It is not always that you get to witness history and it is even rarer that you get to be a part of it. But for this one, t2 had a front row, or should we say business class seat as Air India soared to new heights for International Women’s Day.
The flight feat? Around the world with an all-women crew! AI 173 to San Francisco took off from the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi on February 27, covering a distance of around 15,300km in15-and-a-half hours over the Pacific route. The return journey on flight AI 174, via the Atlantic, touched down in Delhi on March 3, adding a feather to our aviation cap. 

Not just the commanders, first officers and cabin crew, the entire flight was operated by the women staff of eight departments including cockpit crew, cabin crew, check-in staff, doctor, customer care staff, ATC and the entire ground handling from operator to technician, engineer and flight dispatcher and trimmer. Even the line operation safety audit was done by Harpreet A De Singh, executive director, flight safety, Air India. This is the first time that this audit was done by a female officer for an around-the-world trip. 

Once the flight landed in San Francisco, the crew — the captains Sunita Narula, Kshamta Bajpai, Indira Singh and Gunjan Aggarwal, the cabin crew Dnyanda Joshi, Tenzin Bhutia, Ashwini Kamble, Gracy Noronha, Vineeta Shakya, Nelly Patton, Mansi Malhotra, Pooja Rajpal, Subdha Karkhanis and Surbhi Malik, led by cabin-in-charges Nishrin Aftab Bandukwala and Seema Baberwal — were felicitated at the airport.

Over the next two days, the crew showed off their swag on an informal ramp, went sight-seeing at Napa Valley and met up with The Ninety-Nines, a worlwide group of female aviators.

t2 chatted with the crew about breaking glass ceilings, pressures of fitting in, finding work-life balance and the love for flying.

CHOOSING A CAREER VS THE CAREER CHOOSING YOU

For ladies like Nishrin Aftab Bandukwala from Bombay, who has 30 years of experience in Air India, it wasn’t that she made a conscious choice. “In those days (1988) there was no pressure to work. I was working at The Oberoi very briefly and a lot of airline crew happened to stay there. The Air India ad came out and everyone said let’s apply, that’s how it started,” recalled Nishrin, whose first flight was India-London-India.

For Ashwini Kamble, an air hostess on the flight, flying and being a part of a crew was what she always wanted. 
For first officer captain Gunjan Aggarwal, the youngest member of the team at 28, flying was an unknown field introduced to her by her uncle. “I went to the flying school for my interview and remember falling in love with the airstrip and the aircraft,”  said Gunjan.

It is your passion that makes a profession your own, was how captain Kshamta Bajpai put it. “A lot of young people tell me they want to fly because it is glamorous, but that wanes very fast. You have to have passion to sustain it once it becomes routine otherwise you’ll be cribbing about the crazy hours, the bad hotels, the poor crew you fly with,” said Kshamta. “But if you are passionate you think ‘oh someone is giving me a multicrore asset to fly and it is all mine’,” added the woman who didn’t know what a glider was, and how it was different from a motorised plane, when she joined the Air wing of the NCC because the Army wing wouldn’t let her go for mountaineering. 

THE TIMES THEY HAVE A’ CHANGED

According to Nishrin, the glamour that was associated with flying was much more earlier, whether as a passenger or as a crew, because it was very exclusive. But there were a lot more challenges during those times as well.

“When I came to Air India (1994) we had a simulator and there was no ladies’ toilet because they never thought there could be any women pilots! I used to make my batchmates go and make sure there was no one inside before I used the toilet, and made them stand outside,” said Captain Sunita Narula, one of the commanders of the flight to San Francisco.
Sunita was the second female pilot in Air India, and she remembers her instructors asking her to be careful as her fingers flew over the controls because she might chip her painted nails. “When I started, I never got handling because every time I was flying with the captains they would tell me ‘we’ll see how you do in this sector and then we’ll see’. After landing they would appreciate me a lot but they would not let me fly.” But that was back then.

“It took time but things started changing after more girls started joining as pilots. Today I feel so proud when the young girls who come in say that there is not even a little discrimination between men and women when it comes to flying now. And they give our example to others,” added Sunita, who has trained with Shiamak Davar’s dance group in her free time.
“The aviation sector in India has been especially open to welcoming women in traditional male roles,”  said captain Indira Singh, who was a first officer for the flight.

Earlier even the cabin-in-charge used to be traditionally male but today it depends on seniority not gender.

WOMEN CAN DO EVERYTHING

It is not easy being a single mother to a teenage son, but for Subdha Karkhanis, one of the cabin crew, it was imperative to make things work. “I come from a middle-class Maharashtrian family and being a Bombay girl it was easy when I joined Air India,” said Subidha, who married into a family that was well-off and faced some pressure from her mother-in-law to quit flying, even though her father-in-law was supportive of her career. After her divorce, her son came to live with her. 
“You know as a middle-class woman I wouldn’t have been able to afford vacations abroad, but because of my job with Air India I have taken my parents out, my sister out and it makes me feel so proud,” said  Subidha, whose job helped her put her 18-year-old son — who wants to be a pilot — through the education she wanted him to have. 

A lot of parents don’t want to invest in girls learning aviation because they believe that it is a career they would have to give up when they get married. “Women can do everything. I am a wife, a mother, a daughter-in-law. You have to find a way to manage your life. It is not that difficult if you keep the focus. It is difficult but not impossible,” said Kshamta, living up to her name.

FIND YOURSELF, BE YOURSELF

In a profession where women are often reminded of a “shelf life” it isn’t always easy to smile away comments about weight, age and looks. But the Air India crew take it gamely.

“Earlier when we read such reports or comments our first reaction was frustration and anger. Because they don’t have any idea of what goes on aboard a flight. For us it is about doing our best and taking each flight as a new challenge. Go out their with our best attitude, look good, feel good and make the passengers feel good. Now we just laugh it off,” said Gracy Noronha, who has been 12 years on board. 

“You know when we joined and were first put on a flight we were faced with situations that couldn’t be taught. How to be a versatile person, looking fresh after a long flight, these learnings come from experience hence age of a cabin crew should be appreciated and not ridiculed,” said Ashwini, who has been with Air India for almost 14 years.

Chandreyee Chatterjee

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