Women’s Day special: Air India women crew operates world’s longest flight
New Delhi
Air India has created a record by flying the world’s longest flight operated by an all-women crew on Sunday, on the occasion of World women’s day . The airline’s San Francisco-bound AI 173 took off from New Delhi on Sunday morning and will return to the national capital on Tuesday.
Not only that, Air India will fly 20 domestic flights with all-women crew on March 8 to observe the International Women’s Day,” .
“What we wanted to do on International Women’s Day is to do a landmark historic event,” says Harpreet De Singh, Air India’s chief of flight safety.
“It’s like a record that we are trying to set — where we can display that women can be equally good in any activity which is traditionally male dominated,” says Singh. We’ve tried to have an all-woman show for this longest flight in history.”
That 17-hour flight covered more than 8,000 miles. And it wasn’t just an all-female crew in the cockpit. Singh says all the flight operations were managed by women.
“We had a lady dispatcher, we had a lady doctor, we had the radio operator on VHF, we had the ops control people who were ladies, I myself did the safety audit, made sure the ramp checks were done, and, of course, the cabin crew, and the security staff were all ladies.”
Singh says she squeezed in a quick conversation with two of the captains during the flight. “They were all extremely excited, very happy, they said that all the passengers on board applauded after the landing, and they were excited about being part of the historic flight. I told them to keep the flag of Air India high, India’s flag high and to keep the flag of women high,” she says.
Singh hopes the Delhi to San Francisco flight will send a message — especially to young girls in India.