Jet gives away Kashmir

Jet Airways recently introduced its in-flight entertainment system on some flights on the Delhi-Mumbai, Mumbai-Hyderabad and Mumbai-Bangalore routes, reports Namita Bhandare.

A significant part of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir is marked as ‘disputed territory’ on the flight path of Jet Airways' recently introduced in-flight entertainment programme.

HT Image

On the Mumbai-Delhi flight 311 on Thursday, passengers were surprised to see that the flight path, that allows them to track their flight's route on a touch-screen TV, flagged Jammu and Kashmir as ‘disputed territory’. The map also delineates India's border, placing Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) outside India's sovereign border. India has never recognised the accession of the northwest portion, including PoK, to Pakistan.

A spokesman for Jet Airways — promoted by non resident Indian Naresh Goyal — said the airline was aware of the error and was taking steps to rectify it , but only on the flight path on domestic route flights. The spokesman added that the error had been noticed as soon as the system was installed on some flights by Panasonic. “We noticed the error as soon as the software was installed by Panasonic. The map conforms to maps that are used internationally,” the spokesman said. He could not confirm exactly when the flight path on the in-flight entertainment system was introduced.

Officials at the civil aviation ministry said they were not aware of the error. “We will certainly check with them. Such systems reflect views prevalent in the Western world,” said a senior official.