Mumbai 11th November 2009
Not sure why other thread closed so quick , but yesterday was a whole lotta fun at Bombays immaculate airport.
Heard about the ATR and the weather before check-in , decided to take Gulf return fuel as only alternate avail was Karachi , not the best place to end up with a liner full of Indian citizens ?
Got up to Mumbai area , loads of unfortunates holding with no EATs available as airport now 'closed' because of nowhere to park , taxiways full etc etc , diversions also getting full .
Just about to return to Gulf when it suddenly opened , managed to land about 30 minutes later ( mainly because of poor chaps who diverted ) , then the fun started . 30 mins waiting for parking , another 20 mins for crew and vehicles to find us etc. Then the joys of the clearance frequency . Utter chaos . Took them an hour to wake up to reading out the order of start list , then the list of clearance order , perhaps if they gave you a number when you first called it might bring some order. Or stick to the sheduled Departure times to keep it fair .
But the behaviour of the crew trying to get clearance/start up etc was quite appalling . Very unprofessional .( ps note to self , expect avalanche of abusive PMs ).If crew spoke to controllers in Europe like that , any sort of clearance would take an awful long time to filter through !!. Crew even demanded details of VIP aircraft reg and VIP which was given priority ! Even worse , they were given it , which says a lot for security for the visiting Australian President .
The constant demand for sequence place , arguing about said place etc , demanding an expected delay time which was obviously going to be completely inaccurate , all was amazing to listen to. Please , when a controller tells you that you are number 8 to start , then , when pressed , says it will be 8 minutes , do not be outraged when it does not happen . Some common sense please.
The only good bit was the sniping between one female and one male pilot .
The key to a safe aviation order is discipline and respect , very little of it on show yesterday.
Keep safe
KK