As AI 160-the special aircraft carrying Indian citizens from the strife-torn Iraq, touched down Delhi on Saturday evening with 53 passengers onboard, it also marked the successful completion of a one-of its-kind logistic exercise for the national carrier.
The Boeing 777-200LR aircraft, operated with a batch of ten crew members including two for the cockpit - Commander V.N. Bambole and First officer AR Bhatnagar, also carried a team of 23 ground handling staff for passenger manifestation and baggage weighing and loading purpose.
This was for the first time that the airline carried along with its own team of ground handling staff to an overseas rescue mission.
“While receiving a call to operate the flight by 6 pm on Friday, we were not clear about the number of passengers but still our team of ground handlers stocked all necessary materials such as boarding cards, tags and of course food for a full flight,” said a top airline official.
The integrated operations control cell (IOCC) in Delhi was entrusted to put a team of ground handling personnel as Erbil is not on the airline’s network. The agency also obtained all overflying clearances as well as DGCA clearances for operating the flight.
The mission started off with a direction from the Ministry of External Affairs on Friday to keep its planes for a relief operation that could be carried out in a minimal notice period. The airline acted quickly to find a way to fill the obvious gap in travel options and keeping in mind the possible number of passengers, it zeroed in on the 238-seater aircraft and alerted a select batch of crew members to report at the first call.
