Sarojini Naidu, freedom fighter and poet, once jocularly remarked that it cost the nation a great deal of money to keep Mahatma Gandhi in poverty.
On Monday, Air India found that it costs a lot to keep another Gandhi flying the austere way — in economy class. With minister after minister vowing to fly economy class in the wake of the Centre’s much-touted austerity drive, it was UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s turn to lead from the front.
Sonia flew economy class on Air India flight IC-887 from Delhi to Mumbai to attend a party function, but her Special Protection Group (SPG) officers had cleared out a couple of seats in business class for security reasons. While Sonia was seated on 3A — the seat with maximum leg space in economy — the national carrier had emptied out another couple of rows of seats for the privilege of having her on board. The 122-seat Airbus A319 carried 77 passengers in all.
Sonia had no one else for company on seats 3B and 3C. At the other end on the same row was defence minister AK Antony, seated on 3F, again with no one for company on seats 3D and 3E. The aircraft took off at 1.45 pm from Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport and landed in Mumbai at 2.40pm.
When VIPs travel cattle class, the airline is usually kept in the loop, enabling it to block off seats in advance. Air India had a seat configuration of eight business class and 114 economy on the A319 which carried Sonia Gandhi to Mumbai.
Normally, it is the SPG which gets tickets organised for the UPA chairperson when flying on commercial aircraft in India. “The SPG books tickets with the vouchers given to them for all official air travel and they did the same thing in this flight too,” said a senior government official.
Airline officials refused to divulge details of the tickets booked by the SPG for Sonia Gandhi’s flight. Details of passengers travelling in business class were also not available.
Did Air India stop booking regular seats because they knew Sonia was travelling? Out of 122, only 77 seats were booked. “The seats were vacant because it was not a rush-hour flight. You check all the airlines and you will find the same level of load factor. Both the Congress president and defence minister were seated like any other economy class passenger in the flight,” an Air India spokesman claimed.
Air India was, however, aware of the VIP passengers it was carrying and did its best to clear all the baggage and passengers travelling in the flight quickly.
