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Saturday, May 30, 2009

Spice Route to Mumbai

Thanks to Cyclone Aila, our Spice Jet flight to Mumbai got cancelled. We still needed to get to Mumbai for the India Radio Forum. So we enquired with some other Airlines. Indigo was the only one with seats available and were charging some 15K one way; Mind-blowing. The only other options were Kolkata-Bangalore-Mumbai or Kolkata-Delhi-Mumbai on Spice Jet. We opted for the latter. So I left home at 10 am for a 12 noon flight to Delhi. Our connecting flight from Delhi was at 6.15pm. So we had just about enough time at the Delhi Airport for a meal between the two flights.

I was quite impressed with the New Delhi Terminal which was coming up to International standards with shopping arcade and food court and ultra-modern architecture. The only thing I still felt lacking was the Aero-bridges. In the afternoon sun, waiting for the bus on the tarmac was quite an ordeal. I noticed a bunch of passengers who took shelter under the wing of the aircraft which was quite hilarious. Anyway that apart the airport seems to have invested in some state-of-the-art equipment which was quite visible from the Fire-tender that I saw parked near the terminal.

The other thing I saw was the newly acquired IL-76 Phalcon parked along with the other IL-76 aircraft of the Indian Air Force at their usual enclosure. The next day next day when I saw the news, the aircraft was being inducted into service. The IL-76 Phalcon was one of several that had been ordered by the IAF to be their eyes in the sky bringing India into a league of countries that has full AWACS capabilities. This will surely be a force-multiplier for the Indian Air Force.

So before I knew it I was back on another aircraft and on my way to Mumbai. I was glad when we finally reached Mumbai and were in the guest house at about 10pm. I was thoroughly impressed by the guest house which I must say was five-star class. There was no way I was making any dinner plans after a full day of flying and so just ordered some take-out and called it a night.

Hi-Tech Fire Tender

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