CLASS(ICK)

Recently while travelling back from Guwahati to Bangalore via Kolkata in a JetLite flight S24364, I had an experience worth sharing with all of you. I with my wife and six-year old kid were having seats that were very close to the front exit. The first two rows or so had been reserved as ‘premier’ class. Premier class on a Jetlite plane, I wondered. Except for four seats per row, instead of the usual six there was nothing premier about those seats. Anyways there was one toilet near the front exit and two toilets near the far rear exit. Enough for the details.


We flew from Guwahati, there were 3-4 passengers in the premier class, however rest of the economy class was packed with close to 130 passengers. There was a curtain separating the premier and the economy class. However the use of the toilet near the front exit was open to all passengers. After about 50 minutes we touched-down at Kolkata. When the flight took-off again, this time for Bangalore, my son wanted to use the toilet and I guided him to the nearest toilet near the front exit, when my way was blocked just outside the toilet by the cabin crew, in full view of the premier class passengers. The regular passengers had de-boarded at Kolkata and only two pilots were seated in the premier class. The cabin crew members told me to use the rear toilet. When I asked them the reason why my son (who was obviously in little emergency to use the toilet) couldn’t use the front toilet, the cabin crew told me that the front toilet was only for the exclusive use of the premier class passengers. I protested and told him that it would be difficult for my small son to trudge the entire plane and use the rear toilet. Besides such rules were not applied in the first-half of the flight and neither we were told about such procedures when we booked the ticket. But the cabin crew could only managed to tell me that it was a procedure and they have been told to follow the same. Nothing, but Shashi Tharoor’s controversial remark ‘Cattle Class’ came to my mind. I lodged my protest and retreated. By that measure one toilet was available for the use of two pilots sitting as passengers in the premier class i.e. 0.5 toilet per passenger and 2 rear toilets were available for the rest 130 odd i.e. 0.0153 toilet per passenger. Wow! Ever thought that these airlines are flying because of the volumes in the economy class.

However soon, better sense prevailed over the crew and they removed the front toilet blockade. Such privileges are not uncommon for business class passengers but few questions remained unanswered - I wondered if it was a procedure then how could they relax and tighten during the same flight intermittently. And if it was not a procedure, then why did they block my son’s entry to the front toilet? Why despite the fact that no regular passengers were flying in the premier class, such procedures were suddenly adopted? Does the staff of Jetlite get precedence in services than the customers?

Class system is however not new to us, right? Class-system is embedded and legitimized in our country. Take the way certain employees are treated or the kind of facilities that they are provided. In Jalandhar the roof collapse of a blanket manufacturing unit killed more than 23 labourers (mostly migrants from U.P. and Bihar) and injured several dozens. The factory building had been constructed only four-five years ago. It is alleged that the safety certification of the collapsed factory had expired over a year ago and had not been renewed. Who cares anyways? Some arrests will happen and then case would drag for years and finally nothing would happen.

Most of the unorganized labour in our country works as shabbily and have horrible working conditions, often highly unsafe & unhygienic. The death of labours in Delhi Metro Construction projects, or the DLF site accident last year and many such incidents are stark reminders to the way unorganized labours are treated in India.

Anyone listening?