All-woman crew for 13 Air India flights on Women’s Day

To mark International Women’s Day, Air India, for the second consecutive year, is operating on Monday night an ultra long haul flight from Delhi to Toronto, with an all-woman crew.

Over the years, Air India has operated many flights, both on international and domestic sectors, with an all-woman crew. Last year, for the first time in the history of civil aviation, Air India operated the ultra long haul flight from Mumbai to New York with an all-woman crew to commemorate the occasion.

Nasim Zaidi, Secretary, Civil Aviation, is slated to flag off Air India’s AI 187 on the Delhi-Toronto sector, operated by an all-woman crew from Terminal - 3 of IGI Airport, Delhi.

Flight AI 187 will be the first of the 13 all-woman crew flights scheduled for operation by Air India on March 8, 2011, across its domestic and international network, to mark International Women’s Day, an Air India spokesperson said here.

Capt. Rashmi Miranda will be the Commander and Capt. Sunita Narula, the First Officer on this commemorative flight. Ms. Harpreet A De. Singh, will carry out a Line Observation Safety Audit. The flight will be despatched by Ms. Rashmi Verma.

The national carrier provides equal opportunities to women in all areas of its activity, including specialised technical areas and senior management. Women Pilots, Flight Dispatchers, Aircraft Maintenance Engineers, Safety and Quality Auditors, Cabin Crew, Doctors, Technical Officers, Simulator Maintenance Engineers, Ground Instructors for training pilots and so forth form part of a highly skilled, technically proficient team of women at Air India, the spokesperson said. Air India has a large contingent of 157 women pilots flying its fleet of wide and narrow body aircraft on international and domestic routes. Air India has more than 5,300 women employees on its workforce.

Air India’s scheduled flights with the all-woman crew on the domestic sectors on Tuesday include AI 409/410 on the Delhi-Patna-Delhi sector, AI-469 on the Delhi-Raipur-Nagpur-Delhi route, AI-811/812 on the Delhi-Lucknow-Delhi route, AI-603/604 on the Mumbai-Bangalore-Mumbai sector, AI-569/167 on the Chennai-Mumbai-Chennai, AI804/506 on the Bangalore-Delhi-Bangalore sector, and Air India Express flight IX302 between Kozhikode and Mumbai.