It is 7.30 am on 333 Battery Avenue in the busy financial district of San Francisco. It is the usual grab-coffee-and-go hour, everybody moving with their own sense of intent and purpose in the hub of high-tech corporations, start-ups and innovations. Waiting in the porch of the le Meridien, Sunita Narula and Kshamata Bajpai are making their own first moves. The two commanders of Air India’s all-woman commercial flight from Delhi to San Francisco and back are studying the route maps and talking air drifts for the return lap of their record circumnavigating feat of crossing the Pacific and Atlantic oceans on a single flight plan. They are interrupted by a walker. “Are you women pilotsIJ” Stops another, “Do you fly commercial, like do you get the hot seat of a jetIJ” And then another, “Are you all women in charge of a regular flightIJ”
“Well, there are four of us in the flight deck. Then there’s the cabin crew. Us you can see. Our handlers, loaders, dispatchers, flight engineers, ATCs are women too,” Bajpai answers for the bystanders who have by now started taking pictures of the cabin crew, all in neatly pinned-up golden yellow saris, not a hairdo out of place and a bright red smile on their lips. Both Narula and Bajpai are no strangers to attention in foreign lands, hats doffed to them at almost every station. They’ve even been subjected to curious finger touches to see if they are real flesh and blood women.
Fact is, Air India, which seldom gets positive appraisal from the media, has a lot in its women to talk about. This flight went down in aviation history books as the first and longest non-stop flight between Delhi and San Francisco (15,300 km) piloted, serviced, managed and guided by women all through. This flight may have been planned to commemorate International Women’s Day on March 8 but going around the world with women-led crews is going to be more the rule than the exception, feels Air India CMD Ashwani lohani. Few know that women pilots make more than 11 per cent of the national carrier’s workforce and that women commanders have long years of experience, being both sassy and efficient on the job at hand. Yes and they do get the command centre rather than just being co-pilots on profitable, long haul flights, having broken the glass ceiling and the metaphor of tokenism, much ahead of the West.
As Narula tells us, “In the end, the machine doesn’t understand whether you’re a man or a woman, it just responds to the right command and touch.” Bajpai asks first officer Indira Singh to check for oil streaks during inspections and goes over the Northern lights scenario with first officer Gunjan Aggarwal, the youngest in the cockpit at 29 and who is picking up tips and tricks from her seniors at each step. Bajpai tells us why this circumnavigation has a logic. “Flying east means getting strong tailwinds, which increases the speed of the aircraft, minimises flight time and by extension fuel consumption,” she tells us. “With these winds we get a ground speed of 1,000 km per hour across 13 time zones,” chips in Narula. And the Delhi-San Francisco flight is going to remain the world’s longest non-stop flight for this reason alone till a competitor soars up over the horizon.
The SFO flight is significant in more ways than one. Ever since its inception, it has been overbooked many times over despite competition from other airlines and expansive terminals at San Jose and Oakland.
It has been yielding Rs 27 crore in revenue, accelerating the airline’s turnaround strategy. The idea to run this flight also came from a woman, Meenakshi Mallik, General Manager, Revenue Management. Asked by lohani how the airline could make use of its B777-200 lR instead of the easy path of leasing and selling, she suggested it fly to SFO daily instead. “Finally, my suggestion was welcome and I do not know of start-ups but we got the service and base going in about two months,” she tells us. Air India has beaten both Etihad and Emirates at SFO. Harpreet Singh, herself a pilot, has a hawk’s eye on flight security as the chief of that department and is pioneering the airline’s green miles movement.
Narula, who began her training days when simulators didn’t even have women’s toilets, had a tough career liftoff when she wouldn’t be allowed to fly by male pilots who came mostly from a military background. That was the early half of the 90s but seven years into her job, she was in saddle. “Now there is not even one per cent of discrimination. And commercial aviation in India has been absolutely gender-neutral over the last 15 years. As women, we do not have to do any more or less,” she says.
However, while both captains had earned scholarships from their institutes to pursue their dreams despite their middle-class grooming, the lack of affordable infrastructure hasn’t made flying an easy career choice, more so for girls. “As a society, we feel obligated to design a map for our girls. I speak to both aspirants and their mothers and they worry if the course fee is worth it if they have to discontinue midway for marriage, family and other considerations. I tell youngsters they have to be really passionate about flying and not take it up as a routine job. It cannot be just about the pay. Only then can they sustain and work out the rest of their lives and not be disgruntled. Women are nurturers, the only ones who can procreate…that’s why we were put on earth…having a child is what we are born for. It is normal but life cannot be put on hold. This shackled mindset must go. I try to weave in everything in the same cable that I am,” says Bajpai, who already had a two-and-a-half year old son while training for a commercial pilot’s licence. Her son is a pilot now. “When he was younger, I always added another day to my schedule because he worked backwards. Then he would be happy to see me back on time. We devise our coping mechanisms.” A lover of every kind of aircraft there is, Bajpai says she had goosebumps when she got to announce that there were “450 souls” aboard a Boeing 747-400. “Without that high, it is pointless flying.”
Narula helped her 14-year-old son finish a mock test through a to-and-fro texting on her iPad on landing after the first leg of this flight. And cabin crew Shubdha toggles time for her 18-year-old son with the help of a supportive family structure.
“Now that there are more single mothers, I think we need to work out a structure and a system where children of flying staff can be looked after while they are out…..this facet needs to be looked into to tackle dropouts and demolish tags that women want out because of a child,” adds Bajpai. Both pilots have been multi-tasking with efficacy. More so with a national carrier that has been sensitive to their requirements, considering they have always been on call. So Narula has been given time to fly to San Francisco and back to coincide with her kids’ week-long break before they begin their new school year. She intends spending time with them by the bay, a “bleisure” break for her.
Bajpai gets back to briefing her cabin crew. “Keep passengers hydrated, it’s a really long flight and please keep a hawk’s eye on anybody who shows the slightest sign of discomfort. Be alert at all times. Attend to the ill on board and should we need to land for him/her, let traffic handle him/her.” Much has been written about Air India’s crew but on a long haul flight, their attention to detail is the best there can be, particularly on a route that sees a lot of senior citizens travelling to and forth on grandparent visitations and require heavy duty assistance for every little thing.
Combining fitness and grace, they have developed what cabin crew member Ashwin Kamble calls a “situational awareness and a positive spirit.” A mantra that has made it possible for Air India to handle health emergencies and divert to the nearest centre in case of medical intervention. And for all the criticism about their weight, looks and behaviour department, the girls have learnt to handle trolls with grit and a strong gut. All of them subject themselves to fitness tests twice a year. “Actually other airline crews envy us,” says hostess Gracy Noronha.
The entire crew, besides being experienced and having survived nails thrown in their way of meeting service expectations, are also living proof of an India in change. Cabin crew in-charge Nishrin Bandukwala has seen the transition from glamour to substance with poise. “Flying was a niche privilege when I started out. Being an airhostess then was a lot about glamour too. The inflight supervisor was always male, taking care of the rough and tumble of service. But that post has been abolished and for a decade now women are in charge of inflight supervision,” she says.
Other hostesses have worked out their priorities beyond the service years. Tenzing Bhutia designs saris and hosts food pop-ups at Kala Ghoda festival. Dnyanada Joshi, once captain of the Maharashtra handball team, catches a game now and then, Surbhi Malik walks the ramp on her time-offs and Ashwini paints. Narula herself has been a four-time national yoga champion while Bajpai has been an athelete. As Noronha sums it up, “Ups and downs are there in everybody’s life. In the end we are professionals. But when it comes to an all-women crew, there is a coordinated discipline on-board and huge bonhomie on the ground. We are each other’s support system.”
Meanwhile as Bajpai announces the significance of the flight in a rather clinical manner from the cockpit, the passengers clap in delight at a “wow” moment. The girls go about their work in a deadpan manner though, traversing another moment in history.