Ayesha Takia to take legal action against airline

A day after Ayesha Takia tweeted about her sister Natasha being allegedly mistreated by an airline’s personnel, the actress is still fuming and is determined to take legal action against the airline.

Making it worse was a taunting tweet by the airline owner’s son which implied he was unaware of who Ayesha Takia and what the hullabaloo she was creating was all about.

Laughing off the jibe, Ayesha scoffs, “We’re getting our lawyers to send a letter to the airline to take action against their staff. The letter will reach the airline authorities shortly. I was tweeting about how the airline staff treated Natasha. I didn’t make any personal comments on anyone. So if someone has a personal grudge against me that’s his problem.”

Recounting the alleged horror that her sister went through, Ayesha says, “A senior staff member of an airline at Delhi airport misbehaved with my sister. He sent her back and forth from counter to counter for four hours even when she said she was unwell. They threatened to throw her out of the airport if she kept questioning and pressurizing them for her ticket. Then they tore her boarding pass and told her to buy a new one if she wanted to fly back to Mumbai on their airline.”

Continuing with the tale of trauma, Ayesha says, “Natasha had to buy a new ticket from Air India. Since she was travelling alone beyond a point, she didn’t want to deal with the rudeness of the allegedly misbehaved airline ground-staff.”

Hina’s Kabul tour: PIA crew’s TA/DA worry

 

The PIA crew that flew the foreign minister to the all-important official Kabul tour demanded the airline authorities pay them TA/DA allowance, reported News Trends.

 

When the PIA authorities refused, the crew was unready to digest or defer it at least till their return back to Pakistan. The matter was finally settled with the arbitration of none other than the foreign minister herself. The crew of 8 staff was paid the allowance to cut the discontent short.
 

Yousafzai takes charge as PIA’s new MD

ISLAMABAD: Nadeem Yousufzai has taken charge as new Managing Director (MD) of the Pakistan International Airline (PIA) on Saturday and urged the employees to take every step to normalize the flight schedule.

The MD has appealed the PIA employees to work hard to recover loss occurred in last four days due to the protest.

Sources said that a change in different departments’ administrators is expected in coming few days.

The flight operation of PIA has returned to normal and the spokesperson of PIA has asked the passengers to arrive at airports two hours before the departure. TrendPK

Small passenger plane missing in Nepal

A small passenger plane carrying 22 people including one American went missing shortly after taking off from an airport in eastern Nepal on Wednesday, the airline and the civil aviation authority said.

Air traffic control said they lost contact with the pilot around 10 minutes after the Twin Otter plane took off from Lamidanda, a small airstrip around 140 kilometres (90 miles) east of the capital Kathmandu.

A passenger plane has gone missing in eastern Nepal. We have alerted the emergency services and a search and rescue effort is under way, Ram Prasad Neupane, head of the civil aviation authority.

Two helicopters flew to the remote area to try to locate the plane, which belongs to a small domestic airline, Tara Air, but the search operation had to be called off when night fell.

Pak, Lanka ties friendly: Qureshi

Staff Report

KARACHI: Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said that the relations between Pakistan and Sri Lanka are close and friendly.

During a television interview in Colombo on Sunday, he disclosed that Pakistan International Airline services from Pakistan to Sri Lanka would be resumed from March 2011. Trend Pk

PIA seeks state bail out to survive

ISLAMABAD: Ailing state carrier Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) is asking the government, saddled with its own mounting debt, to write off losses of 1.7 billion dollars to save it from looming bankruptcy.

In a five-year survival plan submitted to the government, PIA has promised to make cutbacks and better its fleet in a bid to improve its fortunes, if the treasury agrees to cancel its debt and pay off other creditors.

Blaming “bad policies of the past” for accumulated losses of 80 billion rupees (936 million dollars) and liabilities of 144 billion rupees, PIA spokesman Sultan Hassan insisted the airline is capable of future success.

Defending the company against long-standing allegations of graft and staffing problems, he told AFP that operational profits show PIA can become self reliant.

“We want to reform the airline. If the government helps

Karachi: 73 Hujjaj deplaned for travel documents discrepancy

As many as 73 Hujjaj (pilgrims) have been deplaned from a private company aircraft for providing wrong details in the travel documents and for trying to leave sans Mehram (male companion), Dunya News reported on Tuesday.
As per Civil Aviation Authorities (CAA), the deplaned pilgrims included 36 women and 37 men belonging to Karachi.
The Hujjaj were supposed to land in Saudi Arabia via Bahrain in Gulf Airline flight. The authorities said that around 20 people of those disembarked have not even issued boarding pass.

Air Blue rules out technical problem in plane crash

ISLAMABAD: Chief Executive of Air Blue Airline Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has said that the bodies of 102 passengers, killed in the Wednesday’s plane crash in Margalla Hills, have been handed over to their heirs, while samples for DNA tests of 62 individuals have been sent to the laboratory.

Talking to media-persons here on Friday he said that the airline would pay insurance money to heirs of the plane crash victims, for which registration has begun.

He asked the relatives of victims to get themselves registered with the airline through internet or report to the nearest Air Blue office.

Abbasi said that search for the black box of the plane was underway. “At the time of the crash, the plane was flying at a height of 1000 feet. The black box has not yet been found because the wreckage spread far and wide”, he said.

He said that six personnel of Air Blue were also members of the investigation team tasked to find the causes of the incident, adding “We want to make public the details of the investigative report.”

Brushing aside the rumours that the pilot of the airliner was suffering from fatigue, he said the pilot had rested for 36 hours before the flight.

He said Pervaiz Iqbal Chaudhry, the pilot of the ill-fated plane was a seasoned pilot, who had 25000 hours experience to hi credit.

The chief executive said that the pilot was 61- year- old, while the standard at the international level is 65 years.

Abbasi said that Flying Officer Mujttahid Chughtai was 34-year- old and he had served in Pakistan Air Force as a F-16 jetfighter pilot. He had 1700 hours experience including the 300 hours in the crashed plane.

He did not agree that there was any technical problem that resulted in airliner”s crash and added there was also no report of any terrorist act. Even, the Interior Minister Rehman A. Malik hadalready ruled out the possibility of any act of terrorism, he said.

To a question he said that rules and laws of the Civil Aviation Authority were very strict and it was evident from the six years” record of Air Blue that it strictly followed those rules and never committed a violation.

He claimed that the Air Blue was the first airline in Pakistan, which started issuing boarding cards to passengers after checking their ID Cards.

Air France jet lands in Brazil in security alert

SAO PAULO: A security alert over a possible bomb on board forced an Air France flight flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris to make an unscheduled landing in Brazil”s northeast city of Recife overnight, the airline said on Sunday.

“Our flight left at 16:30,” a passenger identified only as Livia told Brazil”s GloboNews.

“Around 19:00, a little after dinner, we were informed that we would make a stop because of problems that they didn”t explain.”

The passengers remained calm, Livia told GloboNews.

Air France said the 405 passengers and 18 crew on flight AF443 had been evacuated while security checks were carried out on the Boeing 747-400.

“Air France confirms that the crew was informed in-flight of a threat of a possible presence of an explosive device on board,” said an Air France spokesman.

The airplane was positioned in a remote area, and all the passengers evacuated, Brazil”s airport authority Infraero said in a statement.

“The flight will only be cleared when everything is safe,” said Infraero spokeswoman Solange Argenta.

Hand luggage and checked luggage would be re-inspected, Infraero said.

Dubai aims to fly high with a new airport

DUBAI: Debt-laden Dubai opened its second airport on Sunday, three weeks after its flagship carrier Emirates placed a major order for Airbus 380 superjumbos, enforcing its status as an air transport hub.

The first plane landed on the sole runway of the Dubai World Central-Al Maktoum International Airport — named after the emirate”s ruling family, Dubai Airports said in a statement.

Three airfreight companies have begun operations from the new airport with 12 others due to follow, it said.

The first phase be confined to freight traffic, with a capacity to handle 250,000 tonnes annually while passenger traffic was scheduled to begin in March 2011, with an annual capacity of five million passengers.

“We have achieved another important step towards completing” the airport, said Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed al-Maktoum, the head of the Dubai Civil Aviation Authority.

Situated on the desert outskirts of Dubai and close to the Jebel Ali port and its large free zone, DWC-Al Maktoum International is touted to become the world”s largest airport when completed at an undisclosed date.

But authorities said that when it is all up and running the new airport will be able to handle 160 million passengers and 12 million tonnes of cargo, and have five runways.

Dubai, a city of around two million people, already boasts the biggest airport in the Middle East, which handled 42 million passengers in 2009 — a figure expected to surge to 100 million by 2020, said Jamal al-Hai, Dubai Airports Senior Vice President for Strategic Affairs.

“Our development follows a strategy aimed at turning Dubai into the centre of the new silk route,” linking east to west, he said.

Thanks to the strategic location and developed infrastructure of Dubai, which has established itself as a popular tourist destination and a regional business hub, air transport accounts for over 25 percent of the emirate”s gross domestic product, Hai said.

He said that the capacity of the current Dubai airport stands at 65 million passengers, and should increase to 75 million in 2012 with the completion of the third concourse that will be exclusively used by the A380 superjumbos.

Emirates, the largest Middle East carrier, had earlier this month reinforced its status as the largest single customer of the Airbus A380, by placing a new order for 32 units worth 11.5 billion dollars.

The order made in Berlin brought Emirates” total orders of the superjumbo jet to 90 units, 10 of which are already in service.

“Emirates will be announcing new aircraft orders at the Farnborough Airshow” in England, which opens on July 19, an Emirates spokesman said.

The company is also the largest single operator of the Boeing 777 with 85 units in service and 21 on order.

The once bustling city state of Dubai was badly hit by the global financial crisis that forced Dubai World, the biggest state-owned conglomerate, to seek restructuring of 23.5 billion dollars of debt.

But Dubai”s ruler Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashed al-Maktoum justified this week Emirates” new order by the “growth” in Dubai”s airport infrastructure, the number of passengers and tourists visiting the emirate.

“The worst is over and Dubai is looking for new opportunities for growth,” he said in an interview with CNN.

Emirates announced in May a whopping 416-percent surge in annual net profit which reached 964 million dollars in the past financial year, bucking the global trend in the airline industry.

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