India banned smoking in public places

Even though the list of countries with smoking ban in public places is long, the smoking bans are much rarer in Asia. Now, India is following footsteps of Hong Kong and Singapore prohibiting smoking in many public places.

From the 2nd October smoking in hospitals, train stations, offices, hotels, restaurants and even bars in India is banned. According to government, there are over 120 million smokers in India, most of them under 30 years old.

The violators of the smoking ban will get a $5 fine initially, however India officials consider to raise the penalty to $25 in future.

KLM pilot misses new Hyderabad airport

One would thing that all that state of the art equipment on board of airplanes should make it impossible for pilot to miss the arrival port, but then one would be mistaken.

In a slip-up barely hours after the Shamshabad airport opened for business, a KLM flight from Amsterdam, which was supposed to land at Hyderabad, skipped the airport and flew across the country — first to Delhi, and then to Mumbai.

Apparently, the pilot knew nothing about the new airport and was flying towards Begumpet only to be told that the facility had been shut. He was directed to Shamshabad, to which the pilot asked the air traffic control: "Shamshabad? What’s that?" The pilot then flew to Delhi, from where, after being refused permission to land, he took the plane to Mumbai.

Next time, give a guy GPS system, I heard TomTom is good.

Perfect customer service

Description: Irani cafe in Hyderabad, India
Location: Hyderabad, India
Credit: Rajat Gupta

British Airways new longhaul route to Hyderabad

British Airways is to start flights from Heathrow to the Indian city of Hyderabad from October 27, 2008.

Hyderabad becomes the airline's sixth Indian destination joining Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai on its route network. There will be five flights each week on a Boeing 777 aircraft.

Robert Boyle, British Airways' commercial director, said: "India is our largest market outside North America and, with the Hyderabad route, we will fly there 48 times each week. This is up from 19 flights per week when the UK/India aviation market was liberalised in October 2005.

"Hyderabad has a fast growing economy based on IT, business process outsourcing and biotech industries and we believe that there will be a strong business demand for our flights which will be the only direct services between the city and the UK."