AI ‘maiden’ all-women pilot flight heading home from San Francisco

AI ‘maiden’ all-women pilot flight heading home from San Francisco

Saurabh.Sinha@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:11.01.20201

Four of Air India’s most experienced women pilots took off from San Francisco (SFO) on Sunday morning (India time) for Bengaluru to operate the first-ever scheduled service between south India and the US.

It is also the first time that an all-women cockpit crew of an Indian carrier flew over the North Pole. TOI reported about this flight on Wednesday.

The four record-setting pilots operating the almost 18-hour AI 176 that is expected to reach Bengaluru (BLR) early Monday morning are captains Zoya Aggarwal, Papagari Thanmai, Akansha Sonaware and Shivani Manhas. They are flying a Boeing 777 200 (long range or LR) VT-ALG that is named ‘Kerala’. The SFO airport wore the Indian flag colours to celebrate this occasion. The airline’s executive director (flight safety) Captain Nivedita Bhasin is also onboard.

Bengaluru-SFO shortest flight distance is over 14,000km, about 1,000km more than Delhi-SFO. Very often airlines take longer routes to get tail winds and avoid headwinds.

Kerala, for instance, took the longer Pacific route from Delhi to SFO on Wednesday with the same set of four pilots. The inaugural to Bengaluru is coming back via over the North Pole — getting tail winds on both sectors.

AI’s Delhi-SFO is very often an around-the-world trip as it circumnavigates the globe on the way out and back.

The longer Pacific route means flying a distance of 16,234km from Delhi to SFO but due to tail winds all the way, both flight time and fuel burn are less than what that will be on the shorter Atlantic route.

MANY FIRSTS: Apart from being the first-ever scheduled service between south India and the US, it is also the first time that an allwomen cockpit crew of an Indian carrier flew over the North Pole