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Delhi, Tuesday, 1995-10-10 03:00 local (Z+5.5)
I haven't been able to send the previous message yet, but I'm concerned about bumping up against Compuserve's maximum single message length, so I've started this one. Actually, I think it's clearer when I start a new message whenever I have changed location anyway.
I did get into India without a visa posing as an operating crew member even though I got off the airplane alone. The rest of the cockpit crew and flight attendants continued on to Bombay. It turned out to be no problem. Tower had one of their Delhi reps walk me through the process. I had a little story prepared that I was part of a “heavy” crew, one requiring 3 pilots on board, for the long flight from Paris, and that only 2 pilots were required for the short leg to Bombay. It wasn't necessary. A Tower Air crewman getting off a Tower Air airplane and escorted by an Indian who was a Tower Air employee apparently precluded any questions.
Getting to the hotel turned out to be a small adventure. The Tower rep told me I could take a regular cab or a luxury cab, the difference being that a luxury cab is air conditioned. Since it was just me and I like to have the windows rolled down, I elected to take the regular cab. Getting a cab in India, at least in Delhi, is not a simple matter. Involving only a cab driver and yourself is far too efficient for their system. First you go to the appropriate booth in the terminal where you tell them where you want to go and pay your money, in this case 80 rupees—about $2.40. Then you go outside to a larger booth (another two people, maybe more, inside), give them the piece of paper you got at the first booth, and get assigned a driver from the many milling around the booth. So, at the minimum, 4 people including yourself are involved in this operation. Next the trick is to get your bags in the trunk (very small car by the way, very small trunk) without allowing anyone but yourself and the driver to help. There are “helpers” all over the place, hoping to assist you in hopes of a tip, and they also have light fingers. In my case, and after I had turned down a least 2 offers, one of them managed to get his hands on my bag as I hoisted it into the trunk. He, of course, asked for a tip as I climbed in the car. I simply said, “No, I did not request help.”
I sat in back, and as the driver started the engine, a boy (probably 11 or 12 years old) popped into the front with the driver. This sets off alarm bells in my mind, because I don't know what the hell is going on, India is known for various small scams intended to relieve pilots of their belongings. We're preferred targets because they know we have money, are usually tired, and we can't afford to hang around. Most pilots who have been coming here for a number of years have either witnessed or been the object of these efforts. One of our guys said he realized a couple of hours after the fact that he had watched another pilot's passport being lifted.
We set off for the hotel in heavy traffic, heat, horns blowing, dust, and those damned cows generally impeding everything. After a mile or so and while we're stopped in traffic, the boy gets out of the front and starts around the back of the car. I know these trunks don't lock, and I realize he could easily pop the trunk, grab a bag and be gone before I could really do anything, so I make a point of obviously putting my hand on the door handle and watching him as he crosses around the back. He's glancing back and forth between me and where he's going. He pauses at the back, maybe checking traffic, maybe checking me—who knows—and then continues across the lanes of stalled traffic and disappears. About this time an old woman sticks her face through the window begging. Now there's a great distraction, I think, so I ignore her and turn sideways in the seat to make sure I can continue to view the trunk until we get moving again. Next time when I'm alone, my bags are coming in the back seat with me and it's going to be an air conditioned cab, i.e. one with the windows rolled up at all times.
I get to the Mauri Sheraton only to find that crew scheduling failed to make a reservation for me, and they're out of regular rooms. However, they've got room in their expensive section, and since I'm only going to be there for a few hours, they put me in one of them for the regular rate. I climb in bed, drop off to sleep (I've only got about 2 hours by this time before I'm going to have to get up), and am awakened by the doorbell (there was no DO NO DISTURB card to hang). I get up, pull on my pants, and answer the door. It's room service with a complementary bottle of champagne, chilled, in the ice, waiter with a towel over his arm—the whole works. I politely decline, close the door, take off pants, go back to bed. We're down to about 1.5 hours to wakeup now. Back to sleep and the doorbell rings. Up again, screw the pants, this is getting ridiculous. This time it's a basket of fruit. I decline, close door, back to bed. Down to around 1 hour. Back to sleep and the doorbell rings. They want to make sure the mini-bar is stocked. I tell them I don't care about the minibar, and could he find a DO NOT DISTURB card someplace and hang it on the outside of my door. He politely says that I can turn on the DO NOT DISTURB light by using the switch beside my bed. I go back to bed for a final half hour of rest feeling stupid—after I switched on the light.
The leg back to Paris is brutal, a late afternoon departure, operate all night, get into Paris feeling like shit. The interesting thing—to me—was the route. U.S. airlines do not fly over Iran. However, we were technically an Air India flight for this contract. So, right over Iran we go, right over Tehran. The weather was clear, the city beautiful below us insofar as its light pattern. Eerie, really.
I slept most of the day in Paris, getting up at 15:00 to run. I wish I had gotten up sooner. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, lots of people out walking. The hotel was the Nikko again, and it's right on the Seine, so I took off running upstream, went past the Eiffel Tower and almost to the Louvre. When I got back to the Nikko, I tried to transmit #46, but the Nikko has a telephone exchange that doesn't give a standard dial tone signal. There is a way of having the software account for that, and I fussed with it for awhile before giving up. I'll look up the procedure when I get home.
Left Paris about 01:00 Monday morning. Another bomb went off in the city a couple of days ago, and airport security was tight. They even had people with metal detectors on the door of the airplane checking crews. The route back to Delhi was essentially the same as from Delhi to Paris, only this time it was light by the time we hit Turkey. Turkey has some incredible scenery, at least from 37,000 feet. There are some serious mountains in that country, very high, very steep, and with snow (glaciers?) even after a long hot summer. Iran is also quite beautiful from the air, though it's all desert, at least all that we went over. They have isolated, high peaks rising from what appear to be silted plains, escarpments running for miles, and both countries are relatively unpopulated in their interiors. It was not until Pakistan that we started seeing significant population below us.
We had a deportee on board. Some Indian had shown up with an expired French visa, so they just turned him around and headed him back. The sensible thing to do would simply be to do the paperwork there, maybe levy an extra charge, but that's unthinkable to the bureaucratic mind. The rules, however ridiculous, must be obeyed, and never mind the fact that the original reason for the rules has long since disappeared or that it's the intent not the letter that's important. I guess I'm just becoming a grumpy old man.
The arrival into Delhi was an exercise in Indian inefficiency. At one point they had us doing 360 degree turns for spacing and reporting our position by DME (distance measuring equipment). This is the capital of India, the world's largest democracy, but they appear not to have a functioning radar system, or if they do, they don't know how to use it. It was my leg, and since the weather was good (but for the heavy pollution), I was hand flying so I really didn't mind the extra maneuvering. Finally landed (got a good one) and then the fun really started. Ground control was telling us to go to gate 43 while Air India operations was telling us to go to gate 45. We could see the ground crew waiting at 45 and that there was no one at 43. We pointed this out to ground control, but he wouldn't budge, and he has control. The closer in we got, the more obvious it was that 45 was the place to go. We kept stopping and querying ground control, hoping to get him to okay 45 before we were committed. At one point, Air India operations came on the frequency, but the ground controller and the operations people apparently have a jurisdictional dispute going. Amazing, an entire 747, engines running, loaded with passengers, waiting because a stubborn ground controller would not change his original instructions, thus of course, admitting that he had been wrong. So, we finally taxied into gate 43, shutdown, and sat while the ground crew took its time getting over there. Nothing happens fast in India. The captain I am with flew the Indian Hajj this year, and he said this kind of crap happens all the time here. No wonder all the pilots do their best to avoid India.
The fun was not over. The flight attendants were staying on the airplane to get it to Bombay, but a new cockpit crew was coming on. Thus we were left to our own devices to get to the hotel. This time we took an air conditioned cab. I had to pay since I was the only one who had rupees, and we had already passed the currency exchange point in the airport. We had expected that since we were an operating crew, Tower should have arranged the transport, but they didn't. Got to the hotel only to find that crew scheduling again (sigh!) had failed to make reservations. There were no rooms, either cheap or expensive. We wound up climbing back into another cab, coming to the Le Meridien Hotel,and getting their most expensive rooms ($350 a night). It seems there's an international conference on water and energy going on in Delhi. I overheard 2 attendees complaining that when they had made their reservations, the room price was to be $200 and something. Then they get here and find the price has been hiked to $350.
That brings things up to date. It's about 05:30 now. I've been raiding the minibar between paragraphs. At least it's complimentary with the $350 rate. Still dark outside. Speaking of outside, my window is looking out over India's government buildings. They're uniformly tan, old, air conditioners hanging out most of the windows. The place is not well lit. The lights are the old, inefficient type—very little light, use lots of energy. The buildings front on a long, wide, grassy mall—that's actually very attractive. I plan to run on the mall when it gets light, then eat my free breakfast, then back to bed until the wake up call. It's supposed to come around 09:00, but things are running about 4 hours late. The joke is that if Air India leaves the same day it was scheduled, that constitutes on-time.
If the delay exceeds 4 hours, we won't have legal rest in Paris, and that will throw us into extended duty for our deadhead back to the U.S. I'm hoping they'll let me go home since I am on my off days now. My original assignment called for flying through the 14th, that would have taken even a day of my guaranteed days off. All they have to do to take away guaranteed days off is to declare it a “company emergency.” Tower Air is not a perfect place to work.
What I call the “New York attitude” is really hard to take for me. For instance, when I last walked into crew scheduling at Tower, the manager of crew scheduling was there. I very politely asked if it would be possible to talk about sliding my days off to a later time. I really don't care when I get them, only that I get them, and I know that other pilots have succeeded in getting them moved when they get taken in the kind of situation I'm in. She looked at me, turned her back to me, and said, “No!” as she walked away. Really makes you feel great. After all, she was merely dismissing a lowly first officer still on probation. However, the woman is uniformly hated by all the pilots except for a favored few. It really doesn't make much difference whether you're on probation or what seat you're flying, so it's not a personal thing.
Enough, it's starting to get light outside, so I'm off for a run on that grassy mall I talked about.
Terry
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