AI Dubai-Calicut Flight Emergency landing due to technical problem
DUBAI - August 4, 2004 Air India Flight (IA 966)left the Dubai airport with 120 passengers on board in the morning (scheduled departure time 10.30 AM) but dramatically came back to the airport two times before finally taking off to the scheduled destination late in the afternoon. The flight was initially brought back to the airport on the pretext that one passenger suffered hyper tension. According to one passenger, the IA flight 966 came back to the Dubai airport and remained there for nearly 40 minutes. Afterwards, the airline resumed journey towards Calicut but had to fly back to the airport again due to "technical problems". The emergency landing two times caused panic among passengers. A similar incident about IA flight from Kochi to Abu Dhabi was reported .
The passenger who made a call to the media by around 3.30 said the airline was yet to start journey. However, the official spokesman said the AI airline left in the "afternoon" after rectifying the problem. The official was not ready to give the exact departure time or the details of the technical snag.
"There was a technical problem and the aircraft was brought back to the airport. We have informed all our Thiruvananthapuram passengers about the delay because the same aircraft had to come back from the Calicut trip for the Dubai Thiruvananthapuram trip at 20.30," said Ms. Anahita, Reservation Supervisor of the Indian Airlines Dubai office. However, she was not sure of the departure timing of IA 966 and said the airline had already left the airport. "I am not sure of the exact departure time or aware of these details. You have to contact our airport office to know more about it. As far as I know, it must have already landed in Calicut Airport," she said in response to queries about the hypertension theory. "We have informed all our Thiruvananthapuram passengers that the Dubai-Thiruvananthapuram flight will be delayed. Now it is scheduled to leave Dubai Airport at 00.10," she said. She also did not respond to queries about the hyper tension of a passenger or whether it was due to high pressure created within the aircraft due to technical problems. The IA official did not clarify whether the same aircraft was using during the Kochi flight delay. However, the airline officials denied that the aircraft made two emergency landings in Dubai Airport.
The airport office of Indian Airlines did not give any details about the flight delay. "You have to contact the Dubai head office to get these details. I am not supposed to give such information," said one of the Dubai Airport office employees. It may be recalled that the Indian Airlines flight from Kochi to Abu Dhabi was returned to Kochi one hour after it took off from the Nedumbassery International Airport.
Last month Air India flight IA 947 from Koch to Abu Dhabi which took off from the Nedumbassery International Airport in the early morning with hundreds of passengers bound to Abu Dhabi had to dramatically return without reaching the scheduled destination. After one and half hours flight, the Air India aircraft t was flown back to Kochi following a technical snag and passenger safety alert. The crew advised passengers to use oxygen mask. These type of mid air technical snags and hypertension problems occurring frequently raises serious concern about the safety of air travel in the Indian national career
Sri Lankan Airlines fine tunes expansion strategy Growth in domestic, regional and international routes planned
(Dubai, August 2004): Capitalising on its central location between Europe, Asia and Africa, SriLankan Airlines is focusing on the enhancement of its services to existing destinations, as well as looking at new options, as part of its current five-year expansion plan.
Chief executive Peter Hill said the carrier was implementing a threefold strategy aimed at both boosting the reputation of SriLankan as an international carrier of substance, as well as a regional airline offering frequent links between major gateway cities.
"With a new A340 aircraft in our fleet, we will launch services to Beijing this autumn, offering three flights a week as an extension of our Bangkok service," he said.
"In addition, additional A320s means we can take advantage of the new open skies agreement with India to extend our connections on the sub-continent, inaugurating flights to Calicut from Colombo on July 1."
Calicut will become the 10th destination on SriLankan Airlines' Indian network - and the 43th worldwide - and is part of a strategy to thicken up on the carrier's south Asian network, as well as expand both east and west to boost its position as a hub for inter-continental travel.
Hill said two years' of consolidation were planned to enable SriLankan to add more frequencies on the routes it already serves: "We need double daily services between Colombo and Dubai for instance, as the demand is there, while our key London route could also accommodate twice daily frequency, which we hope to achieve soon."
In addition, he said SriLankan was looking to add capacity in to major source markets such as Germany and Switzerland plus Tokyo, while new areas of potential being researched included Korea, South Africa and Australia.
"Even though we are offline in Australia, there was a 78 per cent increase in the number of visitors to Sri Lanka from Australia last year and these figures demonstrate the potential that exists to develop tourism in to the country through the establishment of new air links."
As the third prong in its operational strategy, SriLankan is opening up the country with an air taxi service, offering fast and frequent transfers on Cessna Caravan amphibious aircraft between the airport at Colombo and major tourist destinations such as Kandy, Bentota and Trincomalee.
In tandem with route expansion, SriLankan is also to introduce a global booking engine this summer, facilitating reservations through the Internet.
The airline currently offers services to Tokyo, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Jakarta in the Far East; Male in the Maldives and 10 destinations in India, eight points in the Middle East, plus Paris, Zurich, Frankfurt and Munich, and London in Europe.
In addition, a recent code-share agreement with British Midland means passengers on SriLankan can connect to that carrier's flights from London - these include Manchester, Bradford, Teesside, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Belfast in the UK, plus Dublin, Amsterdam, Brussels, Düsseldorf and Paris.
"While we do not see the need to be in the arena of the global airline alliances, we have our codeshare and operational connections with Emirates, as well as these other strategic arrangements," said Hill. "Codeshare routes with Emirates may well be extended, and we aim to promote this dynamic link more strongly in future."
Private sector should come forward to provide health care to every citizen: Dr Ramadoss
'Aao gaon chalen' launched to provide health in villages
Thiruvananthapuram Aug 3: Minister for Health and Family Welfare Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss called upon the Indian Medical Association (IMA) and medical professionals in the country to come forward to provide positive health to every village in the country.
Inaugurating IMA's innovative National Programme 'Aao Gaon Chalen', the Minister said that private sectors have to join hands with the Government in achieving the goal of providing positive health to every citizen of the country.
"Public Private Partnership is showing results and I call upon the Indian Medical Association and medical professionals in the country to come forward to shoulder these responsibilities with the Government of India and take active interest in implementation of all National Health Programmes", he added.
Stating that in spite of best efforts of the Government, many rural areas of the country are starved of basic health amenities, Dr Ramadoss said that Government's thrust is on rural development, which is very nicely reflected in the budget announcements.
"Government is encouraging opening of hospitals in rural areas by giving tax exemption for ten years and if Government and medical practitioners can join hands to mitigate the sufferings of the villagers, it can work as model for Public Private Partnership and further projects can jointly be taken up for eradication of various diseases from the country" he observed.
Expressing his concern at the "mushrooming of quacks throughout the country", Dr Ramadoss pointed out that if doctors are willing to serve the rural areas - where huge numbers of people are treated by the quacks due to lack of qualified medical practitioners - the problem of quacks would be resolved to a large extent.
He also expressed his keenness to regularize the health services in the country in the form of accreditation of medical institutions.
Speaking on the occasion, Family Welfare Secretary Shri P K Hota said that Public Private Partnership in the health sector will enable health professionals to improve rural health as envisaged in the National Health Policy.
Under the project 'Aao Gaon Chalen', the members of IMA will adopt the most vulnerable villages according to prevalent major public health problems. Major emphasis will be on the control of epidemics and endemics, maternal and child health, geriatric care and adolescent health. -Keralamonitor.com
webmaster
