Demise of the National Carrier: Parting kick by Praful Patel

Praful Patel's family flew business class after Air India called in big planes
NDTV Sandeep Phukan, Sidharth Pandey, Updated: February 21, 2012 00:47 IST
New Delhi: Air India has been forced to reveal that Praful Patel's family was able to fly business class after last-minute changes were made to pull in a bigger plane for their journey last year, ensuring they were able to fly business class.
Mr Patel was then Civil Aviation Minister.
The details of his family's travel have been released because of a Right to Information application filed by activist Subhash Agarwal.
On April 25, Mr Patel's daughter, Avni, her husband, and relatives of her in-laws were to fly from Bangalore to the Maldives. The plane usually reserved for that flight - an Airbus 319 - has eight business class seats. Seven of them had been booked for other passengers. On April 8, instructions were emailed from the airline's Mumbai headquarters to the Bangalore station manager asking for an Airbus 320 to be used on April 25 and April 28 - the days on which Mr Patel's family members would be flying into and out of the Maldives. As a result, more than 50 seats were vacant on both routes (the A320 has many more economy class seats than the A 319).
Air India had refused to part with the information citing commercial secrets, but last month, the Central Information Commissioner ordered the carrier to make the information public in larger interest.
NDTV Report

Praful Patel has graduated and grounded to Heavy Industries for more kickbacks
Comments by vish 11 hours ago
In other parts of the world, small accusations of someone politicians going for a lavish dinner or for some sort of perfectly legal loans from government banks - make the concerned politicians be inquired and finally most of the time they are required to resign. In London one minister resigned since he was accused of dodging to pay a speeding fine some 8-10 years back. Compare this to India - these shameless guys do everything wrong possible in this world and do not even blink eyes are accused. This Praful Patel has amassed huge wealth and now owns huge tracts of properties in Maharashtra and Mumbai - can he show how he amassed this wealth in all these years (except for sure sucking of Air India). Its easy for Income Tax and Enforcement authorities to get the details in just few days but obviously with Congress in power this would never happen...
click here for more comments