Air India One, Seat No 59G

Cuisine of your choice, coloured ID tags by your profession; press gets a yellow tag. Welcome to the world of VVIP air travel.
If the seat number on your airline boarding card reads 59G, you are likely to be seated somewhere in the depths of the cattle class on a large aircraft like a Boeing 747. Except, of course, if you are flying Air India One (AI-1). Your correspondent discovered this to his pleasant surprise on September 9, when he accompanied President Pratibha Patil on a state visit to Laos and Cambodia as a member of the media entourage. 59G, as it turned out, was indeed located towards the rear of the aircraft, but in this reconfigured 747, it was an executive class seat (no flat beds, this isn’t the brand new Air India).
VVIP flights such as this one requires everyone, except, of course, the president and her senior bureaucratic entourage, to reach at least three hours before departure (D-3, they call it). The check-in, immigration and customs formalities are conducted outdoors under a makeshift shamiana adjoining the small VVIP lounge at the Air Force Station, Palam.
26/09/10 Dhiraj Nayyar/Indian Express

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Sep 2010