“Beware the hobby that eats.” — Benjamin Franklin
Little did the 28 year old Pilot realize that his light hearted dig at the airline would go viral and would put his job on stake. The video, which he terms he made as a hobby and out of boredom, has gone viral on social media inviting criticism from the airline.
Captain Anjum Chabra is a first-officer with Air India with the Dreamliner fleet of the airlines which was grounded recently after its worldwide ban due to some technical glitches. After the grounding of the aircraft, Chabra hasn’t piloted any flight. To vent out his frustration of being at home and not being paid for last 5 months, he made a Rap video where he starts of by wearing his uniform, only to been told that the flight has been cancelled. He goes on to blame the top management and pilot union for his condition.
Viral Effect
The 5.14-minute long video was posted on YouTube on 13th Feb and last seen has received around 66K+ hits on it. The video which was earlier meant for circulation only among the pilot/airline community has now gone viral on social media with people sharing it and newspapers reporting the incident.
Apart from the fact that the he blames top officials for the mess Air India is in, the video has been slammed for the sexist remarks against the airhostess and the use of expletives. For e.g.
“How do I fly with women in their sixties. They call them air hostesses, we call them aunties,”
Though Chabra gives a disclaimer at the start and at the end that he loves Air India, his immaturity has drawn strong criticism from the airline. The airline though maintains that they will take final action after going through his track record. But, the airline is not going to let it go off so easily seeing its popularity.
Air India reports that the “pilot has unconditionally apologized and promised to withdraw the video from the Internet site”. Though Chabra maintains that he does not intend to hurt anyone’s feelings, I believe that the damage has already been done.