Women pilots to fly inaugural Air India’s SFO-Bengaluru service
NEW DELHI: An all-women cockpit crew will operate the January 9 inaugural of Air India’s longest nonstop — San Francisco (SFO)-Bengaluru — which starts plying this week.
The airline has rostered four of its highly-experienced women pilots — Captains Zoya Agrawal, Thanmai Papagari, Sonwane Akanksha and Shivani Manhas — to fly a Boeing 777-200 (long-range or LR) for the inaugural via the polar route — en route Bengaluru — for the first direct scheduled flight between south India and the US.
“Two sets of two pilots each operate our ultra-long flights by turn. Besides the four pilots, our head of flight safety, a senior woman commander, will also be on board. While it depends on weather conditions of the day, we are planning the B777 will fly over the north pole en route Bengaluru,” said a senior AI official.
The four operated the Delhi-SFO late Wednesday with AI’s executive director of flight safety, Captain Nivedita Bhasin, on board.
The Bengaluru-SFO shortest flight distance is over 14,000 km, about 1,000 km more than Delhi-SFO. Very often airlines take longer routes to get tailwinds and avoid headwinds. The AI flight, for instance, took the Pacific route from Delhi to SFO. The inaugural to Bengaluru will take the Atlantic route over North Pole — getting tailwinds on both sectors.
