All-women crew to operate Delhi-Toronto flight

New Delhi: An all-women crew will operate a 15-hour non-stop flight from here to Toronto Tuesday to mark International Women's Day.

The 11-member crew will not only operate the flight AI-187, but women engineers will carry out the safety audit before the Boeing B 777-300ER aircraft flies out from the IGI Airport.

While Capt Rashmi Miranda will be the commander and Capt Sunita Narula the First Officer on this commemorative flight, Harpreet A De Singh, chief of Quality Management Systems, will carry out a Line Observation Safety Audit.

The flight will be despatched by Rashmi Verma, a spokesperson said.

The airline will also operate flights on several domestic sectors with all-women crew Tuesday, he said. These include flights on sectors like Delhi-Patna,

Delhi-Raipur-Nagpur, Delhi-Lucknow, Mumbai-Bangalore, Chennai -Mumbai and Bangalore-Delhi.

Air India has a large contingent of 157 women pilots flying its fleet of wide and narrow body aircraft on international and domestic routes. It has over 5,300 women employees in its workforce.
Interestingly, a flight of no-frill airline IndiGo was recently delayed by about two hours when a passenger created ruckus saying he would not fly with a woman pilot. Airport security officials took him off the plane, but he was allowed back only after an apology.

Meanwhile as part of the centenary celebrations of Civil Aviation in India and to observe the Women's Day, the Civil Aviation Ministry will tomorrow felicitate women aviators who have contributed significantly to the sector.

Among those to be felicitated are Capt Durba Banerjee, the first woman commander of an airline, and Chanda Budhabhatti, pioneer pilot and founder of Indian Women Pilots' Association.

Capt Prem Mathur, the first woman to obtain a Commercial Pilot License, would also be honoured posthumously.

IANS