CAL and AA are going to China

[PacoPollo]

Eagle is hiring. AA is not.

Yeah flushbAAcks for the left seat....

 

[General Lee]

For those of you not familiar with Chennai, it is the 4th largest city in India and you can have it.

I have been there on more then on occasion and this route will no doubt go Jr very Jr. It is the first and only place I ever saw a person, lift skirt and drop load right in front of me IN the airport terminal.

How about Bangalore? NW just asked for permission to fly there. I was hoping for Bophal, where that Union Carbide factory blew up.... By the way, India as a whole isn't very pretty, but we stay at a very nice hotel in Mumbai, and many pilots love that trip. They have people there who take our people out to fine restaurants for cheap, and places to buy jewels etc. I just flew with a Captain on the 767 that used to be a NYC ER FO and he said he flew the 6 day Mumbai (thru FRA back then) every month for 3 straight years. He loved the people and loved the food. He wasn't junior at the time either. I bet every destination in India has it's ups and downs, but it is probably more interesting than Dayton.


Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[G4G5]

Bangalore is no where near as bad a Madaras(Chennai), especially after the Tsunami.

Don't get me wrong Banglore is no Oasis, it's typical India on a smaller scale. Bangalore is a huge tech basin for Microsoft, it also has a tremendous ball bearing factory (it's all ball bearings), from what I was told they produce all of GM's wheel bearings. With the The GM connection and NWA's Detroit hub, I understand the Bangalore bid.

The Sheraton in Banglore is excellent.

 

[CSY Mon]

Aye India.


Flew wet-lease Air India Cargo for a while.
Got used to the mess.

Then my next 2 flying jobs scheduled the junior pilots on the India runs.

Finally got tired of it.

Mumbay, Chennay, ya name it.

Stick with veggie-soup, toast and mineral water.
Do NOT eat sea-food in the monsoon season.
And plenty of other do-nots, food wise and otherwise.

Local beer was poison 10 to 20 years ago..No imported beer to India, hard currency out of the country.

Gin and tonic was the safe choice, they could not screw up that combo.
(If they could, they would)

If I never see that place again...Ah,,too soon.

 

[typhoonpilot]

India will try to kill you. Every time I go there I come back sick. In mid-November I flew a Hyderabad round-trip. I was perfectly healthy when I left. Within 12 hours of returning I had a fever of over 103 degrees that lasted for 3 days straight. I ended up off work for the rest of the month as I was too weak to fly. The doctor said it was viral pneumonia, but I have my doubts. It was India trying to kill me again.

I travelled to India with my girlfriend ( wife now ) back in 96. We were there for 3 weeks, mostly in the north. Almost immediately after arriving I had stomach problems. Even being very careful, just drinking bottled water, not eating any dairy products ( they still haven't discovered homogenization ), and staying with well cooked food, I got sick. Got over that and then went way up into the Himalayas. Unfortuantely I'd been living at sea level for too long and it was a shock to ascend that fast to such a high altitude. Ended up with High Altitude Mountain Sickness and cut that part of the trip short. Too bad really because we saw some awesome Buddhist monasteries and were planning a trip to the Nubra Valley over the highest road in the world. On our last day there we decided to have a good meal at the Hilton in Delhi. Thinking a five star hotel would be safe I ordered ice cream for dessert, mistake !! On the flight home I alternated between freezing cold chills and extremely hot sweats ( good thing this was pre-SARS ). I spent the whole next day in the hospital with an IV in my arm.

Now if I do India trips the F.O. gets out to do the walk-around and I won't touch any of the catering they put on the airplane.



Typhoonpilot