No Turbulence, Please!

Some two decades ago, I was on a flight from Nagpur to Mumbai. I was assigned a seat in the first row and the seat next to me was vacant. Just when the flight was taxiing and about to take off, a young smiling man came and occupied the seat. From his demeanour and respect shown by the cabin crew, one could say that he was a airline staffer and ranking higher in the hierarchy. It was a short flight of about one and half hours. As soon as the flight took off and gained the altitude he went into sleep. 

Another half an hour into the flight, there was a sudden big jolt and everyone was shaken. Some spilled the cups of coffee and juice they were holding. There was no indication of any turbulence or the usual announcement about getting back to seats and tying one's seat belts etc. The young man sitting next to me woke up due to the jerk and spoke to the air hostess. Then he told to himself that the pilot also was perhaps surprised and did not foresee the occurrence. I asked him whether he was an airline employee and well versed with these situations. He said he was a pilot himself and had just completed his work schedule and was proceeding to Mumbai to join his family. Further talk with him gave much insights into the life of a pilot and allied matters.

Modren aircrafts are so well advanced technically that when things are fine and there are no expected troubles the aircrafts are put on "Autopilot" and pilots can have a relaxed flight. However, at all times they keep a watchful eye on the happenings and take the aircraft under manual controls at the first sign of any trouble. 

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Decades ago we had the practice of air-hostesses showing the safety instructions starting from buckling the seat belts up to emergency evacuation systems. Nowadays this is replaced by videos of safety instructions. However, there are many instances on a flight when the pilot switches on seat belt signs when confronted with turbulence in mid-flight. This is followed by an announcement on the PA system of the aircraft requesting all passengers to go back to their seats and tie seat belts. This happens several times on many international flights and especially on transatlantic flights. Seasoned air travellers take such things in their stride but it can be a dreadful experience to new travellers. 

There have been some rare instances of serious injury to passengers during severe turbulence as well. In the month of May this year, some three months ago, turbulence hit a Singapore airlines flight from London to Singapore in which one passenger died and 71 others were injured, sone of them seriously. Not fastening seat belt can be very disastrous in such events and passengers may even be thrown up from their seats as happened on this flight. Seat belt signs came on in this case and within a minutes time aircraft faced severe jolts and all hell broke lose. 

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Development in aerospace technology has made air travel much safer and comfortable over the years. Modren aircrafts are lighter compared their earlier versions and much more fuel efficient. Addition of safety features from time to time have resulted in enabling the aircrafts flying farther and faster. Journey from India to Continental America had to be with a stop over in some destination or other two decades ago. It could be either London or Paris or Frankfurt or Amsterdam or somewhere else. New generation aircrafts are now capable of flying up to longer than 18 hours at a time. This has enabled flying from India directly to USA, Canada and destinations in South America without stopovers. This increases passenger comfort due to avoiding change of aircraft midway and attendant hassles like additional security check, waiting in the intermediate station, getting in and getting out of aircraft etc., besides saving in journey time. Passengers also get better fares as overhead expenses of airline companies gets reduced due to saving in landing and take off charges and incidental expenses. This has enabled direct flights to destinations like New York, Washington DC and San Francisco from Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore.

Airbus 380-800 is the latest version of the giant aircraft from the airbus family and used by airlines for flying long distances as well as ferrying large number of passengers on heavy traffic routes. Its double decker cabin carries first class and business class passengers on the upper deck and economy passengers on the lower deck. Emirates airlines owns one of the largest fleets of this aircraft. Boeing 747, popularly known as Jumbo Jet, was also a double decker one but not full length. Airbus A 380 can carry over 500 passengers in three class configuration and can accomodate over 800 passengers if configured to carry economy class passengers alone. 

Though extremely successful as a large capacity aircraft, Airbus found A 380 to be commercially unviable due to demands of direct or point to point service as against hub and spoke model for which this aircraft was being built. Unfortunately, Airbus has discontinued production of this aircraft now.

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The flight from Los Angeles to Dubai in the magnificent Airbus A 380-800 is of little over 16 hours. The Emirates flight took off last fortnight as per schedule and covered the distance in 16 hours. The seat belt sign went off as soon as the aircraft gained a height of 10,000 feet. Everyone including cabin crew and passengers went about their routine as usual. There was movement of passengers within the cabin. The slides on the flight information scren encouraged the guests to move around the cabin to keep the circulation going on in the legs. Within a few minutes the aircraft was flying at over 35,000 feet. After about an hour into the air, the flight was between 39000 feet to 42,000 feet. The feeling was as if you are sitting in your own drawing room. The flight landed in Dubai after 16 hours. There was not even one instance of the seat belt sign going on during the entire flight! 

While flying at around 40,000 feet altitude, the average movement of the aircraft was only about 20 feet, which indicated how steady it was while moving at a speed of 580 miles or 928 KM per hour. A car moving in Bangalore roads probably moves at least five feet up and down!

When asked about this unusual happening just before arrival in Dubai, one of the cabin attendants mentioned that the airlines and pilots have mastered the art of finding paths that have little or no turbulence. Advanced weather forecasts and warning systems coupled with superior technology on the aircrafts have brought down the turbulence disturbances to the minimum and to even Nil as experienced on this flight.

The next flight from Dubai to Bangalore was of only 4 hours and that too did not have a single seat belt fastening situation. 

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The days of direct flights from India to Continental America (as also many other destinations) are here. So also flights for this length of journey without any experience of turbulence. Happy flying!

Airbus A380 may stop flying in the skies in a few years. Given a chance, it is advisable to have the experience before its services are withdrawn by the airlines.