Thierry Pouille in Ahmedabad awaits refueling. 
Let’s continue the story of our 2017 Air Journey Westbound Around the World flight by exploring the leg from Male in the Maldives to Ahmedabad, India. If you talk to pilots flying the world you soon realize that India’s approach to air traffic control, customs, culture, and everything surrounding their way of doing things is totally different from what we are used to elsewhere in the world. The only common element is their use of the English language, even in ATC terminology, thankfully.
This leg is 1,215 nautical miles following the airways, which doesn’t give us a straight-line route even over the ocean. We have to follow the published routing.
In the Cessna Citation CJ3 flying at flight level 450, we are hoping to get direct routing whenever possible. Well, that doesn’t happen in India. We had to use the old trick of claiming weather ahead of us and ask for deviations in order to get any kind of shortcut.
Also, the clarity of the country’s communications equipment is very weak. We’re wondering if they’re still using 1950s-vintage radios! It’s not unusual in that part of the world for private airplanes flying at altitudes above the airlines to be used as an airline repeater since the airline pilots often cannot reach ATC.
As the flight follows its path, we were soon cleared for the approach. The handling from one sector to the next goes pretty smoothly, with one exception when we were asked to reconnect with the previous controller. Apparently, the landline, or whatever they use on the ground, is not as sophisticated as is the case in the rest of the world. The landing happened with no issue.
Ahmedabad is a pretty busy airport and we are soon taxiing into one of the largest parking areas that we’ve seen lately but, amazingly, it is totally empty.
Through ground communication we parked in a unique spot on the edge of the runway. We shut down after requesting fuel and were met by numerous people from the handling company. That’s one of the characteristics of India—to do any one job requires at least 15 people.
As the other airplanes start to follow us and arrive, they are not parked next to us but directed to another corner of that big expansive area. Being the organizer of the journey, I walked my way up to the other corner wearing my yellow vest so I could easily be spotted by the Air Journey participants in case there would be any other traffic on the tarmac. But there was none—it is only our six airplanes. When I reached the corner we were told that there is no parking available on this long tarmac and we have to push the airplanes by hand into a gravel-surface parking lot usually reserved for buses.
After arguing with some airport staff and meeting with the director of the airport, no one would allow the turboprop to be parked on the tarmac. As for the jet, we decided to go ahead and park at one of the many empty spots and told them we would not move the plane.
After long argumentation, waiting a long time for fuel and a long time for transfer, here we are in India at it again! While a beautiful country culturally and physically, there seems to be total disorganization on the ground where the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing.
To this day, the only explanation we can come up with for that absolute nonsense over parking is the fact that Ahmedabad is the home town of the prime minister of India. He has his own tarmac and own hangar, and since he can show up unannounced, or at least with very short notice, it was therefore important that the whole tarmac area should remain clear.
On our day of departure I was extremely surprised to see a CJ2 Citation with India registration parked in the gravel area. No tug is in sight, only manpower available to move the plane around. The bottom line for our next flying journey we will be to avoid a layover in Ahmedabad but, still, it’s an airport that can be used for a tech stop, refueling, or clearing customs.
Looking forward to our next leg on the 2017 Journey Around the World.
Air Journey founder Thierry Pouille has visited 172 countries and landed in more than 95 in his or Air Journey participants airplanes.
