia Airways Boeing 707, resplendent in the pan-African colours, and the classic "Z" stylised as an eagle on the green tail!

Those were the days when there was a certain charm in flying. Now it is more of a chore. And sadly now, there is only one scheduled operator of the Boeing 707 - Saha Air of Iran! The other Boeing 707s are either junked in boneyards of Arizona or the Mojave Desert in California or operate as fuel tankers for air defence forces, especially in the United States and other NATO countries. The Indian Air Force also did operate a fleet of Boeing 707s, but those are rusting away in the Palam Technical Area of Delhi Airport - they are clearly visible from the road that links Terminal 1 and Terminal 3.

I recall travelling in an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 727 from Addis Ababa to Bombay in 1981. It was raining heavily when we boarded the trijet through an aerobridge - that was such a wow for me, a 5 year old then! As we took off from Addis Ababa, there was a lovely site of green terraced fields on hillsides - those memories are crystal clear. The majestic Lion of Judah, which symbolised the airline was everywhere on board - on the meal trays, napkins, etc. Then the meal that was served was one of the yummiest I had!

My sister recently travelled Ethiopian from Washington DC to Entebbe, and she did say the airline is still damn good - in the same period, Air-India has gone to the dogs (sic!). As was acknowledged by the Economist a few months back, Ethiopian, South African Airways and Kenya Airways are effectively serving the world by linking major commercial centres of the world to African cities.

Now Mr. Lal spoke about the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 767, flight ET 961 crashing off the Comoros Islands. Yes, that was a sad incident which was widely publicised in India in 1996 - the flight originated in Bombay and after a stopover at Addis Ababa and was headed to Nairobi. The flight was hijacked by Ethiopians demanding asylum in Australia. The brave pilots refused to give in to the demands and the aircraft soon ran out of fuel and had crash land in the Indian Ocean. The horrific incident was videotaped by a South African couple on the Comoran beach, who actually though that the Boeing 767 was a part of an airshow.

Now coming to whether the Airbus A380 will be a viable option for airlines, in the long term, or not - well that's anyone's guess. But there are certain high density routes where such a massive capacity can be deployed. Airlines in Japan already deploy Boeing 747s on domestic routes. Korean carriers deploy Boeing 747s and Airbus A380s between Seoul and Hong Kong. There is a market at least for now. The Centre for Aviation brought out a listing of the busiest air routes last month, and the Delhi - Bombay route was listed as the 8th busiest in the world. Imagine, if we had carriers that were imaginative enough, a fleet of 5 Airbus A380s would be good enough to put the Rajdhani Express of the Indian Railways out of business - economies of scale will push down prices. We need to realise that travel time has an economic cost - it does not make sense to travel for over 16 hours when you do it in 3 hours, taking into account the checkin time.

The Dreamliner will sell - the aircraft is built with composites and plastics, making it much much lighter than similar aircraft in its class. In this age, where fuel costs are high and emission trading schemes are being enforced in the EU, airlines would look at the likes of the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350 favourably.