Air India plane misuse: Civil Aviation Ministry yet to hear from Praful Patel

The Minister's daughter had allegedly requested a larger aircraft to accommodate her family members which was done by the Air India management. Reuters

More than two weeks after Heavy Industries Minister Praful Patel said that he had written to the Ministry of Civil Aviation to probe the allegations of misuse of Air India by his relatives, the airline has denied receiving any communication from Patel.

“No information available”, said the Ministry in response to RTI application filed by Subhash Agrawal demanding the letter Patel wrote to the Civil Aviation Ministry/ Minister.

“Instead of hiding the facts, Union Civil Aviation Ministry should rather probe the matter as desired made by Praful Patel at least to prevent future such happenings,” Agrawal said.

The matter refers to Air India switching aircraft to accommodate the family members of Avni Deshpande, daughter of then civil aviation minister Praful Patel, on a trip from Bangalore to Male, capital of Maldives, in April 2010.

Last month, complying with Central Information Commission directive, Air India disclosed the file noting related to the matter which showed that the national carrier had changed aircrafts for Bangalore-Male flight (April 25, 2010) and Male-Bangalore (April 28, 2010) from a smaller Airbus A319 to larger A 320.

The documents revealed that the Mumbai office of Air India had issued the directives over email to switch the aircrafts.

Seven family members of Avni Deshpande had travelled on these flights.

Airbus A-319, the routine aircraft Air India which plies on this route, has eight business class seats and 114 economy class seats. A-320, the bigger plane, has 20 business class seats.

However, due to change in aircraft, six of the 20 business class seats remained vacant on Bangalore- Male April 25 flight. There were no takers for 47 seats in economy class.

When the matter became public, Patel went on record saying that he had written to the current Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh to probe the allegations.

Source:  http://www.firstpost.com