Changing Air Traffic

As a frequent flyer, I am observing a change everyday in things and people associated with the air travel. Even the vendors associated with the air travel industry are changing. Many a times, on occupying a seat usually during the afternoon, I find only the regional newspapers in most of the seat pocket, surprising but no one in this regional newspaper industry had even given a single thought about distribution in the travel sector about 10 yr back in India. No one could have imagined the shape of travel industry would change so drastically in last 10 yrs. Even five or six years back, the air travel used to be a luxury, now its a necessity atleast for the corporate world to save the time & to make the world a smaller place. About 80% of traffic consist of people who are travelling officially and most of the rest are trying to cash in on the discounted cost associated with the air travel. So, habits are also changing accordingly. When we travel so much by air for our official travel, even for personal travel, the first choice is always the air travel, if possible to afford. With all this change, all the airlines are lined up to woo the customers and increase their share of the traffic. In this competetion to grab the traffic, almost all the airlines are running at a hugh loss, but somehow they are managing the show till somewhat poor airlines loss the money and the appetite to fight for survival and finish up on the market to be grabbed by big fishes. To fit in this race, I can observe the changes these airlines are going through in every possible way, to save the cost and keep their noses above water, avoiding the financial bankruptcy. Yesterday, as I came down the premier lounge inside the Mumbai Airport, I observed a young lass moving pointlessly in the airport, looking confused, trying to spend time, trying to hide her emotions of fear and shyness. Her dress easily indicated that she is working with the Jet Airways as an air hostess but somehow she was alone, may be not able to reach on time to be a part of the crew and trying to locate her crew members to join in. She must be in her late teens but the face and the size zero body gave her an impression of not more than class Xth student. As I boarded the plane I was greeted by same young girl with innocent looks in her eyes trying again to hide the shyness. Almost every crew member looked very young and inexperienced and under pressure to perform, to compete and to serve the ever growing demands of the customers. All the airlines in their jist to compete are reaching out to the non metros, to much younger and to much more inexperienced people for the coveted jobs to save on the cost of their salaries. While writing this, I can also understand that in one way it is helping the people of non metros and smaller states to get the jobs and join the mainstream of bigger cities, but the innocence and pressure on their faces do justify a need to develop some good kind of training modules, to take care of these traits of these employees, so that they can perform easily without thinking about the pressure and so does not risk their healths because of such rigourous routines. During the flight I observed that a person was always asking for water or juice, etc and almost all the time, the air hostess returned with same and unable to find this demanding person and delivered the things to a wrong person, this person was quite annoyed and oogling at the airhostess with his eyes wide open and the airhostess always said sorry and returned with things again. I don't think why the training staff does not train them to note down the seat number of the customer asking for something instead of trying to recognise the faces. This will save each of the crew from many such situations and they can work at peace. Also, in almost all the airlines, the boy crew members are generally of 5'10'' or 6' height but the girl crew members are of only 5' or 5'2'', very rarely I find girl crew members of 5'4'' or more. I think with growing demands of this industry the HR involved with air travel industry should look at this anamoly and try to rectify the same by appointing girls with slightly more height and body weight. Nowadays most of the people try to squeeze in all their bags as inflight baggage to avoid delays to wait for the checked in baggage to collect on arrival and so the space is jampacked and these girl crew members do face a lot of problems in adjusting all this stuff in the overhead compartments. Things are changing and also the habits of passengers, I had came across some unusual habits of passengers which I think can be avoided easily by them, I will try to jot down some of same in next post,,,,,till then enjoy the changing life...

Change in Life

It's been almost 45 days that I had posted a new blog, in between a dear friend also suggested towards an article showing the amount of money involved into posting blogs and adding to the revenue earned. Thanks to the buddy for indicating the same and clearly showing the interest in the blogs I compose and put up here. I know there are very few who read my blog, but I do not have any regrets. I do not write for money or to show my hold on the subject, the real reason for me to write a blog is just to spend some free time, so I do put up something on my mind whenever I am free and whenever I have my laptop with me and no one else to talk to and no other work to do. I had started the blog writing, only when my office was temporarily closed and I had been working from home and many a times the network used to be down and I had no other option but to either chat or do something else. I know, I am old enough to waste time in loitering around in chat sessions without enjoying the stuff so initially I started by creating an orkut account at this age of 40 and then refreshed my Linkedin profile and in between I came across a blog about Life which I do not like, so I put up an answer to his blog. As I was thinking about the answer posted about that blog, the mind clicked about writing a blog myself and so, I started it, never thinking about the money to be earned or the frequency at which I will be able to add up the content. My life is like that and I enjoy the same, I enjoy the changing time and I love to adapt according to the time. I do believe in setting the priorities and work only to accomplish those priorities within the set time frame. In between, I do forget about the little things like this blog or may be I do not allow my mind to add stress by thinking about such things which are really not important.

इन राहोंन पर , चलते चलते

ज़िंदगी कट जाए गी , यूँही बदलते बदलते

So, change according to the time and enjoy the changing time..