SpiceJet's Inaugural Bangalore to Bangkok Run

This was a look inside the airline, its operations, and the lives of some of the people who make it fly. The technical level was kept light for a wider audience, with aviation terms explained at the end.

From the ground up

When Mr Giriprakash, Chief of Bureau at the Hindu Business Line, reached SpiceJet's check in counter at Bangalore's Kempegowda International Airport, he was greeted with some ceremony by V. Raja, the airline's Senior Vice President Commercial, for being the first passenger to check in for the inaugural flight to Bangkok.

The flight was scheduled to leave at 03:35 on 27 October 2013 (22:05 UTC the previous evening). Winston, a senior customer service executive in charge of passenger handling, was at the desk at Gate 8. In his fifth year in the industry, he found it exciting to be part of a first flight, SpiceJet's first international departure from Bangalore. International departures involve more documentation, more formalities and passengers of other nationalities.

Boarding of 87 passengers, including Mr Raja, began 30 minutes before departure. The pilots, busy with preparations, arrived with 13 minutes to spare. Their workload included manually loading the route into the flight management system and double checking everything, because first flights carry more unpredictability.

The aircraft was VT-SZC, a Boeing 737-800 with winglets nicknamed Asafoetida, operating as SG 91.

The crew and the preparation

First international flights are usually crewed by very experienced pilots. In command was Bhuvnesh Kalra, with the airline since 2005, a 737NG examiner and Deputy Head of Training and Standards. He was joined by another senior captain and examiner, Pankaj Saxena. Together they had more than 20,000 hours, some of it from the Indian Air Force. Kalra said two examiners meant more combined experience to draw on, and that as a management pilot he liked to fly first flights to spot areas needing improvement.

Preparation was intense. The crew studied Thailand's Aeronautical Information Publication for local procedures and airport details, standard operating procedures for the sector were written after a brainstorming session with management pilots, a team visited Bangkok to assess the airfield, and engine out procedures were drafted. One local feature stood out: noise abatement procedures were in force at Bangkok.

The route

The shortest route from Bangalore to Bangkok passes over Chennai, Port Blair and Dawei in south eastern Myanmar. But Port Blair's airport does not operate at night, so it could not serve as an alternate in an emergency. On that routing, a 737-800 with one engine failed might have to fly more than 60 minutes to reach a suitable open airfield, which is not allowed for a twin unless the airline and aircraft hold ETOPS approval. SpiceJet's ETOPS certification was still in process, so for the first 15 or so flights the aircraft would fly a longer route over Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam before turning east across the Bay of Bengal to Dawei and Bangkok. This kept it within 60 minutes of an adequate airfield at the cost of about 70 nautical miles, or 130 km, roughly 10 extra minutes of cruise. The total distance was 1,452 nautical miles (2,690 km).

Why fly in the middle of the night? Raja explained that SpiceJet was opening international routes in the hours when aircraft would otherwise sit parked, since there were no domestic departures between 22:00 and 06:00 IST. That raised utilisation without touching domestic flying.

Take off

The eight month old VT-SZC pushed back from stand 55 at 03:40 IST, five minutes late, and taxied via taxiway D to runway 27, which faces west; the wind was 6 knots from the west and take offs are almost always made into wind.

Take off weight was 62 tonnes, including 11 tonnes of jet fuel worth about INR 11 lakh (US$17,000). With flaps at 5 degrees, the two CFM56-7B24 engines, together capable of 21,700 kg of thrust, spooled to 4,720 rpm. The 24 fan blade tips moved 12% faster than sound, producing the small sonic booms heard as the familiar buzz on take off. SG 91 was airborne at 03:52 IST, 13 minutes after leaving the gate. At 800 feet it banked left towards Vijayawada, climbing at 287 knots (531 km/h) and later Mach 0.77.

The flight cruised at flight level 390, 39,000 feet. Eastbound flights use odd levels such as 350, 370 and 390, westbound flights even levels, giving 1,000 feet of separation between opposite traffic and fitting more aircraft into the system.

Weighing it out

Raghu, a load officer with more than five years at the airline, does not normally fly, but he was in seat 1A for this one. He is responsible for the aircraft's weight and balance, and he said with pride that safety and fuel savings are in the load officer's hands: keeping the centre of gravity further from the nose saves fuel.

An aircraft is like a see saw. The horizontal stabiliser at the tail provides the balancing force, the weight acts through the centre of gravity, and the wings are the pivot. Badly distributed weight makes the aircraft hard to control; well distributed weight allows controlled flight and can be tuned, within limits, for better fuel economy.

Standard weights were 75 kg for adults, 35 kg for children and 10 kg for infants, including cabin baggage, and 85 kg per crew member. The 189 seats were split into three compartments for load purposes: rows 1 to 10 (C1), 11 to 20 (C2) and 21 to 32 (C3). Check in staff seated passengers to the load officer's preference, and if that was not possible he adjusted with the checked baggage. The 737-800 has forward and aft cargo holds. Up to a tonne can go aft without risk of tipping, and the forward hold is loaded first in any case. Precision is not extreme: a 200 to 300 kg change barely matters, but a difference above 400 kg means redoing the load and trim sheet.

En route weather

Despite cruising at 39,000 feet, disturbances over the Bay of Bengal made the ride bumpy. The seat belt sign stayed on for much of the flight as the aircraft passed huge cloud formations at least 40,000 feet tall. Captain Kalra had agreed to photograph the sunrise from the flight deck, but cloud spoiled the view. A 14 knot tailwind near waypoint URKOK gave a ground speed of 459 knots, about 850 km/h.

Cabin affairs

Four cabin crew, led by Subhasini Agarwal as Cabin Crew in Charge, kept busy despite the turbulence. She explained that international flights have more service rounds because they are longer, more customs and immigration paperwork, and slightly different landing announcements with local time and day, but are otherwise much like domestic flights.

SpiceJet's Premium Seats were in rows 1 and 2: closer to the lavatory, served first and off the aircraft first. Row 1 had the most legroom. Row 2 on the right had a 29 inch pitch, which sounds tight, yet a 5 foot 7 inch passenger still had three inches between knee and seat. Seat width was 17 inches throughout, with pitches of 29, 31 and 32 inches around the cabin. The best premium seats were 1A, 1B, 1C, 2A, 2B and 2C. Like the airline's other newer 737s, VT-SZC had the Boeing Sky Interior, with LED cove lighting that mimics a blue sky and overhead bins that pivot up and out of the way.

Sawadeeka

After requesting deviations around weather and punching through the unavoidable cloud, the aircraft began its descent three hours after take off. Air traffic control brought SG 91 to runway 01L, the left of Bangkok's two parallel north facing runways. The crew slowed to 132 knots (244 km/h), set flaps to 30 degrees and flew the Instrument Landing System approach. An ILS can even land an aircraft automatically, though autolands are normally only done for training or in poor visibility.

After burning nearly 7,700 kg of fuel, Captain Kalra touched down at Suvarnabhumi Airport at 07:30 IST (09:00 Thai time), 3 hours 35 minutes after leaving Bangalore. Thrust reversers, spoilers and light braking slowed the aircraft in less than half of the 12,000 foot runway. At stand D2 on Concourse D, ground staff held a banner welcoming SpiceJet to Thailand. Ground handlers Bangkok Flight Services and Bangkok Aviation Fuel Service also put up a welcome, though there was no water cannon salute. An hour later the aircraft left for Pune with a fresh crew, opening the Bangkok to Pune service.

Saying hi

A press conference followed 1 hour 45 minutes after landing, with Kamal Hingorani, Senior Vice President and Head of Ground Services, and V. Raja alongside Anil Wadhwa, the Indian Ambassador to Thailand. Bangkok was SpiceJet's tenth international destination, its first international route from Bangalore, and SpiceJet was the only Indian airline flying Bangalore to Bangkok. A promotional all inclusive fare of INR 8,000 was on offer. Raja said Dammam in Saudi Arabia and Kuala Lumpur would follow that fiscal year, taking the count to 12.

Vipul Seth, General Manager Business Development, described the practice of replacing older 737s with new ones, bringing the average fleet age to 2.5 years, and a lease agreement with Singapore based BOC Aviation for six 737-800s. The fleet stood at 55 aircraft, including 15 fully owned Bombardier Q400s. SpiceJet began flying in mid 2005, but its roots went back to ModiLuft, launched by industrialist S K Modi with Lufthansa in 1993. That airline stopped in 1996, became Royal Airways, and changed hands again in 2004 to become SpiceJet.

Flight crew talk

Captain Kalra had been flying since 1990 and flew the MiG 21, MiG 29 and Sukhoi Su-30 MKI in the Indian Air Force before leaving in 2004 for personal reasons. He joined SpiceJet in 2005 and had about 7,000 hours on the 737NG. Asked what was on his mind on the way to Bangkok, he said his mind was blank, and joked that he had rested well. Civil flying, he said, has less excitement because safety comes first and limits cannot be pushed as in military flying, where the mission comes first; with 189 passengers behind you it is a different world. He liked that no two days are alike and enjoyed the view from the cockpit. He preferred line flying to management desk work, and paper charts to the iPad, while admitting the tablet made searching easier and was lighter to carry. He liked SpiceJet for its working environment and people.

Subhasini Agarwal loved meeting people. The bug bit her at nine, on a flight from Kolkata to Bhubaneswar with her parents. She studied hotel management, spent six months with Kingfisher, five years with IndiGo, then married and joined SpiceJet as Cabin Crew in Charge. The path to that role runs from trainee to cabin crew after about six months, then senior cabin crew, then four years before leading the cabin. Managing a 189 seat cabin of varied people is a challenge, and when something new happens at 37,000 feet there is no one to call. She found emergency handling interesting, and her reward was passengers leaving with a smile. She was most excited about the Bangkok layover, and saw herself flying for a year or two before starting a family, after which a management role might follow.

Aviation terms used

• Flight Management System: the onboard computer that manages navigation and performance and feeds the autopilot.
• 737NG: the Next Generation 737 family (600, 700, 800, 900); the 800 seats up to 189 and has a range of about 3,115 NM with winglets.
• ETOPS: rules allowing twin engine aircraft to fly more than 60 minutes from a suitable airport, subject to certification.
• Nautical mile: 1.852 km.
• Runway numbers: magnetic heading divided by ten; runway 27 faces west, runway 01 faces roughly north.
• Flight level: altitude based on a standard pressure setting of 1013.25 hPa.
• Seat pitch: distance between the same point on two seats in a row.
• Thrust reversers, spoilers and brakes: the three ways the aircraft slows after landing.