Mid-Flight Dance Gets SpiceJet Pilots Suspended - India Real Time - WSJ
Mid-Flight Dance Gets SpiceJet Pilots Suspended
A screenshot of a video showing members of cabin crew dancing on a SpiceJet flight.
Screenshot
Two SpiceJet pilots have been suspended after one of them left the cockpit mid-air to watch the cabin crew performing a Bollywood dance.
The airplane’s first officer left the airplane’s controls to shoot a video of the dance on his mobile phone on Monday during Holi, the Indian festival of colors.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation, in a notice to the low-cost airline Thursday, said the act could have been dangerous and was a violation of some of its rules. Mobile phones and tablets were used by the passengers to record the performance, the video was later uploaded to YouTube.
The footage shows the cabin crew dancing in the aisle to “Balam Pichkari,” a song from the Bollywood movie “Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani.”
“Both the pilots have been suspended,” said a spokeswoman for SpiceJet, who did not name the pilots involved.
Investigations into the incident are underway, the spokeswoman added. She did not say how long the pilots would remain suspended from duty.
No action has been taken against the members of the cabin crew.
The dance stunt was a part of SpiceJet’s plan to liven up the journey for passengers on Holi, India’s most vibrant and chaotic festival.
The Bollywood sequence was performed on five flights traveling from Pune, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Goa and Delhi, said the SpiceJet spokeswoman. It was unclear which flight the pilots who have been suspended were on, but they were disciplined because the first officer came out of the cockpit and the captain allowed him to do so, she added.
Low-cost airlines often surprise their guests with dance performances and other forms of standup acts. The objective is two-pronged. Budget carriers can’t generally outperform the more expensive airlines in service, so they turn to stunts to make the journey stand out.
In doing so, they can generate free advertising for the airline if a passenger shoots a video and puts it up online.
A video posted on YouTube in 2010 shows flight attendants of Cebu Pacific, a low-cost carrier from Philippines, dancing while demonstrating the safety features of the flight. The video has so far been viewed 10, 819,482 times. A similar dance stunt was also carried out by crew on AirAsia as a birthday surprise for one of its passengers drawing 3,026 views.
SpiceJet is India’s second-biggest budget carrier after IndiGo, with 19.8% market share.
Read this post in Hindi here.
Follow Saptarishi and India Real Time on Twitter @saptarishidutta and @WSJIndia.
Mid-Flight Dance Gets SpiceJet Pilots Suspended
A screenshot of a video showing members of cabin crew dancing on a SpiceJet flight.
Screenshot
Two SpiceJet pilots have been suspended after one of them left the cockpit mid-air to watch the cabin crew performing a Bollywood dance.
The airplane’s first officer left the airplane’s controls to shoot a video of the dance on his mobile phone on Monday during Holi, the Indian festival of colors.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation, in a notice to the low-cost airline Thursday, said the act could have been dangerous and was a violation of some of its rules. Mobile phones and tablets were used by the passengers to record the performance, the video was later uploaded to YouTube.
The footage shows the cabin crew dancing in the aisle to “Balam Pichkari,” a song from the Bollywood movie “Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani.”
“Both the pilots have been suspended,” said a spokeswoman for SpiceJet, who did not name the pilots involved.
Investigations into the incident are underway, the spokeswoman added. She did not say how long the pilots would remain suspended from duty.
No action has been taken against the members of the cabin crew.
The dance stunt was a part of SpiceJet’s plan to liven up the journey for passengers on Holi, India’s most vibrant and chaotic festival.
The Bollywood sequence was performed on five flights traveling from Pune, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Goa and Delhi, said the SpiceJet spokeswoman. It was unclear which flight the pilots who have been suspended were on, but they were disciplined because the first officer came out of the cockpit and the captain allowed him to do so, she added.
Low-cost airlines often surprise their guests with dance performances and other forms of standup acts. The objective is two-pronged. Budget carriers can’t generally outperform the more expensive airlines in service, so they turn to stunts to make the journey stand out.
In doing so, they can generate free advertising for the airline if a passenger shoots a video and puts it up online.
A video posted on YouTube in 2010 shows flight attendants of Cebu Pacific, a low-cost carrier from Philippines, dancing while demonstrating the safety features of the flight. The video has so far been viewed 10, 819,482 times. A similar dance stunt was also carried out by crew on AirAsia as a birthday surprise for one of its passengers drawing 3,026 views.
SpiceJet is India’s second-biggest budget carrier after IndiGo, with 19.8% market share.
Read this post in Hindi here.
Follow Saptarishi and India Real Time on Twitter @saptarishidutta and @WSJIndia.
