I had just transferred from the routine of a station operation to the Offline Operation department based in Kennedy airport. Regularly, Seaboard World Airlines adjusted its fleet and switched unused airplanes to customers looking, temporarily or permanently, to increase their lift capacity. With the introduction of the B 747-245 on the North Atlantic haul, a few DC 8 were available for utilization by numerous airlines.
Loftleidir Icelandic, Saudia Cargo, even EFS Bahamas were using our DC 8 and crews in what is known as a wet lease contract in which the lessor is providing airplane and crewing to a customer.
Air India Cargo was set up in 1954, and started its freighter operations with a Douglas DC-3 aircraft, giving Air India the distinction of being the first Asian airline to operate freighters.
Between the 1980s and 1990s it operated Boeing 747 and Douglas DC-8 freighter aircraft on various international routes through other companies.
In 2006 the airline relaunched freighter services following the merger of Indian Airlines and its domestic subsidiary Alliance Air with Air India; which led to the acquisition of a single Boeing 737-200C aircraft from Alliance's fleet, plus ten additional passenger versions of the aircraft, of five were converted to freighters. One of these was also painted in Indian Airlines' old livery for a brief period after conversion. All six aircraft were flying on Air India Cargo domestic routes. Air India also converted four of its Airbus A310-300s into freighters; these were deployed on the Dammam-Frankfurt route. After ending international operations two were leased out to new cargo startup Aryan Cargo Express, while a third was sold to an African company.
(A DC-8 Used by Air-India Cargo under a Wet-Lease contract with SWA)
In November 2007, Air India partnered with GATI, a leader and pioneer in express distribution and supply chain solutions for a dedicated freighter service using the 737s. With rising competition from local cargo airlines as well as financial issues, Air India Cargo ended freighter aircraft operations in early 2012.
The wet lease contract between Seaboard World Airlines and Air India included training Air India operation representatives to the intricacies of Weight and Balance. I was assigned to that program and pretty soon took off from Europe to India and found myself with a multiple entry visa on my passport, sitting in an Air India B747 which, from outside, looked like the palace of a Maharajah.
India is a weird country! Its cast system is omnipresent and the “natural order of things” cannot and should not be changed. He who tries is bound to fail. Becoming independent on August 15th 1947, India has however retained a lot of the complicated administrative methods inherited from the British mandate and dust and traditions have done the rest. As a result, it looks like if the country was handicapped, if poverty was always winning the battle, if destiny could not be modified even in dreams.
The Centaur Hotel in Bombay was just like India: dusty. The carpets could have done with a wash, but the food was wonderful. There was however one condition to survival: the necessity to consume yoghurt at the end of each single meal to offset the devastating effects of Indian spices generously spread on dishes.
To quench my thirst, I regularly resourced to the 75cl bottles of King Fisher beer, a fine product distributed in Asia, but always wondered what was the reason why 75cl size was chosen while in Europe the same side was totally unknown, or unused. Were Indian big beer drinkers?
(Centaur Hôtel in Bombay -Mumbaï. It use to belong to a subsidiary of Air-India. Maintenance was nil, curry was top!)
I run a self-made training program to help the Air India staff being ready for work on our DC-8. This training was required by both the company, and our insurance folks. Training was conducted in small groups and my “Indian” counterparts were eager to learn. They had a great “ aviation spirit” and were proud of having found a job with Air India where they would probably spend all of the professional life and thought of themselves as very lucky to have escaped the 10% unemployment rate of the country in the late 70’s…
(From the outside, the Air-India B 747 reminded be of the palace of a Maharajah...)
I shared my time between Bombay (today called Mumbaï), Delhi and Calcutta, using the domestic carrier “Indian Airlines” to commute and be able to spread “the good words” about how to load a DC8, why it was important to use sequential loading, why it was necessary to tie the tail post under the tail of the airplane, how to optimize belly loading in the two” Big” bellies A and C and the 2 small bellies B and D.
In the late 70’s, trainers had to resource to creativity in order to make training a pleasant experience. My tools were limited to a couple of flow pens and a paperboard with limited access to paper. When conducting practical training on our DC8, there was a lot of goodwill, but sometimes this was not enough and I had to go through the local “ babu” to square things away when it was difficult for me to make a point.
At Air India, like in all of the administration in general the word “ babu” was originally used as a term of respect attached to a proper name, the equivalent of "mister", and "babuji" was used in many parts to mean "sir".
Although the term babu was frequently used pejoratively to refer to bureaucrats of Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and other government officials, at Air India in these days, it was used with a kind of deference. The “babu” had the last word, and those I have met during this period were cooperative. Air India did not have the kind of office machinery expected to be found in a major airline. This was a curiosity for me as I could see employees often using carbon paper, old typewriters, writing tools from another age.
(Air-India catering ? You'd better eat yogurt at the end, short of that you would suffer......for a few days...!)
As I challenged some of these, I was told that maintaining this organization saved a lot of jobs….Introducing a copy machine in an office would cut 3 or 4 jobs….getting rid of the “tea boy” would cut off 2 jobs….
Later on during my life with Flying Tigers, I came back to India on many occasions, but with a much bigger airplane. If our DC 8 wet leased to Air India would carry general cargo from Europe to India and Indian Export back to Europe on the DEL-LHR-FRA-CDG-DEL route, in the mid 80’s our B 747-245 chartered by various specialized commercial companies for the alternate account of the Indian Government and The Pakistan Government, would carry livestock of a special kind: Artillery mules.
Operation “Brasstacks », (the largest of its kind in South Asia), was in full swing in this second half of the eighties. It was conducted by India between November 1986 and March 1987, and led to Pakistani mobilization in response, raised tensions and fears that it could lead to another war between the two neighbors.
Amongst military preparation was the setting up of military posts in the mountainous area of the disputed Kashmir area, a long time source of conflict in this part of the world. Were tanks and and heavy guns cannot be brought by road, the only solution is to send animals carrying the military gear on their back so both governments had searched Europe to find the required quantity of mules and those were being brought from their raising grounds to the Bordeaux airport (LFBD) to be transported directly to the countries where they would be used. 9H30 to Islamabad, 9H00 to New-Delhi, 100 mules for each trip, several weeks in a row was a tough program but provided for interesting action and a few good meals in the Bordeaux area.
I would arrive at least 48 hours before the flight was due to inventory the equipment already delivered at the airport by the charterer, and would make all the pre-flight necessary arrangements and organization needed. Plan for catering, plan for loading equipment, weather folders, flight plan, loading sequence and once all this was behind me, my reward was a good meal at “Le Relais du Medoc”, a pleasant place near the “Gironde” river, operated by the kind Monsieur SEGUIN who would really take care of us.
3 flight crew in good spirits, 1 flight mechanic 1 charter rep, a few horse attendants, a full airplane, and we were soon in the air with our “flying horses” after having sequentially loaded our mules.
Pretty soon, it was India or Pakistan in the winter, and Military staff would watch the offload and transfer to the military transport trucks. Winter can be cold in Northern India…! The soldiers on guard duty wore winter coat and did not seem the least interested by the operation. Once the animals were off the airplane, the long clean-up operation would take place. How many times did I feel like it was my “ punishment” for living and exciting life ? .
Dismantling the stalls, recovering the straps, stacking of the stalls to offload them on the ground, removing soiled wood chips, plastic sheeting, tar paper, was a long and boring operation. There was however a nice part to the cleaning of the airplane: blowing the dust into the open. We use to carry a backpack clean-up blower and after having opened either the side cargo door or the nose door, started the noisy engine of the blower, we would simply walk on the deck, pushing and blowing ahead of us all the remaining debris left by the animal transport which would eventually end up on the tarmac.
Taking off on a “ferry” leg from India or Pakistan, returning to Europe, Asia or the US was the best part for us: we could sleep , enjoy the Indian food provided by the Air India kitchen ( Air India was our handling agent) or read ! ( My years with FTL were probably the best years to find “ reading time”)
( If Flying Tigers used Stockholm Radio for HF private communication, Seaboard World Airlines was a customer of the Swiss Berna Radio HF Station founded in 1922 and located near Bern in Switzerland. The incoming call would trigger a kind of "bell" or "buzz" and soon, we were on our way to "somewhere else")
On occasions, when in the air on the way to another destination, the company would simply “re-route” the airplane and instead of ending up in Paris, London, Frankfurt or Hong Kong as planned, we would be launched into some African Adventure, Asian Saga, or Eastern Europe assignment….
For show, we would “bitch” about the re-routing….but in fact each of us loved it ! That was why we had chosen this lifestyle…
That was why we had chosen this job….
© 2016 Sylvain Ubersfeld for Commercial Air Transport