​My first trip to India after 27 years proved to be a short and hectic one, and I tried my best to make the most of it. Around a month prior to my travel to India, I accidently came across an interesting Instagram post from a white North American man who was showcasing how and why he had converted from being a Jehovah’s Witness to being an orthodox baptized Sikh. Balraj Singh, born Kyal [Balraj was the first name he was given, and his mother gave him the name Kyal upon leaving the hospital.], also shares on his popular Instagram channel how and why his young family had migrated to the Punjab, and especially in search of fresh organic healthy food, and a better lifestyle than in California.
 
I could see that his Instagram channel was gradually gaining a lot of interest and was growing [now has over 20K followers globally], especially amongst the Punjabi community, both in the Punjab and abroad, and also those who are curious about his remarkable journey from growing up with a Western lifestyle [which included being a DJ and a party animal!] to one who is now a devout Sikh living in rural Punjab.
 
The more I saw his posts and his discussions about his passion and love for organic, healthy, and nutritious Punjabi food, and his reasons for converting to and embracing Sikhism, I felt there was a brilliant opportunity to carry out a blog style interview with him. The fact that he is living close to the town of Phagwara, where I was heading to for my short trip, was even better to go and meet him in person.
 
We met in the lobby of the Ambassador Hotel in Phagwara on a rather rainy early February afternoon. As expected, Balraj arrived attired in a signature blue bana, hair tied into a bun and complete with a Nihang Sikh sword and dress. He was accompanied by his student, Jassa Singh, a native Brit from Bradford, who has also taken the similar journey and decided to convert to Sikhism and give himself to Guru Maharaj. 

​Nav Singh [NS]: Balraj and Jassa, Sat Shri Akal ji! First of all, thank you very much for your time and your efforts to come and see me from Chandigarh today. Balraj Singh and Jassa Singh, it's been an absolute pleasure.
 
Balraj Singh [BS]: Nav bhaji. Sat Shri Akal Ji. The pleasure is ours – thank you for hosting us.
 
NS: Welcome. Balraj, first of all, I just want to start off, if you can please tell the audience about yourself, your upbringing, and your background story before you embraced Sikhism.
 
BS: I would say who am I before Sikhi is just a Toronto guy. Right. You know, like my early life was spent in Toronto. I was born in Toronto at St. Michael's Hospital, and we lived in downtown Toronto at St. James Town and then Regent Park - St. James Town and Regent Park are two separate places and the first two residences of my mother as a single mother. I had a speech impediment and a hearing problem. I was delayed in my speech and my mom sent me to a special school. I grew up in a private school, attending private school in North York.
 
My mom used to work at Unilever, and eventually she kind of gravitated towards running her own thriving printing company, along with my stepdad. They had a thriving printing company most during most of my young life. It was a very entrepreneurial and multicultural upbringing, as well as a very religious upbringing. 

​NS: Very interesting. I note that there is a strong Punjab connection with St James Town in Toronto, in that many of St. James Town's high rises were originally designed after the Second World War, inspired by Le Corbusier's towers in the park concept. The Punjab connection is that Le Corbusier's largest and most ambitious project was the design of Chandigarh, the capital city of the Punjab and Haryana States of India, created after India received independence in 1947.
 
Le Corbusier was contacted in 1950 by Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and invited to propose a project. So that in itself is quite interesting I must say. So, all in all you had quite a multicultural upbringing, right? Because you're blessed with having a Punjabi and a Native Indian heritage.
 
BS: Yes, so I'm half Punjabi, and from my dad's side, I am a Native Indian as my father is an Indigenous Native American from Nova Scotia. But in a multicultural melting pot like Toronto, it doesn't feel like that you are different from anyone as such because everyone's an ethnic, and so yes, it is very multicultural. This is why I just thought of myself as a Toronto guy.
 
Then at some point, when I was about 10 or 11 years old, we took a vacation to Mexico – it was my first trip overseas. With their business, my mom and dad started making more money and their business started taking off. So, because of the lifestyle that we were afforded, we took a trip to Mexico in the winter and were able to play Volleyball outside on the beach, this was a complete novelty for us coming from Toronto and when we returned from our vacation there was a blizzard. My mom had enough of the cold and started looking for a warmer place to live. She chose Escondido, southern California.
 
We lived there for two and a half years, and then from there, we moved to the Fresno area in California. Jehovah’s Witnesses began concentrated efforts to preach to people of foreign languages and organized special groups for this cause.  Because if this people kept coming up to my mother and asking if she knew Punjabi. We ended up moving to be in a foreign language group.

​NS: Did you learn Punjabi at home because your mother was speaking Punjabi at home?
 
BS: No. We didn't really speak Punjabi at home. In fact, I knew very little. When it started, when we joined the foreign language group, I took more of an interest in Punjabi and I learned a little bit, like enough to preach to the congregation in Punjabi. I learned some preaching lingo.
 
NS: So, you didn’t know Gurmukhi at that stage?
 
BS: Actually, I did teach myself Gurmukhi. Right, so I was 12 and I taught myself five letters a day and started taking a serious interest in Punjabi from thereon then. I wanted to be able to fluently read the Guru Granth Sahib one day, and that was a personal goal of mine. Interestingly, at that time I also wanted to be able to read the Watchtower on stage in Punjabi. I wanted to be one of those guys that could read it on stage and stuff.
 
NS: Truly multicultural – and yes, I love that!
 
BS: So, yeah, I learned how to read and write Gurmukhi long before I was able to speak Punjabi with any ease.
 
NS: Quite impressive! What happened after that moment? You were saying, you know, someone said, could you speak another language and then you did!
 
BS: Yeah, so then we [my mum and I] visited the different Punjabi groups in California, in Hayward, California, San Jose, Sacramento. During this time, we were kind of looking for another place to live. This was actually a very interesting moment for me. It wasn't pivotal to becoming a Sikh per se, but it was pivotal in my relationship with God.
 
In the year before, in San Diego, there were all sorts of Christmas decorations of baby Jesus and the reindeers in the Christmas markets. Us being Jehovah’s Witnesses were really criticizing and wondering why is everyone's relationship with Jesus as baby Jesus? To me it just seemed interesting to me. At that point I decided at that moment that I am going to do a fleece test. Just like in the Bible, where Gideon's fleece test was when he laid a sheep's fleece on the ground and asked God to make it wet with dew if he would save Israel. 
 
The next morning, the fleece was wet with dew and the ground was dry. Like Gideon, when he wanted to know, should he go fight? The fleece test showed that God had chosen Gideon to deliver Israel, it showed that God understood people's need for assurance and was patient with their doubts, and the fleece test showed that if people surrender to God's will and trust him, all will be well.
 
Basically, if a fleece left on the threshing floor becomes wet with dew while the ground remains dry, this will indicate that God will save Israel through him. So, if everything else is wet and this is dry, just give me one more. So, I said, like, it was a really big deal for me to move from San Diego to Fresno. I felt like I had finally arrived at my dream place. 

​NS: So, it seems that you fell in love with Fresno?
 
BS: Well, I mean I had a lot of friends. I went to the beach often, but I was like, okay; if I'm going to move from my dream place somewhere else, because Sacramento and Fresno are not as nice as San Diego, I'm going to do a fleece style move. So, if there's a baby Jesus and the whole reindeer and everything and the whole nativity scene, and there's two of each on the same street of the house that we want to buy, I will know that that's where we're supposed to go.
 
Therefore, we went to Hayward and San Jose, and all those were fun places. There were quite a few Jehovah’s Witnesses there who were of Punjabi decent. Also, there were a lot of people who were interested in Punjabi, and they did a lot of parties, they had like little Bollywood nights, Bhangra nights, and for me it just was a lot of fun! I loved it!
 
NS:  That's where you did the DJing, right?
 
BS: No, not yet. However, I really wanted to move there. That particular year [we are talking around 2005/6], there was no Baby Jesus and no reindeer. I don't know, people's sensibilities and relationships with Christmas decorations completely changed. I was like, last year these decorations were everywhere, and this year they are not. So, we ended up going to a small-town called Kerman on the outskirts of Fresno.
 
There in Kerman we found the perfect house. Right on that street were two Baby Jesuses and two reindeers. Though the house was nice, it was the worst place I ever wanted to live. Kerman was this small town with 6,000 people in the middle of the super-hot Fresno desert, just surrounded by fields. I thought to myself, “oh my goodness, this is so boring! 

NS: At that time, you were still not into Sikhism, right?
 
BS: Right, yeah, I was still a Jehovah's Witness but in Kerman there was no community of Jehovah's Witnesses doing foreign languages, and no Punjabis [and no pretty girls or parties, too!]. We were the only ones. So, we decided to start this group of preaching to Punjabis. So, our territory was all of Fresno, Bakersfield, Turlock, and all these cities all around Fresno within a six-hour radius. At that point, I knew that's where God wanted me, and I started to really develop a close relationship with God. That’s where I ended up meeting my wife, and a lot of good things happened. Years later, I was even DJing there.
 
NS: Your wife is ethnically Punjabi or another race?
 
BS: No, no, she's just an American from California, and her parents are of mixed heritage, and she probably has Native Indian from her dad's side and her mom's mixed with European heritage.
 
NS: Wow and you both live here, enjoying the Punjabi life.
 
BS: Exactly – we have been here for the past six years, and we both embrace it with open minds. It took a while to adjust but we love it here! Our life is meant to be here. We may go back for a vacation to the US, but we both know that our future is here as Nihangs. It's kind of what we wanted years ago when I moved to Santa Barbara and that's where I really connected with the Punjab.
 
I first arrived here when I was 14 and visited my grandparents from my mum’s side and I just fell in love. I felt very at home at my ancestral land.

​NS: How did you get into farming?
 
BS: We had a farm in Fresno. However, 3 or 4 years after we moved to Fresno, my mom decided she wanted to do something else as the printing business started to wane. At some point we were one of the few people that could print high quality business cards with UV coating on the front; however, we realized that soon everyone else started doing that, so the market become saturated! Therefore, we had to look for different business ideas, and my mom thought about starting a wedding business. The idea was to buy a property that we could use to host weddings.
 
Thankfully that property that we bought came with an additional 18 acres of farmland. To keep the property value up we started farming because letting the trees rot would not have worked! That’s exactly how I got introduced to farming – this would have been around 2005-2006. We carried out conventional farming of raisins. We were signed with a packer, who sadly did not pay us the amount we needed for the raisins one particular year on time. They didn’t give us the advance to be able to pay our laborers and so we were under contract with them so we couldn't go with another broker. My mum then decided to sell the land to the end consumer and that's how we started organic farming. We kept all the raisins ourselves in storage and called up people and just started selling directly to the end consumer.
 
Right after I got married, after 2010, we started to diversify our crop. We started to grow more things and then I started to broker organic groceries. I started to travel around California picking up organic groceries.
 
NS: That is hard work but still quite impressive. Kudos to your mother for the entrepreneurial spirit. California is popular and famous for raisins, isn't it?
 
BS: Yes, it is. Fresno is famous for its raisins. We had Thompson Seedless Grapes, which are perfect for making raisins. That’s where I also learned all the tricks of the trade, including packaging, labeling, the price, promotion, place, all that kind of marketing stuff.
 
NS: Interesting. So, where did you find the Punjab connection then?
 
BS: OK, first, I'll just touch on how we got into organic food. We were transitioning to organic food, but that was purely for marketing. My younger brother was born when I was 16 in 2006. My mom got pregnant with my little sister. So, with her being pregnant and being with my little brother was hard on her to manage, physically and mentally.
 
Sadly, my younger brother almost died. He had the cord around his neck, and so I was a nervous wreck about both my mom and the baby. He had a cold front in the room. I guess that's kind of normal, but at that time, which seemed worrisome to me. Yeah, of course. My mom was just feeling really bad all the time. She just had no energy. I hadn't seen her like this.
 
But she really wanted to homeschool her children, which led her to the Institute for the Achievement of Human Potential in Philadelphia, where she taught herself about eating organic, how important it is for the intelligence of the children. Her employers also suggested that if she was experiencing issues with energy, she should try an elimination diet. This involves removing most foods from her diet and gradually reintroducing them to identify which ones might be causing her to feel unwell.
 
Remarkably, in just like a week or two, she was like a different person. I thought, “wow!”. So that's what started the actual journey to being organic. From there we sold organic produce, then we had our raw food cafe, an organic restaurant. At that time, I still wasn't connected with the land. I didn't care about it at all. A few times we almost sold the farm. I was totally happy to let it go and never see it again.
 
NS: The land in Fresno?
 
BS: Fresno, yes. It wasn't until I moved to Santa Barbara, and I really spent time there, and I really spent time in nature and my life kind of slowed down, that I really started to appreciate the land. There are a few reasons why I wanted to move to Santa Barbara. I mean, why I wanted to move to Punjab. One of the biggest reasons is when I was 14 and I came here, my grandmother always asked me, are you going to move here with me one day? I said yes. So that was one of the big reasons, plus I really enjoyed it.
 
Right, so my Nana Ji and my Nani Ji [grandparents from mum’s side], they would spend six months here and six months in Canada.
 
NS: How do you manage to keep this lifestyle so religiously [excuse the pun!], and especially when kids these days are all surrounded by fast food chains like McDonalds, KFC etc. even here in India.
 
BS:  It was a very slow journey. Yeah. I was the last person to accept organic food! I saw my mom change and I was happy for her. But I was still going out and eating at Carl's Jr. and Wendy's and everything else related to fast food. One time I caught an E. coli infection from eating a burger and that was the last straw for me. Then I was like; okay, no more burgers. I'll just eat steaks!
 
I would even go and get a $40 steak at Flemings or treat myself to expensive food which I realized was doing no good for my body and organs and mind. Expensive food wasn’t as good as the organic food from the farm and that corn fed beef was lesser quality. There was also an unfortunate episode where I was involved in three car accidents in three years in a row, so my body became very sensitive. I could feel my pain, I could feel things that were going on, and I started to realize that I was not feeling good when I ate certain type of processed food. After that third car accident, I thought this must be bad luck and I need to get out of here! So, it was a combination of factors that led me to leave Fresno.

NS: You could say that age old saying of “Ou of something bad something good comes out!”, right?
 
BS: I guess so. Bad luck? For sure. yeah. A few months later after that third car accident I was in Santa Barbara. I started a powerful meditation practice and moved there for the best Feng shui of the location. I didn’t want to eat or engage with anything that took away my meditative bliss, so this helped me to stick to organic food and healthy lifestyle habits.
That's ultimately also what brought me to Sikhi. Because I would do lots of practices. I would do sadhana. I would have these sprays and sage. Everything's always keep the perfect environment. But then later, when I started reading the Japji Sahib morning prayer, I noticed; oh, my goodness, like, I'm feeling great all the time now. So, I started seeing how Sikhi, the discipline of Sikhi, everything about it, from keeping our turbans to our face and everything, really helped keep the and in my body.
 
NS: As we know it's not easy in the West to integrate, obviously, because of work and cultural aspects. How do you manage that lifestyle? Do you believe, sometimes being like, if you go back to Canada or something, you may need to reverse back. Are you going to stay in Amritdhari for your whole life?
 
BS: No, I don't feel like I'll ever revert because it was something I wanted since I was there in America. I started the path of sovereignty there. In Santa Barbara, one of my mentors was Dr. Barre Lando, whom I spoke about in one of the reels. He taught me a lot about sovereignty. However, basically, it was just about really being careful with the way I spoke. Really being careful with what I consented to and really making conscientious decisions.
 
NS: Yeah. Interesting. I have seen that you have also been involved in doing charity work and helping locally. Can you tell us a bit more about that?
 
BS: Yes, so my people give donations to us, and we try to give in return. Recently at the haveli we donated 50 blankets to a local charity for the homeless. That's just in the last few weeks that people have started to ask about donating, and especially from overseas. If people donate, then we turn that into goodwill such as distributing food or some other initiative and including education as well. I have music that I want to make. I have books that I want to write.
 
I thought what I really need to do is really help people understand why they need to be eating organic. I wanted to show people where I came from. It is important to note that I didn't come here to do this for gaining likes and shares on social media. The first few years I was here I wasn’t involved with social media because I was focused on doing Vaid seva and working with people one-on-one. Through this I saw the necessity to educate people on my history and why I feel organic food is so important.
 
NS: What's your vision? What's your mission with the work that you're doing, you know helping out communities and educating about Sikhi?
 
BS: So basically, the way I see it is for Punjab. The work I am doing is for the benefit of Punjab’s future. My wish is that people should invest in Punjab’s sustainability – there is a lot to gain from this land. Rather than immigrate to overseas countries, why not invest in your own homeland? This state could become a model for what is cohesive coherent living around the world – we have everything here! Fertile land, organic food, weather, resources, and much more. But most importantly it is the people that will make the difference. Who knows, maybe in 10-15 years this land will prosper.
 
So, this is an excellent opportunity to show how society could function if there are small farmers, how the farmers could be supported, and how the consumers could be supported. Essentially that's really what I want to show. I want to show kind of a model for the work to adopt. Because if we don't have healthy food, if we don't have clean pure food, clean water, and clean air, then we have no choice but to just kind of eventually go into some kind of technological chamber or something and have nanotechnology help our lungs and our eyes and everything.
 
NS: Where do you get organic food here in Punjab? What comes from Punjab?
 
BS: As far as organic goes, nothing. So, Kerala, like different places in India where organic farming is popular is where we get all our bulk staples, you know, all our grains, pulses, oils, spices. We import them here into Punjab.
 
That's why right now I'm building a database, like just recently. Like my social media has only been quite active and kicking off since January 2025. I am in the position now where I can find these organic farms directly because of my work on social media, and people are approaching me to introduce me to these organic farms or shops in Punjab. In the years past, I've gone online, tried to find every database. Many times, when I would arrive there was no farm, and no one knew what I was talking about. That’s when I realized that if I could find organic farmers, I could put together a verified list. Recently, I met an NRI at my local gym in Phagwara who moved back from Australia, and he wants to do organic farming. He informed me that he wants to have goat’s milk and everything. That’s the kind of connection I want to keep on building via my social media because I know there are always going to be people that were going to do this or have a certain need for organic food.
 
NS: How do you find them?
 
BS: That's what the social media is really about. I really want to find these people, and like I said sometimes they approach me and want to show the farm to me. I want to create a database. I want to figure out how can we support these farmers and how can we get this stuff into the hands of people who need it, who are willing to buy it. right now, because everyone needs it. 

​NS: But how can we get it to the hands of people willing to buy? Mind you, it is very lush green here in Punjab, right?
 
BS: Though it may be green here, but it doesn't mean the soil is fertile. So, on my haveli for example, we had to bring a lot of soil in. We brought it from some of these farms I found because we were raising the level of the ground so we could build the big structure, and it would never get flooded. I then tried to grow stuff in that soil, and nothing grew! What you will see in some of the farms here in Punjab is they have these big piles of black fertilizer. One may think that's compost. However, it is not, and what it is, is all this garbage that you see, it gets taken to these big places where they burn in, and then that ash gets brought back to the fields. So, this is all garbage ash. Then they just get into it, and then it looks nice and black; and you may think “wow, this is fertile Punjabi soil!”. Don’t be fooled, it is not.
 
Therefore, yes, I mean the plants are very nice and green. But very few people have the concept of how to build soil. So that's the first thing we need to understand, is how do we increase the organic matter in soil? That's why I believe that permaculture is so important.
 
Because if you're doing fields and crops all the time, you need to disc everything so you can easily seed everything. So, every time you disc it, the organic matter dissolves very quickly. It is an agricultural implement that is used to till the soil where crops are to be planted. It is used to chop up unwanted weeds or crop residue. So, you can have all the old weed, and you can disc it in, and you think, oh, I'm feeding the soil. No, it's just going to dissolve because the sun's going to bear down on it and it's going be next to nothing.
 
So, what you need is layers, and layers that haven't been distant. That itself takes leaving the land alone. But then how do you grow things if you're doing that? That's why we need permaculture for this. Because the growth of organic matter when you do it that way is like 5,000% quicker than if you do it this game. Don’t quote me on that figure though!
 
NS: Is this proven?
 
BS: Yes, there's a documentary you should check out called Symphony of the Soil.
One can learn a lot from watching it because its deep dives into one of the most important life support system components—besides water and air. The documentary is critical in getting a sense of what soil is and what it is composed of. Soil, except for food production, rarely gets mentioned in studies, articles, and documents on Climate Change. It is worth watching and learning about. Once you know the science of soil, anything magic can happen!

NS: So, your plan is to stay here for the foreseeable future?
 
BS: Yes, I really like India. I really like the laws here. The only thing I don't like about is the corruption, and especially when people don’t follow the laws. However, I do believe the laws themselves are great and I think here in India people admire that. I do truly believe that Punjab is the bedrock of agriculture and that we, as Punjabis, can really build something that could truly be a model for the world when it comes to authentic organic food and fertile land. I really like what the Indian government does to protect small farmers, and they do go through various lengths to make sure that people like NRIs for example can't come and just kind of push local people out of their ancestral land.
 
NS: Was there anything else you or Jassa want to say?
 
BS: These days I’m focused on teaching the art of Peaceful Living as per Guru Har Rai. Great value was placed on being prepared, keeping fit and healthy, as well as reciting our sacred bani. Yes, if there is anyone else similar to Jassa who wants to come and stay here with us and learn the different things that I have to teach, meditate and learn rope yoga, then they are welcome to do so.
 
NS: Jassa, can you elaborate a bit more about your experience as how it might pertain to others who might be interested?

JS: Yes, I am from Bradford, and I spent some time in Croydon, south London before I moved to Phagwara and be an understudy to Balraj. Since I have started, I have really noticed a big shift in my mind and my body. Just being here in person and eating organic homemade food, enjoying the fresh rural air and the healthy lifestyle has made a huge difference. Staying away from processed food and refined oils have been a big part of the transformation in lifestyle. The rope yoga has been highly beneficial to align my spine and be able to stand taller.
 
The whole journey of being able to learn Gurmukhi, enjoy a healthy lifestyle, and be able to embrace peace and tranquility has been a gamechanger for me. In terms of strength, the rope yoga poses have helped build muscle and increase strength, have helped improve flexibility and a range of motions, the fresh air has helped breathe more deeply, which can improve lung capacity and reduce anxiety, and most importantly this lifestyle has generally improved my posture.
 
You can follow Balraj’s journey on his Instagram Channel on WatchMeTriumph

​As we say farewell to 2024, it’s clear that aviation has soared to new heights—both figuratively and literally. This year marked pivotal moments for the industry, from the advent of hydrogen-powered aircraft to breakthroughs in sustainable aviation fuel [SAF] and urban air mobility. Yet, 2024 also sadly reminded us of aviation’s inherent challenges, with tragic accidents that underscored the importance of relentless focus on safety. Incidents such as the Jeju Air flight 7C2216, Voepass regional flight 2283, Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2-8243, the collision at Tokyo’s Haneda airport involving a Japan Airlines plane and a Coast Guard aircraft, as well as other accidents served as sobering moments. Each loss deepens our resolve to ensure safer skies. However, in this blog I want to focus on a case that I have taken a special interest in, especially when it comes to the safety of passengers, the crew and the aircraft. 

Since I published my third blog article on February 13—where I highlighted exclusive insights from a whistleblower former Air India captain, who raised serious concerns about Boeing 777-200LR aircraft safety, including allegations of illegal operations and risks of oxygen loss during cabin decompression—I’ve gathered important updates. Let’s dive into these developments and explore what they mean for the future of aviation safety.

​The whistleblower former Air India captain, who is a senior distinguished 30-year veteran of the airline having flown over 7,000 hours and on various aircraft including the Airbus A310, Boeing 777-300ER and the Boeing 777-200LR, found air safety violations in certain route segments related to the leased Boeing 777-200LR aircraft [read this blog and this blog to find out more details on this]. Evidently, the whistleblower captain pointed out these air safety violations to the airline’s senior management on the 22nd of January 2023.

​To his shock, surprise, and sadness, Air India’s senior leadership team didn't agree with him. Furthermore, they had no firm answer to the problem that he had pointed out, and they did not report this flight safety concern raised within the airline to India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation[DGCA] as required by the Civil Aviation Requirement [CAR]’s​ SEC 5 - AIR SAFETY SERIES 'C' PART I Issue II, 20TH OCTOBER 2015 and the CAR SEC 5 – AIR SAFETY SERIES ‘F’ PART I 28th JUNE 1996.

​The whistleblower captain claims that Air India’s management didn't care about resolving his query, which he deemed to be extremely important because Air India’s planning team were putting the lives of passengers and crew at risk by providing flight routes that took these aircraft over high terrain, which is also in violation of DGCA’s CAR on pressurized flights. The whistleblower captain wrote quite a few letters to all members of the airline’s senior leadership team, but he claims that nobody bothered to take any corrective and preventive action from the flight safety point of view [PoV] to safeguard the lives of the passengers and crew which was put in danger on every flight.

As explained in this blog, on that fateful day of the 30th of January 2023, flight AI176 [Callsign “Air India 176 heavy”] from San Francisco [SFO] to Bengaluru [BLR] was planned to be operated using the former Delta Airlines leased Boeing 777-200LR aircraft. The whistleblower captain was provided with a flight plan from the airline's Mumbai Headquarters that would have taken the aircraft over high mountainous terrain and hence would have been deemed illegal to fly the aircraft due to deficiency of stored breathing oxygen for that route as per the SECTION 8 – AIRCRAFT OPERATIONS SERIES O PART II ISSUE II, of the DGCA'S CIVIL AVIATION REQUIREMENTS [CAR].
 
This would have seriously jeopardized flight safety and put the lives of the passengers and crew in danger if the flight would have been operated based on that flight plan. Therefore, because of this reason, he refused to fly the aircraft until the flight plan was amended and until he was 100% confident that the flight was legal and within the limitations of the Flight Planning & Performance Manual [FPPM]. “Even till this day the rest of the pilots are flying these illegal routes for reasons best known to them, possibly due to the management axe dangling over their heads”, said the whistleblower captain.

He wanted to make sure that he had the correct flight plan that would not have put any of his passengers and crew’s lives at risk in case of an event of depressurization.

​Inevitably and sadly the flight got delayed by over seven hours; however, whistleblower captain still managed to operate the flight by extending his Flight Duty Time Limitations [FDTL], so that there was no inconvenience caused to the passengers due to cancellation of that flight.

​Evidently, the whistleblower captain refused to fly the plane because he took the serious responsibility and decision with sheer professionalism and integrity that made sure his passengers, crew and aircraft were safe. This case is very similar in stature to this example of another pilot in 2024 taking the decision not to fly the aircraft because safety was in jeopardy.
 
The Air India whistleblower captain’s story is an excellent example of resilience in action and why aviation is so safe. If the numerous amounts of red tape bureaucratic requirements that must come together to get a commercial flight airborne are met, then pilots have a “Procedural Leadership” role using Standard Operating Procedures [SOPs] to operate that aircraft to its destination. This occurs in the many of the flight operations.

For the remaining flights that it does not occur, such as in this case, where critical requirements are not met, the pilots swap to becoming “trait-based” servant leaders, engaging their resilience and collaboration skills to resolve each problem to a successful conclusion. These skills are not taught in the simulator or at flight training schools but are built from world-class leadership.
 
These skills also include listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people, and building community. The whistleblower captain maintained all these skills in this moment of hardship that he faced. He made the choice to put the safety of his passengers, crew, and aircraft before anything else.
 
After he finally operated and landed the flight in Bengaluru, he requested that the airline’s senior leadership should not reinstate [roster] him on those sectors which operate the leased Boeing 777-200LR aircraft [note these aircraft have only 12 minutes of stored breathing oxygen on routes, and that is insufficient on the high terrain routes that these aircraft operate].

Sadly, the airline’s management immediately grounded him for the next three months during which he wrote letters to the senior leadership team, including to Mr. Natarajan Chandrasekaran, the Chairman and Managing Director of Tata Sons of the Tata group of companies. However, in return for blowing the whistle, Air India terminated his services on the 9th of May 2023 without conducting any enquiry and hence he claims that his termination was illegal and one of unfair dismissal.

​After his dismissal, he sent a formal complaint to the DGCA on the 29th of October 2023 and continued to write further letters as there was no response from the DGCA. In his opinion, the DGCA did a “shoddy job” of investigating his complaint. Ultimately, instead of taking any serious actions against the airline, the DGCA imposed a fine of just approx. USD 130K for only one violation [i.e. one flight] through an order dated the 24th of January 2024. “Despite this, all of Air India’s flights operating the leased Boeing 777-200LR aircraft have been continuing to violate the law of the land,” said the whistleblower captain.
 
“These are illegal operations on those routes and are continuing to be flown without a blink of an eyelid because the DGCA have turned a blind eye to this and are completely ignoring the danger this poses to the lives of the passengers and crew it is causing,” continued the whistleblower captain.

​The whistleblower captain claims that the then Chief Flight Operations Inspector [CFOI], Captain Vivek Chhabra, "tried to save Air India’s face due to his vested interests", and in return he got terminated by the then Director General, Vikram Dev Dutt, citing "administrative grounds and in public interest" and “confidential inputs" as his actual termination order was out in the media. On the same day, the DGCA gave a press release about the order imposing a fine of approx. USD 130K on Air India. However, the DGCA still didn’t release the actual copy of that order to the other stakeholders to increase safety awareness.

Now, according to the whistleblower captain, this can’t be far from the truth, because Captain Pankul Mathur, Air India’s Director of Flight Operations, and Vivek Chhabra know each other as they have been good friends since they were both classmates at India’s prestigious flight school, Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Uran Akademi [IGRUA], and furthermore, the whistleblower captain has claimed that Vivek Chhabra 's wife flies the Boeing 777-200LR aircraft for Air India, after she was made redundant from Jet Airways when that airline ceased operations in April 2019. 

“Captain Vivek Chhabra has been an Air India employee for more than 25 years and was on deputation* from Air India to the DGCA working as a CFOI, and therefore there was conflict of interest plus vested interests due to his spouse also being employed with Air India," said the whistleblower captain.
 
“All the captains that currently fly these leased Boeing 777-200LR aircraft are aware of these serious violations on these routes and are still flying them. Why? Because they feel they have no choice and are being oppressed by Air India’s management. They are aware they have made an example of me. In that if you complain, then you will also lose your job with Air India,” said the whistleblower captain.

Hypoxia—a condition caused by insufficient oxygen at high altitudes—remains one of the most critical threats to aviation safety. Even a brief loss of cabin pressure can incapacitate both passengers and crew, making stored breathing oxygen systems a life saving necessity. This is why the whistleblower captain’s allegations regarding Air India's Boeing 777-200LR operations deserve serious attention. His claims highlight routes over high terrain where insufficient stored oxygen would render survival nearly impossible during depressurization emergencies.

​The blog delves into this pressing issue to shed light on aviation safety standards and the responsibilities of airlines and regulators. By refusing to operate flights under potentially illegal and dangerous conditions, the captain demonstrated unparalleled professionalism and commitment to passenger safety. Understanding the risks of hypoxia and ensuring adequate oxygen systems are not just regulatory requirements—they are moral imperatives for safeguarding lives in the sky.

​While pilots undergo training to recognize and respond to the signs of hypoxia, passengers typically lack the knowledge or preparation to manage oxygen deficiencies effectively. Ensuring the availability of stored aviation oxygen systems aboard aircraft plays a crucial role in maintaining passenger safety and well-being, particularly in emergencies involving cabin depressurization. These systems serve as a vital safeguard, providing an immediate supply of breathable air and mitigating the risks associated with high-altitude operations.

​The whistleblower captain is sure that a lot of revenue has been illegally generated by flying these routes daily for at least a couple of years at the cost of endangering the lives of the unsuspecting and innocent passengers and crew.
 
“This is a botched-up investigation by the DGCA who were still allowing the leased Boeing 777-200LR aircraft to operate on these routes till date with impunity, where it is illegal to fly according to Indian aviation regulations. Air India, for reasons best known to them have leased these aircraft and are committing a white-collar crime daily and are getting away with it,” said the whistleblower captain.

The whistleblower captain told me that he had no option but to go to the Mumbai High court to appeal against DGCA’s ineffective order, which he tried to acquire by repeatedly requesting through Right to Information [RTI] but never got it from the DGCA. This is an order on air safety which should have been immediately disseminated to all stakeholders by the DGCA themselves for the purposes of air safety awareness amongst them to make aviation safer in the public’s interest. This is the general rule in aviation.
 
In court, the whistleblower captain had explicit permission from the judges to legally represent himself as a technical aviation subject matter expert. This was as advised by the judges because even though he had an advocate on record to represent him, the judges wanted to understand the merits of the case and thought it would be best if the whistleblower captain can himself clearly explain technical terms and have the chance to turn complexity into simplicity. 

The judges were kind enough to grant four dates in quick succession considering the gravity of the situation [these were the 9th, 12th, 14th, and the 16th of December 2024], which was for a wider social cause in public interest. Also, the judges listened to his concerns and took down appropriate notes since the advocates are not equipped with adequate knowledge about the technical aspects of aviation. 

​The whistleblower captain told me that the division bench of two judges patiently listened over many grueling sessions where the captain himself explained all the nuances and technical details of the case. In a landmark case, and a remarkable turn of events, the whistleblower captain told me that this division bench of two judges fully understood these fine technical details as simplified in layman terms by the whistleblower captain.
 
The whistleblower captain told me that the judges took a keen interest in this case, and this was exemplified by the fact that they asked quite a few questions. The judges questioned Air India’s senior counsel along with Air India’s Chief Pilot for the Boeing 777 aircraft fleet and the senior flight dispatcher to satisfy them with the questions posed to them based on the knowledge they had now acquired about the technicalities of the subject matter in the aviation. 

​This session started on the 18th of December 2024 in the afternoon after lunch at 2.30pm Indian Standard Time [IST] but the judges sat until 7pm IST in the court, way past their normal working hours. They went above and beyond their job duty ending time, which was 4.45pm IST because they wanted to gain satisfactory answers to the questions posed by them to Air India’s senior counsel, Chief Pilot, and his senior flight dispatcher.
 
In the end, the whistleblower captain had a prima facie made out case against Air India on the merits, and hence the judges gave a choice to the Air India senior counsel to either accept a reasoned order with all the details of the arguments and observation made by the all the parties in court if they would still want to contest this matter in court or to concede to sign consent terms where all the contentions would be kept open in the ensuing DGCA enquiry. 

​On the following day – the 19th of December 2024 – Air India’s senior counsel came back with a draft of consent terms to the court after taking instructions from the client, Air India and the DGCA.
 
The whistleblower captain says, “The Honorable High Court ordered – by the consent of all parties – the DGCA to re-investigate this case by conducting an enquiry based on principles of natural justice and to also involve the whistleblower captain [i.e. the complainant]”.
 
“What I find completely mind boggling is that astonishingly both the DGCA and Air India have openly lied in court under oath, which amounts to perjury and committed forgery. Why? Because there is clear evidence that they have submitted false claims under an affidavit to save their skin. If true, then I strongly believe this is a serious crime committed by Air India and the DCCA because they are coming with unclean hands to the Honorable High Court and trying to mislead the Honorable Court to hide a bigger crime just to take the order in their favor. It is like doing something wrong and then taking advantage of their wrongdoing which is not allowed in law. What kind of logic is that? And why would anyone do that?” the whistleblower captain said.

According to evidence I have seen from websites such FlightRadar24.com and from charts that the captain shared, even today, the illegal and dangerous flights using these leased Boeing 777-200LR aircraft are being operated. In fact, Sam Chui, a well-known blogger, also documented one of these flights on the leased Boeing 777-200LR aircraft, as can be viewed here.

​The whistleblower captain strongly believes that this is a conscientious duty of everyone in the industry, including the Air India and the DGCA, to have these flights injuncted due to the lurking danger of the depressurization event which may occur at any time unannounced, and cause irreparable damage to the unsuspecting and innocent passengers and the crew due to lack of sufficient stored breathing oxygen being carried on the aircraft which will last only for 12 minutes during the event of a depressurization. 

As mentioned above that the DGCA has imposed a fine of approx. USD 130K for only one flight whereas all the flights on the leased Boeing 777-200LR aircraft have been illegal and dangerous as claimed by the Petitioner [i.e. the whistleblower captain]. This, as mentioned, has been overlooked by the DGCA while determining the penalty as after the first offence is committed by operating a flight based on an illegal flight plan, then the second offence within a span of five years cannot be compounded as per the Sec 12A (1) and 12A (2) of The Indian Aircraft Act,1934 reads:

“(1) Notwithstanding anything contained in the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (2 of 1974), any offence punishable under sections 10,11,11A,11B and section 12 or under any rules made thereunder, may be compounded, either before or after the institution of any prosecution, by the Director General of Civil Aviation or Director General of Bureau of Civil Aviation Security or Director General of Aircraft Accidents Investigation Bureau, as the case may be, in such manner as the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, make rules.
 
(2) Nothing contained in sub-section (1) shall apply to an offence committed by a person for the second time or thereafter within a period of five years from the date of commission of a similar offence which was earlier compounded or for which such person was earlier convicted”.

After the first complaint of the Petitioner [i.e. the whistleblower captain] dated the 29th of October 2024 to the DGCA a show cause notice was sent to the company Air India’s Accountable manager seeking a reply to the complaint of the whistle blower captain on the 2nd of November 2023. This fact has been suppressed in the Affidavit of Reply of both the Respondents i.e. Air India and the DGCA to the Honorable High Court.
 
Also, there were emails and annexures which were exchanged after the reply of Air India to the above-mentioned show cause notice which were being handled by the CFOI Vivek Chhabra which have also been suppressed and has no mention in their Affidavit-in-Reply of Air India nor the Affidavit-in-Reply of the DGCA to the Honorable Court. These documents can clearly incriminate Air India for willfully and deliberately conducting these illegal flights to earn huge revenue at the cost of endangering the lives of passengers and crew, as per the whistleblower captain.

If pilots perceive that critical requirements have not been met, they refuse to depart – simple as that really. No other person in an airline is endowed with the massive responsibility and situational awareness of the combined issues, the methods and responsibility and authority to resolve them, as the Pilot-In-Command [PIC].

All of the decisions are prompted by the straightforward and essential legal responsibility by the PIC for the safety of the passengers, crew, and the aircraft. This is the very reason the whistleblower captain took that ultimate decision not to operate that flight. If we look at some of the world’s biggest air crashes, each one of those pilots would not have got on those flights had they known that there is a serious risk to life in operating those flights. 

Pilots refuse to fly for safety and valid reasons - they may be refusing to the dispatchers, engineers, senior management, Chief Pilot or even the CEO. These are no doubt tough decisions, sometimes alone with extraordinarily little support. However, as a leader one must use professional judgement and integrity when making such decisions to make sure there are successful safety results.

Some of the best pilots have stepped up in history and refused to fly, even when there has not been psychological safety to do so. Just as a CEO of a company is responsible, in an analogous way, pilots are responsible for safety, accountable to their company and assume unlimited authority to keep their passengers safe. This is why aviation is so safe.

The whistleblower captain's story highlights a disturbing pattern of possible negligence and corruption within Air India and the DGCA – though this cannot be proved. Despite repeated warnings and complaints, the airline and regulatory body risks failing to take adequate action, prioritizing revenue over safety.
           
The whistleblower captain's concerns are escalating as the DGCA remains silent on the enquiry's commencement date, despite passing this order on the 19th of December 2024.
 
The whistleblower captain's apprehensions are valid, given the severity of the safety violations, which could lead to catastrophic consequences, including loss of life, especially in the event of a depressurization emergency. The case has so far ignited questions about what the DGCA and Air India have done to improve its safety and quality record of these leased Boeing 777-200LR aircraft.

Will the DGCA and Air India take immediate action to address the safety concerns and prevent potential disasters? Or will the Ministry of Civil Aviation intervene to ensure compliance with laws and regulations and prioritize passenger safety?
 
The question also remains whether the DGCA will do their due diligence and provide all the relevant documents to the whistleblower captain? That initiative can only be in the best interests of the DGCA in making a strong case against Air India. However, it must be said that the order of the Honourable High Court dated the 19th of December 2024 clearly spells out the same.
 
The DGCA's radio silence when it comes to taking any action is indeed puzzling, especially considering the Mumbai High Court's urgency in hearing the matter, with six hearings in just ten days. This highlights the significance of the issue and its impact on public interest. The court's prompt attention underscores the need for swift action to ensure passenger safety.

“The DGCA's failure to specify the actual violation and prohibit Air India from flying them in the first order raises questions about their commitment to safety. The DGCA and the Ministry of Civil Aviation's silence on this matter is quite surprising, as they are responsible for ensuring compliance with laws like the Indian Aircraft Act 1934 and Indian Aircraft Rules 1937”, said the whistleblower captain. “The upcoming enquiry's fairness and impartiality are also uncertain, as some DGCA officials may be implicated in the reinvestigation.”
 
Only time will reveal the outcome of this situation, but one thing is certain – the safety of passengers, the crew members, the aircraft, and anyone else that may be affected, should be the top priority. Let us hope that we have a safe and secure 2025 for aviation.

During the Farnborough Airshow 2024, Air India proudly showcased its Airbus A350-900 in the new livery, as the carrier aims to become a major player in the global aviation scene. The aircraft, registered VT-JRH, was the first one built for the airline, and was on static display for the three days at the airshow, having arrived as a ferry flight on the 21st of July from Delhi to Farnborough, via a short stop at London Gatwick [piloted by airline veteran Captain Sameer Bagai.].

I had the honor and pleasure to be invited to tour the aircraft twice during the airshow, and met the crew, including the senior pilots and the cabin crew, as well as the senior leadership team from Air India and the Tata Group, including the CEO Campbell Wilson. The Farnborough Airshow happens every two years and is typically a platform for plane makers to rack up multibillion-dollar deals [here is my review of the 2022 show!].

The aircraft, along with another, has so far been deployed on mostly domestic routes for crew familiarization, and did operate a passenger flight to Dubai recently as well. Both these planes have been flown by Air India or Airbus examiners on short rides between Mumbai—Bangalore—Hyderabad, and Chennai to gain landing cycles and release pilots after their check rides so that Air India has an approved pool of pilots to take these planes abroad. Aside from Captain Bagai, the other senior Air India pilots on this visit were Captain Prateek Dhiman and Captain Aditya Chopra. The crew members flew the aircraft back to London Gatwick on July 24, and then as the first scheduled flight from Gatwick to New Delhi as AI148.

I must admit that I have not had the fortune to travel on Air India [ever!], and the last time I went to India was in 1998, so may opinion of Air India and this aircraft is based on my experience of this aircraft alone. Therefore, I am in no position to comment whether any transformation is or is not happening.

However, what I can say is that in relation to other airlines and other passenger aircraft [not just at Farnborough, that I have experienced travelling in], this aircraft has a very modern, clean, and sleek and stylish feel to it. This is not just because it is a relatively new aircraft, but one can see that there has been an effort by the airline to really bring about the best of Indian hospitality and a truly five-star experience for passengers!

As a passenger and visitor, you can feel that there is hardly any difference in the cabin's ambiance, seating, and in-flight experience compared to some of the world's best airlines in the Middle East or the Far East. 

​Within the space and density envelope of the long-haul cabin, this is both a marked improvement over the previous generation and stands Air India at the forefront of its full-service carrier competition.

Air India has made excellent choices in the seat CMF (color, materials and finish) and in the wider cabin: yes, it’s essentially a modern A350-900 but this is one of the best-looking of its ilk.

​Since its takeover by Tata Group in 2022, Air India has taken huge steps to become a major player on the global aviation scene. Tata also jointly owns Vistara Airlines along with Singapore Airlines. Additionally, the group is merging low-cost carrier subsidiaries Air India Express and the former AirAsia India business.

Air India placed a huge order for 470 aircraft with Airbus and Boeing in 2023. The firm order included 70 widebodies, comprising 34 Airbus A350-1000s and six A350-900s, and 20 Boeing 787s and 10 777Xs.

​On top of this the airline is striving to become a leader not just in providing a truly five-star customer experience, from booking a flight to collecting your baggage, but is also looking to push the boundaries of world class safety in aviation. This is going to be a huge challenge, especially as India’s Tata Group, which owns Air India, has ambitious plans to merge Air India and Vistara Airlines as part of efforts to streamline operations and provide a consistent customer experience. 

During a roundtable discussion at Farnborough, Air India's CEO Campbell Wilson described the integration of four airlines into two as [I quote]: “probably unprecedented” in the aviation industry, with plans to finalize both transactions by the end of 2024. “There are the competition and legal clearances, then we have to merge all the operating practices, procedures and manuals, and train all the staff. It's a very long and convoluted process, but we’re hoping that by the end of this calendar year we’ll be able to complete both mergers.” Said Wilson.

Below are some exclusive shots of the cockpit. Also, which you can click here to view a short video.

The A350 has 28 seats in Business Class via a 1-2-1 configuration. These are Collins Aerospace Horizon seats with 79 inch width and 48 inch pitch, which are convertible to a fully-flat bed. The Collins Aerospace Horizon seats debuted on the Aeroflot version of the aircraft and have been inherited by Turkish Airlines and Air India. Click here to read more about the seat configuration.

24 seats in Premium Economy in a 2-4-2 configuration, each with a 38 inch pitch seat, and 264 seats in Economy via a 3-3-3 configuration. Collins Aspire Seats with 31 inch pitch. Click here to read more about the seat configuration.

Some fun facts about the A350-900, according to Airbus are: It's quiet, it's quick, and it has a low cabin altitude.

The Airbus A350 is noticeably quieter than other aircraft in the cruise, and I have noticed that it is probably on the same par of quietness as the A380 [you can seriously hear passengers talking on the other side of the aisle!]. The Airbus A350 travels a lot faster than most of the widebody planes flying at the moment. It’s faster than both the Boeing 777 and the Airbus A330 [!] but is slower than the Boeing 747, which sadly is a dying breed. 

Because the fuselage is made from a carbon-fibre composite plastic rather than aluminium, the cabin can be pressurised more. Essentially that means that the cabin altitude is lower. On an Airbus A350, you can be flying at 35,000 to 40,000 feet, but the cabin will be at around 5,500 feet. (On a conventional aluminium aircraft, the cabin will be around 7,500-8,000 feet.). This helps with the effects of jet lag and how you feel after a flight, too. So these three things – quietness, quickness, and the low cabin altitude – all combine to make passengers feel better in the cabin and after the flight!

The airline has definitely projected a very strong, fresh and positive image at the Farnborough Air Show 2024 with their Airbus A350-900. This is a new era for the Maharajah, and hopefully the passengers can truly enjoy the former motto of "Your Palace in the Sky" when flying with Air India. JRD Tata, former chairman of the Tata Group and the founder of Tata Airlines, which went on to become Air India was determined to make it the best airline in the world. To him, Air India wasn’t just an airline, but a symbol and proud carrier of India’s image across the world, and I believe and can feel that the Tata Group are doing everything they can to keep his legacy and vision alive. The future is exciting for Air India. 

I have just finished reading The Old Bold Pilot — a Pilot's Journey by captain Shakti Lumba and captain Priyanka Arora. 

“Ladies and gentleman, boy and girls…sit back, relax and enjoy the flight!” You’ve heard the announcement from the captain, but have you ever wondered what it's really like working in the front in the cockpit? These days, passengers are now prohibited from entering the cockpit during flight. Some aircraft are also equipped with CCTV cameras, so the pilots can monitor cabin activity, and some aircraft have extra gates to prevent anyone from entering the cockpit.

Industry veteran captain Shakti Lumba — a pilot with over 40 years experience, who retired as IndiGo's vice president and had before that headed Alliance Air as well as being a union leader, has recently penned his memoirs to present to the lay reader a peek into Indian aviation through his personal journey. In this book, captain Lumba once again takes you beyond that locked door to see what the aviation industry is really like, and was like in India, and what real airline pilots do while you’re invited to “sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight.” 

Captain Lumba shares intimate details with typical humor and candor, and some interesting details, too that have not been heard of before. As captain Lumba describes it, this book is ‘many years of writing and six decades in the making’. It comes highly recommended!

Captain Lumba, thank you very much for the time you have taken to do an interview with me about your work and life. I have read your book with interest, and it is remarkable that you have written this book from memory and the notes on your iPhone, as all your original flying logbooks and personal notes were destroyed by termites (sorry to read about that!). So, thanks for your time. It is the first time I have come across a book about aviation in India, and that written by an Indian. There may be others that I have not come across; so, excited that I have got my hands on this!

Nav Singh [NS]: You are quite known for your passion, knowledge, and deep opinions about everything related to aviation and the safety, but what is the root cause of that? Where does this constant thirst for answers come from?

Shakti Lumba [SL]: Nav, firstly, thank you very much for having me on your blog. It is an absolute pleasure, and glad you enjoyed my book! My passion for aviation started when I was two years old after my father sadly passed away and my mother – making sure that I did not become sad – told me that he had gone to live in the sky with the stars! From there on then, I vowed to fly and bring him back. For me, the thirst for aviation related knowledge started with reading fiction about aviation. Works such as Biggles, Richard Bach, and Ernest K Gann kept me involved until I actually started flying and realised that knowledge was as important part, just as important as the flying skillset. 

On top of that, the thirst for knowledge led me to do a lot of reading about the airline and general aviation industry, including flying techniques. RAF AP 129 was my go-to book in regards to building up my aviation knowledge along with books on airline management. 

Books such as Safe Airline by John Michael Ramsden and Staying Current: A Proficiency Guide for Serious Pilots by Dan Manningham kept me on track. Later during my career, when I got involved with the pilot’s union and represented a pilot in a court of inquiry, which looked into the crash of a Boeing 737 aircraft in Ahmedabad in 1988, it really hit me regarding the the ICAO annexures! As time went, I learnt to fly with the mind and then use my hands and feet to remain safe and professional: the reverse usually leads to disaster!

NS: You refer to IndiGo as a fledgling carrier…why fledging?

​SL: During the five years I was with IndiGo Airlines, from a startup in 2005 until I left in February 2010, it was a fledging airline with ambitions to be India’ largest with just over 40 aircraft. Although, in total it had over 300 aircraft on order! Today, I am proud to say that it is India’s most profitable airline, and the largest operator of Airbus A320 family of aircraft.

NS: You mention in your book about a Boeing 737 flight in 1983 with two captains disagreed and that resulted in an accident (landing gear not retracted) and you say that this could not happen these days, but it does seem to be quite common. 

SL: They agreed but simply the pilot in command (PIC) forgot to lower the undercarriage, while the pilot not flying realized and kept quiet until the last minute. At about two hundred feet (minimums), he pointed out there was no gear, and the pilot flying flipped the gear lever to extend the gear. The gear came down but as it had not locked down properly, it folded with the airplane settling on its engines. Such an accident is not expected to happen these days because the landing gear unsafe warning gets an input from App/Land flaps and radio altimeter. However, to the aviation world’s shock, it did sadly happen a few years ago– an incident with PIA on flight 8303 in 2020 did exactly that and killed ninety-seven passengers, and studies have shown that it may happen again. 

That can only happen if there is a total breakdown in CRM, and if the checklist is not diligently followed by the crew or if there is some kind of mechanical partial gear failure. 

Also, note that a landing without a gear can be done safely provided the aircraft has low fuel and the plane is glided down gently – so it is not so dangerous, but the aircraft will [in most cases] be written off! There was a case of an Indian Airlines Airbus A300 that ran out of fuel after diverting from Hyderabad with flaps and slats stuck after a missed approach. The captain made a what we call a “gear up dead stick landing” in a paddy field. In that incident there were thankfully no injuries. So that shows the fantastic airmanship of flying a A300 wide body like a glider by stick and rudder only. It has also been achieved with a Boeing 767 LOT Polish Airlines flight 16 in November 2011 in Warsaw.

NS: Now, regarding the Japan Airlines Flight 516 [JAL516] crash in January 2024 – many aviation experts have commented that such an incident could have resulted in fatalities if it had been in another country, such as India for example. This may be due to passengers taking time to get out or taking their belongings etc. – what are your thoughts on that? What would have been the case if it happened in India?

​SL: Unmitigated disaster: the pre-departure safety briefing provided on Air India for example is totally inadequate for flight safety in my opinion. Meanwhile, the Japan Airlines safety video actually shows passengers how to evacuate and enforces the point not to take hand baggage on case of an emergency. 

NS: In your opinion, is Indian aviation safe, if not safer in 2024?

SL: The Indian aviation industry is statically safe simply because of how that safety is measured. In actual fact, the largest number of aircraft type operated in India is the Airbus A320 family. This aircraft is very pilot friendly, forgiving and can literally fly itself if it has to! In my opinion, there is a clear and present risk of pilots losing their ability of basic flying skills because the operators mandate is to use the autopilot after take-off till moments before landing. In some airline companies, they have a simple rule about engaging the autopilot on the A320: not before 100 feet and only after 300 feet (~5 seconds) after rotation from the runway. This begs the question, “how do you keep up your skillsets of manual and visual flying if the machine is doing everything?” The answer? You don’t. This to my mind is a huge safety risk if the automatic functions and systems fail. 

Another safety risk relates to the Flight and Duty Time Limitation [FDTL] prescriptive limits as per ICAO which operators schedule pilot to. This includes the maximum flight duty, unlimited daily duty and minimum legal rest time. The recent amendments to FDTL have given some respite but the carriers are up in arms! Therefore, in my opinion, Indian aviation is destined for growth but there is the risk of reduced regulatory oversight and the system working at it limits. Somethings got to give. The issue is increase in wakefulness and lack of sleep. 

Fatigue has also been identified in several other major aircraft accidents as either a cause or a contributing factor (National Transportation Safety Board [NTSB], 2000, 2001, 2010; Libyan Civil Aviation Authority, 2013). In addition, aviation policies reflect the importance of fatigue in aviation safety. Since 1972, more than two hundred safety recommendations issued by the NTSB focused on fatigue (Marcus and Rosekind, 2017). 

Moreover, pilot fatigue has been on the NTSB’s most wanted list of safety-related priorities since 1990 (Caldwell, 2012). These policies do not seem to have resulted in a significant improvement; however, as 23% of major aviation accidents between 2001 and 2012 were attributed to fatigue, compared with 21% in a 1980 study (Lyman and Orlay, 1981; Marcus and Rosekind, 2017).

A very illustrating example of fatigue and its effect on the safe piloting of an aircraft is provided by the 2010 crash of Air India Express Flight 812, which crashed upon landing in Mangalore, costing the life of 158 of the 166 people on-board. Residual sleepiness and impaired judgement were believed to have contributed to this accident, as the cockpit voice recorder indicated that the captain had been asleep for the first hour and 40 minutes of the 2 hours and 5 minutes flight (Court of Inquiry India, 2010). According to the NTSB, this was the first instance of snoring recorded on a cockpit voice recorder! Therefore, in my opinion, fatigue is a clear and present danger to safety of aircraft operations. 

NS: There has been quite a lot of discussion about five B777-200LR aircraft, leased by Air India from Delta Air Lines, with oxygen issues as per this link, what are your thoughts on this on-going saga and the strained relations between Air India’s senior pilots & management?

SL: For flights over mountainous terrain with limited passenger oxygen in case of depressurization/ 50% power loss, escape routes must be provided in the flight plan so that the pilot-in-command (PIC) can choose a route that is safe so that passengers can have enough oxygen supply without harm. The issue is that Air India does not provide the crew with escape routes in the flight plan and expects the PIC to decide on an escape plan on the fly.

Another issue is that Air India’s leadership prohibits pilots from joining a trade union or associations. It is only airline in the country where every airline pilot is dissatisfied because of bad management, corporate bullying and other such actions which do not make it a safe airline to fly with and are not cohesive to safe operations.

NS: Competition from Middle Eastern and Asian carriers is stiff, but with your vast experience, what do you think needs to be done to make Air India one of the best airlines in the world again? Are they (the management) doing what they should be doing? 

SL: I would say that Tata’s style of management is purely production related in order to generate revenue and focus on profits first and is not focused on the customers or their staff – both their internal and external customers.

NS: Now, coming to the important topic of fatigue and sleep: we have been reading a lot about pilots sadly dying because of the extensive hours they have worked because of a lack of sleep. Why is this happening a lot now than before in your opinion and what could be done to fix such things that are “ailing Indian aviation” according to analysts?

SL: As I mentioned in detail above, airlines treat pilots like bots these days! Poor crew scheduling and poor HR policies and procedures are the biggest headaches for pilots. Just like in any other industry, pilots don’t leave a company, they leave bad bosses! The issue of work/life balance does not exist, and it is not even considered as a human requirement. The management consider pilot reporting fatigue as malingering.

NS: Would it be fair to say that your career was more about your passion and dream of flying rather than the money? What are your thoughts about the youth of today who want to enter aviation because of the big bucks rather than the passion of flying (take some Middle Eastern and Chinese carriers for example)? I am saying this because you see plenty of young airline pilots flaunting their newly found wealth on Instagram or Twitter (wearing a Breitling
watch, driving luxury cars or showing off about drinking expensive whiskey etc…).

SL: Yes, that would be a fair comment to make. For me it was all about passion, as we weren’t paid well, until at least 1996 (!) My salary only got boosted after my negotiation with the pilot’s union. However, it was based on work more, earn more. I was quite busy with office-based work and with that I could only get on average approximately 60 hours at most per month. However, I was content and happy, and I prioritized my happiness, heath and needs over wants.

The guys you talk about we called (Equated Monthly Installment) EMI pilots, who loved (or still love!) buying snazzy cars and fancy goods on EMI equated monthly instalments: as their wants increased, so did their debt!

NS: You have at first hand seen many colorful airlines come and go (Kingfisher, Jet Airways, Alliance Air [merged with AI], ModiLuft, Vayudoot etc. because of financial woes), what, in your opinion, is the missing secret sauce for India to have a successful world-class airline that can be stable and provide an exceptional customer and safety experience? (i.e., how to make the likes of SIA, EK, QR jealous etc…)

SL: Initially, I helped to merge Vayudoot into Indian Airlines: Alliance was a subsidiary of Indian Airlines that I started – it was my baby, like IndiGo. Now, Modiluft was an air taxi service using a Boeing 737-200 and a Boeing 737-200, which eventually became Spice Jet (they are always short of cash, and that is in their DNA!). 

Sahara, Kingfisher Airlines and Jet Airways went down into bankruptcy due to promoters skimming their airlines after they went public. The secret sauce to having a successful airline is to be well capitalized from start and make low cost as your mantra and your philosophy, and this should not be your strategy when times are tough. IndiGo keeps costs in control and seldom sells below costs and therefore it is quite profitable. Now, with Tata, Air India will bring no profits for at least 10-12 years (yes, you read that right…years!) and for that they do need to get their act together.

NS: The merger of Air India and Indian Airlines, coupled with the unviable decision to purchase 111 new aircraft, contributed to the downfall of Air India, said the Minister of Civil Aviation, Jyotiraditya Scindia a few years back. Despite all else, it was clear that Indian Airlines was doing well as a profitable airline, but since the late 1980s, Air India started making losses…so any ideas why were they merged together? And any lessons we can learn today?

SL: This merger was a merger of chalk and cheese and would never have worked. Only now it was somewhat stabilizing and then Tata took over. Now they are merging four airlines into two. Regarding the aircraft orders, I was one of the few who supported it. The airline needed new aircraft, or it would have drowned. The kicker in the pack was a very badly negotiated deal by novices. The government withdrew sovereign guarantees, so Air India ended up taking loans at commercial rates up to 16% interest (!). Can you imagine? It is crazy! Knuckleheads, in my opinion.

NS: Please tell us about Laksh farms and foundation, and anything you want the readers to know.

SL: Laksh Farms is named after my dearly departed mother. Her name was Lakshmi and my father used to call her ‘Laksh’ which became her pet name. The book describes how I found it and developing it into a successful farm. was a great labor of love – I often say that it is my third startup! My wife and I have created a beautiful natural heavenly place, which we are now proud to call home. It is nestled in a valley in the Aravalli range and has great energy and good vastu (home). It was developed from a total waste land that I bought in 1997 and I turned it into paradise, planted over 2,000 trees, ornamentals, mangoes, chikoo fruit (Sapodilla), citrus and ambles. 

One visitor described Laksh as “one doesn’t need to die to see heaven. Just visit Laksh farms”.

The farm, besides being an agricultural farm with a dairy, chicken, geese, rabbits, is also a farm stay and open for bookings for a farm day. We practice natural farming, and at Laksh we also have the fabulous The Laksh Foundation in Haryana, India. This is a women self-help group and includes the Laksh Foundation Education Society. The education society provides free post school tutorials to around 1,200 kids in five neighboring villages. 

As a small NGO, organic farm and women’s sewing co-operative, it also began to offer free education to the children of local farm workers, offering them a way to improve their futures – and this is where we partnered with Warwick University, one of the UK's leading universities, with an acknowledged reputation for excellence in research, teaching, and innovation.

Warwick worked with the Foundation since the beginning and have helped to shape our teaching programmes over time, until at least the start of the Pandemic.

Warwick would send 12 volunteers during the summer holidays for three months for a teach the teacher program. In this program we were able to develop 40 of the brightest kids into educators who teach the kids and also learn to graduate in the Open University program. The foundation is a charitable foundation and is totally dependent on family and friend support. 

We have a computer lab for students and have tied up a weekly visit by a group of doctors who spend half a day at our village, Mangar, for medical consultation and provision of medicines for poor villagers.

Laksh is our small way of giving back to society and nature from whom we took so much till retirement: Laksh is our home and was one of the best decisions I took to avoid the rat race and the hustle and bustle of city life. We are only an hour away from Delhi, Noida, Gurgaon and Faridabad yet set in tranquil settings – so near and yet so far! Bouquets and brickbats as we say. 

NS: Has India seen more near misses and collisions than other major aviation hubs/global average?

SL: Not at all. As air traffic increases in the limited airspace, incidents of reduced separation are not only common but are not alarming and fall within the very low risk statistical average. There are risk mitigation options, both human and non-human. The whole issue comes under Communication Navigation Surveillance and the Air Traffic Management (CNS/ATM). 

The most common human factor is fatigue in the cockpit or in the control tower with overworked and exhausted controllers and pilots.

We need to bring in more stringent fatigue management and fatigue risk management laws with penalties for aircraft operators & air traffic control (ATC) managers. This is the responsibility of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), which they unfortunately do not take as seriously as other safety regulators because of the commercial pressure from aircraft operators and the Airport Authority of India [AAI] who manage the CNS/ATM. A shortage of pilots and controllers adds to longer duty time, reduced rest and increased fatigue.

NS: Who is to blame for such instances? Airlines, airports, or ground staff authorities?

SL: In aviation, we don't play the blame game only look for the probable cause and learn from any incidents.

NS: How can that gap be filled and who must fill it?

SL: The only logical answer is to increase the airspace and improve surveillance by satellites. Air India and the DGCA are under no pressure to bring is proper laws to properly manage the fatigue issues for pilots and controllers. 

NS: Mr. Lumba, thank you very much for spending time to share your thoughts. It has been an absolute pleasure having you on my blog!
​
SL: You are welcome. The pleasure is mine. Thanks a lot, Nav!

Since I published my blog yesterday – where I highlighted some unique insights relating to a whistleblower Air India captain, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and who raised concerns with the airline about passenger and aircraft safety [claiming they're flying illegally] – a couple of interesting things have happened.
 
Firstly, we heard that Captain Vivek Chhabra, the Chief Flight Operations Inspector [CFOI] has been fired rather unceremoniously by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
 
Secondly, on top of this, the DGCA fined Air India over US$132,000 for safety violations on some of its ultra-long-haul flights to the US. This has happened, as per my understanding, after an internal investigation carried out by the DGCA. The aviation watchdog slapped the fine on Air India for flouting rules with respect to flights operated on certain long routes over vast stretches of mountainous terrain.

​According to the whistleblower captain "if the DGCA had included the complainant (the whistleblower captain) in the investigation, then no stones would have been left unturned. For reasons best known to the DGCA, they have ensured that the complainant (whistleblower captain) has not been a part of this investigation”.

India's national flag carrier airline, Air India, which is owned by Air India Limited, a Tata Group enterprise, was once known for its lavishly decorated planes and stellar service but its reputation declined in the mid-2000s as financial troubles mounted. When the debt-ridden airline was officially bought by the Tata Group in October 2021, and officially handed over in January 2022, the airline was saved from almost bankruptcy.
 
The Tatas paid nearly US$2.4bn after the government made the terms of the debt less onerous for the buyer. The salt-to-steel conglomerate founded the airline in 1932 before it was taken over by the government in 1953. The handover brought to an end a years-long attempt to sell Air India, which has racked up losses worth over $9.5bn.
 
Under its new owners, the airline is looking to restore its reputation at home and abroad as a world-class carrier with a complete transformation of the brand, and the announcement of 500 aircraft orders to revamp the brand, including unveiling a new logo.

However, it has come to my attention from various credible sources within the airline that Air India continues to suffer from legacy inconsistent service standards, low aircraft utilisation, dismal on-time performance, antiquated productivity norms, lack of revenue generation skills, and most importantly, a failure of international safety standards. Some may argue [though not proven] that there is still the sense of unsatisfactory public perception.

Even at the beginning of this new year, there have been a few viral videos or posts on social media criticising the lack of quality of service. Shreyti Garg, a content creator, recently shared her not-so-great experience on an Air India flight from Delhi to Toronto on Instagram. She expressed her sheer disappointment regarding the in-flight facilities despite the expensive ticket prices totalling approximately over US$5,580 for herself and her two young children. 

In another case in January 2024, a passenger on an Air India flight slammed the airline after it served her non-vegetarian food, despite the packaging being labelled as meat-free. Taking to X, formerly known as Twitter, Veera Jain shared images of the in-flight meal she was provided on-board the Calicut-Mumbai flight. "On my Air India flight AI582, I was served a vegetarian meal with chicken pieces in it! I boarded the flight from Calicut airport. This was a flight that was supposed to take off at 18.40 but left the airport at 19.40," Ms. Jain wrote.

As is the case with quite a few legacy airlines, Air India is no stranger to having a history of outdated core platforms, leading to decades-old legacy systems. These systems fail to keep up with customers' needs for speed and advanced functionality, despite continuing to serve their purpose.
 
There would be high expectations from some that, if anything, the Tatas would bring in seamless systems and procedures and above all, world-class aviation safety procedures, which is the pillar on which every airline is built on. With the Tata takeover, it is understandable that things will not improve overnight and it is a challenging task for any global airline, especially with a lot of moving parts globally.
 
With the takeover, Tata inherited multiple aircraft which were grounded due to a lack of maintenance resulting from financial issues. Even though Tata started to inject a lot of money to get aircraft operational [in the region of almost US$400 million to completely refurbish the interiors of its legacy fleet of 43 aircraft]; however, there were, and still are, a lot of supply chain issues related to poor quality seats and In-Flight Entertainment [IFE], which will take time to resolve.
 
However, some veteran staff members in the airline, namely airline pilots, have confidentially expressed concern to me that contrary to popular belief, instead of things steadily improving, they believe the airline is heading into a slow spiral of events that would lead it to go from bad to worse. This, according to these staff members, commences with flouting the much revered Tata Code of Conduct [TCOC].
 
According to a former veteran Air India Captain, who wishes to remain anonymous, "the contracts provided to all Air India staff members after the Tata takeover have been draconian to say the least and in complete violation of their own TCOC guidelines". Safety has taken a back seat since their training facility was suspended for a while, along with the Air Safety Chief by India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation [DGCA] following major lapses.

It is important to note that the DGCA is not an independent body but is a statutory body of the Government of India [GoI] that helps to regulate civil aviation in India. Both the DGCA and the Airports Authority of India [AAI] are subordinate to the ministry. The only difference is that the AAI is an independent authority with its own finances and its chairperson and executive directors are appointed by the Public Enterprises Selection Board [PESB]. DGCA, is, unfortunately, an attached office of the ministry of Civil Aviation with very little financial and non-financial powers.

Thereafter, systemic, and procedural lapses have been quite frequent in the mainstream news. The latest happening in January 2024 of a hard landing incident involving an Air India Airbus A320neo aircraft registered VT-CIQ in Dubai. This was by a captain who was supposedly stood down by an instructor earlier. Thankfully, the aircraft structure held on despite this abuse otherwise hard landings can be highly risky and can damage the aircraft structure and injure passengers. In this case, the instructor was fired for gross negligence.

A particular issue that has come to my attention is of a whistleblower pilot, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and who was fired for reporting a serious safety matter to the airline leadership that he believes is endangering of passengers and crew lives on a daily basis.
 
According to an article in the Economic Times in November 2023, "The Indian civil aviation ministry and the DGCA will look into a complaint filed against Air India by a former senior pilot alleging that the airline operated Boeing 777 planes to the US without having the required system of emergency oxygen supply, according to sources. The pilot, who had served as a Boeing 777 commander, complained about the practice to the ministry and the DGCA on October 29."
 
If the whistleblower pilot is correct, then it is quite concerning that the DGCA hasn't done anything since November 2023 and are basically sitting on a strong piece of evidence. According to information from Air India sources, the chief flight operations inspector of the DGCA has a conflict of interest in this investigation since his spouse flies the same aircraft as a captain in Air India. The Economic Times article further states that an Air India spokesperson says, "The matter in question is multi-dimensional and has already been examined by Air India and external experts."

As far as I am aware, Air India have refused to comment any further and said their foremost priority is the safety of the airline's passengers and crew, and there is no compromise on that safety. If that is the case, then why have they fired the experienced pilot? What have they got to hide if the facts are there? You would assume that if someone within a company has reported an error or some issue to their superiors, that they would be highly praised for that rather than being made an outcast and punished for challenging unsafe procedures. That too, without a proper enquiry.
 
Instead of discussing and correcting the safety issue they chose to cover it up and terminate the services of the pilot. In a novel I once read, one character says to another "...if you get on the wrong side of senior officers, they take it out of you in other ways." He was referring to the army, but I guess it is true anywhere, sadly.

It seems, going by what quite a lot of aviation experts have said, and the amount of data I have at hand - including aircraft manuals I have seen - that every aircraft has a certification for its supplementary passenger oxygen systems. Every aircraft has oxygen systems designed to provide oxygen to overhead masks in the event of cabin depressurization. For the Boeing 777-200LR aircraft, oxygen can be supplied for approximately 12 minutes, per passenger, as it is chemically generated. During the descent process, due to the depressurization event, the aircraft must descend to 10,000 feet within this 12-minute period. At this altitude, the ambient environment becomes acceptable under those given conditions just for survival.
 
Nevertheless, when aircraft are normally flying at their cruise altitudes over vast stretches of mountainous terrain, which are usually above 8,000 feet in elevation, they need to commence their descent to 10,000 feet as soon as the depressurization event occurs. However, they can descend to an altitude of 10,000 feet or below once they have passed beyond the mountainous terrain and reach areas of obstacles with elevation of 8,000 feet or below. Therefore, for certain routes, more than 12 minutes of oxygen is required to be supplied to the passengers and crew to clear the mountainous terrain.

The airline's older Boeing 777 aircraft are equipped with an oxygen system, which is of a gaseous type to supply the passengers, and these aircraft are routinely deployed on routes to Europe and most routes to the US. However, the concern is that more recently, Air India has introduced additional Boeing 777-200LR aircraft, leased from Delta Air Lines, that are equipped with chemically generated oxygen systems which last approximately 12 minutes and these are not suitable for certain segments of the routes regularly flown between India and San Francisco [SFO]. Five Boeing 777-200LR aircraft were leased by Air India, and the registrations of these affected aircraft are:

VT-AEG [Named Kerala. Shown in the image above. MSN 30440. Ex reg N706DN]
VT-AEE [MSN 29739. Ex. reg N704DK]
VT-AEF [Named Jharkhand. MSN 29741. Ex reg N702DN]
VT-AEH [Named Alok. MSN 39091. Ex reg N707DN]
VT-AEI [Named Uday. MSN 39254. Ex reg N708DN]

These five aircraft have been flying for well over a year and are still flying on routes which legally require more stored breathing oxygen supply. Since the whistleblower pilot has been illegally terminated and a precedent has been set therefore the learned captains are knowingly piloting these flights on the India-SFO routes which turn into 'flying coffins' on certain segments, all because of the fear of getting terminated.

Besides this, it breaks the law of the land, as per the DGCA's CIVIL AVIATION REQUIREMENTS, SECTION 8 -, SERIES'O', PART II, dated 30.10.2018, each time one of those leased Boeing 777-200LR aircraft takes flight between India and SFO. I wouldn't want to hear of a plane landing with more than 350 dead passengers from the lack of oxygen.
 
According to the above mentioned DGCA Civil Aviation Requirement [CAR], on paragraph 4.3.9.2 it clearly states [I quote]: "A flight to be operated with a pressurised aeroplane shall not be commenced unless a sufficient quantity of stored breathing oxygen is carried to supply all the crew members and passengers as is appropriate to the circumstances of the flight being undertaken, in the event of loss of pressurisation, for any period that the atmospheric pressure in any compartment occupied by them would be less than 700hPa."
 
The law of the land clearly necessitates that in case of a depressurization event while the aircraft is descending to 10,000 feet, as per the procedure prescribed in the manuals and standard operating procedure, there should be enough stored breathing oxygen. This should be continuously supplied to all passengers and crew members until the aircraft reaches an altitude of 10,000 feet, which corresponds to pressure level of 700hpa in the International Standard Atmosphere [ISA].

This is a very serious matter because if the aircraft experiences a rapid depressurisation over mountainous terrain, then passengers will instantly get into a state of hypoxia, once the 12 minutes supply of oxygen depletes before the aircraft can reach 10,000 feet above sea level. The caution by the whistleblower pilot if ignored endangers the life of approximately 350 passengers and the crew in the cabin of the aircraft on a daily basis.
 
We should never see a situation where safety is compromised, and profits are seen as priority because that can have catastrophic consequences. Air India, an airline that is desperately trying its best to reimagine and transform its image globally to become a truly world-class airline that can rival the likes of Emirates, Qatar, Singapore Airlines etc. should take note of this quite seriously.

Surely any leader of an airline should not be resting on their laurels, knowing that there are flights operating at this very moment which lack vital safety equipment for passengers and are violating the privileges of the license given by the government known as Air Operators Certificate on a daily basis just to improve their company's profits.
 
Therefore, it would be one of the worst disasters waiting to happen in aviation history. In a developed country, with good democratic practices supported by pilots' unions this would have resulted in the grounding of the aircraft fleet or a change of the routes rather than shooting the messenger who should have been rewarded for bringing out a safety lapse. With the exponential growth Indian aviation is slated to record in this decade, I hope better sense prevails with the aviation authorities and the airline.
 
Another example we have seen recently is on January 11 when an Air Cote d'Ivoire flight turned around just minutes after leaving the Gambian capital Banjul.
 
The Gambia football team travelling to Ivory Coast for the upcoming 2023 Africa Cup of Nations "could have died" during a flight that was aborted, claimed coach Tom Saintfiet. Saintfiet believes there was a lack of oxygen, saying conditions prompted many of the delegation to fall asleep. The coach praised quick thinking by the pilot for keeping his team safe.
 
Saintfiet told BBC Sport Africa: "The local crew said there was a problem with the air conditioning before we took off but that it would be all fine when we took off. After a few minutes, it was very hot in the plane. We all fell asleep because there was a lack of oxygen - some of the players couldn't be woken up. The pilot noticed and we had to return."
 
"People got headaches and if the flight had gone on for another 30 minutes, the whole team would have died. The strange thing is that the oxygen masks didn't come out - it's good that the pilot realised that this was a deadly situation and so turned back. But we are still in shock."
 
This lack of oxygen can lead to fatalities in seconds. The airline's management will need to take quick decisions to rectify and make sure that such an incident does not occur on those long-haul flights operated by the Boeing 777. I shudder to think of a nation whose aviation industry is experiencing the fastest growth percentage in the world at 20% per year is playing with fire.

​On 3 August 2016, a Boeing 777-300 aircraft, registration A6-EMW, belonging to Emirates Airline, was operating a scheduled passenger flight, numbered EK521, and departed Trivandrum International Airport (VOTV), India at 0506am local time for Dubai International Airport (OMDB), the United Arab Emirates (UAE). At approximately 0837am local time, the aircraft impacted the runway during an attempted go-around at Dubai. There were a total of 300 people on-board the aircraft, comprising of 282 passengers, two flight crew members, and 16 cabin crew members. However, the UAE's General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) was very sad to announce that one of the firefighters lost his life while saving the lives of the others.

Jassim Isa Al Balushi managed to rescue 300 lives, but in doing so, he lost his own. The brave firefighter sustained fatal injuries after helping put out the flames during rescue operations, the report said. His valiant efforts, however, were not in vain, as everyone on board escaped from the burning jet alive—including 282 fliers and 12 cabin staff. Once everyone evacuated, the aircraft exploded and burst into flames and Al Balushi was unfortunately caught in the blaze.

The initial report into the incident has shown the pilot had tried to abandon the landing after the main wheels of the Boeing 777-300 had already touched down.

When such accidents happen, it is always best to wait for the investigators to do their job and publish the report, rather than listen to so many so-called 'aviation experts' on the TV and the internet because most of them are just guessing and have little or no idea on what the truth of the matter is.

The official Preliminary Report has been published by the GCAA of the UAE. Click here to get it from their official website.

​​How do you end up missing three flights on one evening? Can it really happen? The simple answer to that is, yes it can, and it happened to me. So, if you suffer a similar unfortunate issue, you have my upmost support and sympathy.
 
In May this year, I was supposed to fly on Air India’s brand new Dreamliner Boeing 787 aircraft to promote their Business Class (and the aircraft itself). The flight was booked to go from Shanghai Pudong International Airport to New Delhi IGI Airport. From Delhi, I had a connecting flight to London with Oman Air (via a short stopover in Muscat). This was my first time to try out Air India, and the airline had specifically invited me. Since I have a British passport (Sadly, I am not Indian), so therefore I was to the understanding that I had to get a visa if I was to even transit through New Delhi, even if I had a connecting flight with a different airline. Not only I double checked, but in fact I triple checked with the senior management and even went to the board level at the airline to make sure whether I did or did not require a visa. The senior management, namely Air India’s China Managing Director at that time (whom I am not going to name in this article), told me that as a British citizen, I did not require visa if I was just transiting via New Delhi - even if my onwards journey was with a different airline.
 
Being the fact that she was the country Managing Director, I respected and trusted her words. In any case, I showed her the proof from the Indian Consulate General’s website, which at that time, clearly stated that British Citizens required a visa for India if they were transiting to catch another flight, even with a different airline. Effectively, I would have had to collect my luggage upon arrival at Delhi, leave the building and then check-in again for Oman Air. However, despite I showing her the request from the Indian Consulate General in Shanghai, the Air India Manager was adamant that I did not require a visa at all. Before the actual day of the flight, the Air India MD told me that the airline’s station manager would be at the check-in desk to personally greet me and take me through to the aircraft before boarding (this is normal security procedure for media every time I carry out an airline review).
 
Come the day of the flight, as you can imagine that I was super excited. It was a Friday evening, and my scheduled flight was at 10pm. I got to the dedicated Air India check-in counter at Shanghai Pudong Airport around two hours before departure. The first thing I noticed was that all the check-in staff were local Chinese and were wearing Chinese Eastern Airlines uniforms. Where were the Air India staff? Well, to my surprise, Air India have no native Indian check-in staff at the airport because of financial cuts, they have outsourced their check-in and ground handling to China Eastern Airlines. The airline’s duty manager (who was Indian), was nowhere to be seen either. Apparently, he was on the ground next to the aircraft and his mobile was switched off, when he should have been at the check-in counter as that’s the job of the duty-manager.
 
When I checked-in, I showed them my media documents, passport, flight ticket, and the necessary permission letters that I had got from the Air India management. The gentleman at the check-in counter initially gave me my boarding pass, but then he noticed that I had no transit visa for India, and therefore I was denied boarding. Both the check-in staff and I tried to get hold of the senior management at Air India, and the duty manager; however to my surprise and disappointment, nobody picked up the phone. After waiting for around a further 20 minutes, the check-in staff came back to me and told me something I did not want to hear:  “The duty manager does not know who you are, and nobody briefed him that you will be on this flight. You need a transit visa for India, otherwise we cannot allow you on this flight” he said.
 
“Where is the duty manager? I want to talk to him” I said in my response.
 
The check-in staff member went on to say: “The duty manager is busy near the aircraft and he has checked all his emails, and documents, and he does not have any information about you or any other journalist to be on this flight. I’m sorry, sir, but I have no choice but to deny you boarding on this flight. Your baggage will be back with you shortly”   
 
The sad part of all of this episode was that there was nobody who could help me - not from Air India or from China Eastern Airlines. The check-in staff were helpless. The blame goes directly on serious incompetence and lack of effective communication from the airline’s senior management and board members. I have never experienced anything like it with any other airline - ever, and trust me, I have reviewed many airlines, and all the experiences have been positive. This was not a good first for sure.
 
I have friends who are working as pilots and cabin crew for Air India, and they all do a great job. But the root cause of all the ills of any company come from the top to the bottom. The fact that the senior management of a national flag carrier of one of the largest democracies in the world can easily get away with this is a complete shambles. Surely an embarrassment as well. The fact that no one from the airline apologised is also a serious disappointed. It is just diabolical. I understand that such incidents can and do happen with other airlines. But when you are trying your best to help to improve and sell the brand image of an airline that is already suffering from financial problems and countless number of embarrassing incidents that have let the company down in the public limelight, it does no justice whatsoever for them to make mistakes like these. They simply cannot afford to do this. Does it let the image of the airline down? Yes, it does. Air India used to be one of the best airlines in the world when the Tata group owned in back in the 1960s/70s, and it was one of the first in the world to operate a jet aircraft. Those glory days are long gone. The airline’s brand mascot is a Maharajah, and their brand motto is “Your Palace in the Sky”. Well, I’m not sure whether it is still a palace in the sky or not because I’ve never tried their service, but they have definitely let the maharajah down. Either that or he’s cursed.     
 
At this point it must have been around an 8.50pm, about an hour after I initially arrived to check in. Exceedingly frustrated, hot, humid, dejected and somewhat panicked, I collected my baggage and thought of plan B. The only thoughts I had in mind were that I had to make it to London no matter what. The sad thing was that not only did I miss the Air India flight, but in the process, I also missed the connecting Oman Air flight from Delhi to London.
 
It was nearly 9pm by now. My only hope was to purchase another flight. But, to make matters worse, most of the airline ticketing desks were closed, my laptop was operating on only around 2% battery (and the charger was in the baggage somewhere, which I didn’t have time to find), my mobile phone’s battery was low, too, and there was VPN available (Google, YouTube, Gmail, Hotmail are all blocked in China and so you need a VPN).  
 
My only hope left was to run to the Business Centre (which closed at 9.30pm) and pray that I could catch one of the last remaining flights of the night to London - Aeroflot, Air France, Lufthansa, Emirates, Qatar, Etihad, Turkish all had flights going to London via their respective hubs. The Air India desks were at aisle G, and the Business Centre was at A, and being the large airport it is, Pudong Airport’s Terminal 2 departures all is HUGE to say the least…you can imagine a helpless chap with three pieces of baggage, laptop and cameras, running –sweat pouring all over – at breakneck speed from one part of the terminal to the other!
 
While making full use of the exceeding slow internet at the Business Centre, I used my Barclaycard Visa to purchase a one-way economy class ticket with an Etihad Airways flight the same evening for US$750. By the time I bought the ticket, it was 9.20pm and the Etihad flight check-in closed an hour before the flight at 10.30pm. Great! I would get home on time and enjoy a nice bubbly on the plane after all what I went through! What a relief…so I had thought!
 
When I checked-in to the Etihad Airways flight, to my shock the staff there could not find my ticket reference number. I was gobsmacked. Even with my passport and date of birth they could not locate any information on their computers. Even worse was that I couldn’t access the Gmail address which I gave when I booked the ticket (as pointed earlier that Gmail is blocked in China and I had no VPN either). In the heat of the moment, I forgot to take a note of the reference number. Therefore, I was denied boarding on the Etihad Airways flight, too. Utterly dejected, angry, dazed and just exhausted, I literally begged the Etihad Airways staff to look for the flight ticket reference, but at no avail.
 
For the next ten minutes, I just sat on the floor on the airport terminal, and pondered over plan C and tried to keep positive. The only option left now was to book into a hotel and book another flight early the following morning, as well as apply for the refunds from Oman Air and Etihad Airways. I had no choice but to spend more money and stay the night at the Shanghai Airport Hotel (located between Terminals 1 and 2…that cost me around US$70 for one night). When I got to the hotel, I finally manage to charge the batteries of all my devices, and was able to access the VPN to book another flight. When I accessed the Gmail account, I saw that I had indeed received an email from Etihad Airways confirming my flight ticket – it may have been too close to the flight for the system to send the data to the check-in counter.
 
I managed to purchase a one-way Virgin Atlantic flight for US$650. Altogether, I managed to lose over US$2,000 that night (two flight purchases, hotel for one night and the cost of my connecting missed flights with Oman Air). Imagine if I had a family with two kids, for example…no doubt it would have been a VERY expensive and exhausting evening (thanks to the blunders from Air India and Etihad Airways).   
 
After this traumatic experience, I was even prepared to fly cargo if I had to. The following morning, I arrived at the airport with plenty of time in hand, grabbed a hot Starbucks cappuccino and was prepared for the worst. Thankfully, I managed to check-in without any issues and enjoy a lovely flight from seat 44 at the back of an ageing Airbus A340 belonging to Virgin Atlantic. Interestingly, our Virgin Atlantic flight arrived an hour before the Oman Air flight that I was due to arrive on originally. I hope I never get to experience anything like this again. As for flying with Air India? Well…this was supposed to be my first time and I hope that the next time I try to fly with them, I really feel as if I am in a palace in the sky! I can understand the mistake made by Etihad Airways as that is more than likely to be a technical error, but there is no excuse for Air India, where human errors from the senior management have resulted in a complete failure of communication. 

On the 14th of September at the M on the Bund in Shanghai, prolific Chinese author and photojournalist Hong Mei, accompanied with her husband, photojournalist Tom Carter, gave an exciting talk about her debut travelogue, The Farther I Walk, the Closer I Get to Me (title translated from Chinese), to an audience of around 100 people. The talk was followed by a lively question and answer session. 

Hong Mei became the first Chinese woman to backpack across the entire Indian subcontinent. Along with Tom, the couple deliberately selected off-the-beaten path regions and survived on a limited budget as they travelled for over a year across the length and breadth of India - a country that still comes across as a mysterious land for many Chinese people. 

As a British man of Indian heritage who has never lived or worked in India, I found the talk to be very insightful and highly inspiring. I have not been to India since 1999, and I suppose because I've had a very English upbringing, so, sadly, I would be somewhat of a misfit in Indian society/culture if I ever go. Of course, it goes without saying that India is a beautiful country with a rich and vibrant history.

Having listened to the India that Hong Mei and Tom described, as well as seeing the photos they shared, it didn't seem much different from what I had experienced in 1999 (!). Things, such as for example, the lack of proper infrastructure and the lack of hygiene in public places in India, makes China look like a developed country. This type of external observation is exactly what the Indian government needs, because if they don't know what and how foreign guests feel about their country, then how can they make improvements? 

I thought it was courageous and brave of the remarkable Hong Mei to have travelled to some of the remotest parts of India by herself—I'm sure that even some native Indians would not be tempted to do that! 

A young European lady in the audience asked Hong Mei how she was received by the Indians, not only as a Chinese but also as a foreign woman. Her response did surprise a few in the audience. "Despite what we have seen and heard about India recently in the news, I actually felt very welcomed and relatively safe." said Hong Mei. 

She went on: "At first contact and glance, most Indians thought that I was a Japanese or Korean, but when I told them that I was a Chinese, they were very friendly and welcoming. India is a country with stunning scenes." She revealed that in some parts of India, local people had never met a Chinese person before, so the people in those parts were very nice and welcoming.  

The talk did touch on a key point: even though China’s new middle class are travelling abroad more than ever before, yet it is still uncommon for Chinese people to travel independently – either as backpackers or on a luxury tour. Chinese people usually travel in groups and try to see as many countries as possible and in as little time as possible. For someone to backpack around one country on their own for a long time is seldom heard of; though, it is not to say that this trend may pick up in the future. 

Hong Mei's book, written in Chinese, is available here. 

Having travelled extensively across ALL of China's 33 provinces...successfully succeeding in circumnavigating over 35,000 miles (56,000 kilometers) during a 2-year period, the first foreigner on record ever to do so, Tom Carter, a superlative photojournalist and an old China hand, is just the man to have beside you when you need a story to be covered.

Carter, originally from San Francisco, has remarkably not only captured the whole of China through his lens, but has travelled extensively throughout India for a year too - a country that is still very much a hardship environment for foreigners (almost medieval in places). Try surviving in India for a day without making frequent visits to the toilet - that's if you can find one (nearly 50% - I say again - nearly 50% of the country's population has NO access to a toilet). Hats off to Tom for doing what he did for over a year because India is hard work. I couldn't survive the 3 weeks that I was there for in 1998, the last time I visited the country, despite staying at one of the BEST hotels in New Delhi at that time. 

We chatted about many things for a couple hours with topics ranging from big media exasperations to publishing to travel war stories. Tom's wife, who is also a photojournalist, is a native from Jiangsu Province. She has recently published a diary about her travels around the whole of India (i.e. every major State in the country) - a first for a Chinese woman.   

In the meantime, you can check out Tom's book, CHINA: Portrait of a People by clicking the picture below!

Flying from China and onto the Arabian Sea (we came over from Shanghai, Suzhou, Wuhan, Chongqing, Kunming, Nepal, Karachi, and into the Arabian Sea), the Airbus A330 comes close to the end of it's journey into it's final destination Abu Dhabi. Sunrises are always spectacular. Oblivious of the significance for earthlings, the sun rises on just another day above the skies at 39,000 feet. 

"What Happens On the Flight Deck...Stays on the Flight Deck".

No names, no pack drill. No aircraft types and nothing else. But really. An airline can preach Air Safety, Crew Resource Management and professionalism until the animals come home. But what 'professional' company allows both of its operating Pilots to sleep their way across the Bay of Bengal and half of a busy Indian airspace- failing to answer radio calls for almost an hour!? They apparently got a shock when the air hostess accidentally turned off the autopilot. Lucky the passengers didn't find out...and lucky that they eventually woke up.

Here is how the UK Telegraph reported it.

The trip to London was so short and snappy that it almost felt like a dream. Thankfully on the day of the flight from Heathrow we were gifted with a clear blue sky, and slight easterly winds, which allowed an excellent opportunity to take beautiful photos of London and beyond as the plane took off from runway 09R (heading towards Clacton-on-Sea, and then onwards towards Germany). I flew with Qatar Airways, so both the first flight (LHR-DOH, QR008), and the second flight (DOH-PVG, QR888) provided great opportunities to take some superb photos of the skyline of not just London but also Doha, Northern Thailand, Guiyang, Wuhan, Wuxi, Kunshan, and Suzhou (my home!!). And not to mention the magical sunrise that we were treated to somewhere over the Pakistan/India border.   

It goes without saying that most Indian and Chinese people would not even explore the idea of integrating with each other’s cultures. It’s a historical thing, one which goes back to the early 19th century. Subhas Chandra Bose (1897-1945), an Indian nationalist leader, formed alliances with the Japanese during the second world war against the British and other oppressors of India, and even in Hong Kong, the Sikhs (who traditionally have been recruited into the Hong Kong Police or the armed forces) joined in with the Japanese forces. This alliance which the Indians (most of whom were Sikhs in Hong Kong and Shanghai at that time) made with the Japanese angered the local Cantonese people so much that since then there has always been a certain amount of sentiment between the Indian and Chinese communities in Hong Kong (and the rest of China for that matter)

One may question that these old thoughts may have been forgotten by the modern generation of Hong Kong people, however, according to Roger Houghton, a former Hong Kong police officer and British writer who has resided in the former British Colony for over 35 years says that these old sentiments get passed on from one generation to another. Even to the extent that sometimes Chinese elders discourage their grandchildren to make friends with Indian people. This may be a contributing factor, however, another factor is skin colour, and it is a well known fact that some Chinese people openly discriminate people of Indian origin (this is certainly true for some Cantonese people), and that includes every dark skinned person from the Middle East down to Burma, simply because these people have brown skin and smell of strong spices (of course, not everyone). There is reluctance amongst Hong Kong property owners to rent to Indians but that is more commercial than racial. Indian cuisine tends to penetrate the wallpaper and rugs and imbue the apartment with a spicy smell. When the Indian family leaves the residence, all these fittings have to be replaced. I believe it does not go any further than that. Nevertheless, Mr. Houghton explains that this attitude towards skin and smell were initially apparent in the first opium war. Also in Hong Kong, the sad fact is that the majority of Indians, Pakistanis and Nepalis do labor jobs, such as being doorman to hotels, or even the exceedingly annoying touting that goes around Tsim Sha Tsui doesn't really assist in improving their image much among Cantonese people.

On the whole things are gradually changing for good, however say, even five years ago it would have been common practice on a Hong Kong MTR train that if the only empty seat on the train were next to a seated Indian person, then no Chinese person would dare sit on that seat, no matter how tired they may be. It’s an extreme example, but one that is based on facts (and from what I have seen with my own eyes). India and China were also at a brief war in 1962, and one of my late grandfathers’, who was a Commander in the Indian Army, fought against the Chinese in that war. I doubt history will repeat itself for both China and India cannot afford to make enemies with anyone in the current global economic and political climate. I still treasure a black & white photo of him standing along side a Chinese Army Captain on the Ladakh border station in the snowy terrain holding the Indian flag; likewise his counterpart is holding the Chinese flag. I am not sure what his thoughts would be now, if he knew that his grandson is actually encouraging foreigners to visit China for business and tourism! Indeed India and China, who share the world’s largest border (from Bhutan to the northern part of Kashmir), have been scratching each other’s backs for centuries over the border dispute. I remember my late grandfather used to tell me that since times in memorial, India has always been a close friend with Japan and Russia. I realized this as I grew up. But we must all accept that times are changing. Since 2005, India and China have held a number of joint Navy, Air Force and Army military exercises to boost friendship.