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Indian Airlines goes mobile; gets woman CMD
Flight information on your mobile through SMS
BY OUR AVIATION CORRESPONDENT
13 June, 2005: If you thought SMS is just for staying in touch and fun, think again. Indian Airlines has started an SMS service, which would enable people to know arrival and departure information of its flights any where in India.
The IA plans to add many more services in its IA access platform in the near future. The modus operandi is simple. If you wish to know the Arrival type A then the flight number, city of Arrival and the first
two letters of the day, in this order. If the information you are seeking is about a Mumbai-Bangalore flight IC 103, the text should be D IC0103 BOM WE. There should be a single space in between arrival/departure flight no city and day.
If the flight number has only 3 digits, 0 should be added as a prefix. For Alliance Air flights, this issue does not arise as all flights have 4-digit numbers. If the city code is not known the full name of the city can be typed. The info should be sent to the number 67671407 through most of the service providers. The service is available round the clock. Other useful info like when the flight departed a day before etc can also be availed using this service. The Indian Airlines covers 75 destinations, of which 57 is in India.
The IA flight schedules, seat availability, arrival/departure details and fares can be known through its web site,
http://indian-airlines.nic.in.
As on March, 2005, the Indian
Airlines had a fleet of 54 aircraft and together with Alliance Air, it carried 7.5 million passengers a year. The Indian Airlines, along with its subsidiary Alliance Air, has an annual turnover of Rs 4,000 crores, or roughly $ 1 billion. The IA would come out with an Initial Public Offering to fund its fleet acquisition programme.
Recently Sushma Chawla became the first woman to head IA, when she replaced Sunil Arora. Chawla would be holding the charge in an officiating capacity, while the government searches for a permanent CMD for the state-run airliner. The government has appointed a panel for this. Chawla had joined IA as a management trainee in 1971 and rose through its ranks, becoming its first woman director in 1996, Regional Director of Northern Region and Director, finance and Deputy MD last year.
BY OUR AVIATION CORRESPONDENT
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