New class of travellers arrives pigeonholed

Though the popularisation of the term ‘cattle class’ has not led to any bovines taking it literally and hoofing it to the nearest airport to attempt to catch a flight somewhere, recent complaints that seats are becoming increasingly like pigeonholes has evidently reached avian quarters. Therefore, the presence of two pigeons aboard an aircraft about to take off from Ahmedabad for Jaipur last week should not have come as a surprise, at least to the airline’s staff and crew. After all, there is no reason to surmise that birds are averse to cadging lifts on planes — given that other winged creatures such as mosquitoes and flies do so regularly — particularly if they find low-cost airline cabin spaces comfortingly similar to their usual restrictive abodes.

Of course, the chances are that the pair was just having a lark, but it could well be that the open door of the aircraft dovetailed neatly with their ticketless travel plans.



Ahmedabad airport appears to have become the habitat of quite a diverse set of animals of late; last month, even a man dressed as a bear was seen chasing away a band of trespassing langurs. But as the airport also has the dubious distinction of having the highest ratio of bird hits in India — one in every 700 flights — it was definitely clever of the pigeons to check out the aircraft’s cabin instead flying into its engines.