• Investment World
• eWorld
• Brand Line
• Mentor
• Life
• Brand Quest
• The New Manager

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Cross Currency

• Rates
  
  

Shipping

• Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources
• In Focus
• In Depth
• Events 2007

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• The Hindu ePaper
• Business Line
• Business Line ePaper
• Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

K.V. Kurmanath

Hyderabad, Feb. 12 Landing the aircraft is not new to Mr D.D. Gandhi, for he has flown thousands of hours, piloting a variety of aircraft across the globe. But Tuesday’s landing of Kingfisher’s A320 was a different experience for him. “It was a wonderful experience,” an elated Mr Gandhi told Business Line.

Mr Gandhi and his deputy Mr Marwar made a smooth landing of the first flight at the greenfield international airport at Shamshabad at 3.13 p.m., amid cheers and claps from the passengers and hundreds of airport and airline staffers.

“It has been a fantastic experience. It (the airport) is perfectly okay,” he said, after alighting from the aircraft.

Impressed and excited, he took off again after the first batch of passengers, mostly mediapersons, got down onto the tarmac.

He was aware that he was going to steer the first flight, though for testing purposes, to the new international airport, being promoted by the GMR group, which is set to begin commercial operations from March 16.

Soon after taking off at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai at 1.53 p.m., he welcomed the passengers on the ‘historic flight’.

But as the flight was about to land, 55 minutes later and a few hundred metres away, Mr Gandhi took off again, giving some anxious moments to passengers. It, however, turned out to be part of the plan.

“It is part of the trial procedures. We need to check whether all things are in place. We were about to land from one end, we took off again and landed from the other end,” he added.

A team of airport and airline officials greeted the crew as they came out of the plane.

An hour later, it was the turn of Jet Airways, to make another perfect landing at the airport. The aircraft again took all the instructions, circled around the airport giving mediapersons a bird’s eye view of the changing contours around the greenfield airport.

More Stories on : Airlines | Infrastructure

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Centre plans 4% uniform levy on ATF

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line