Co-pilot Rajiv Rudy reporting for duty

“The Airbus A 320 is one of the most fabulous machines invented by man,” says Rudy,in his white-and-blue uniform,after a long Delhi-Kolkata-Agartala-Kolkata-Delhi haul last Tuesday. From the BJP headquarters in Delhi,to the politically sanitised flight deck,the 48-year-old seems to be enjoying the flight while it lasts. “The political process is already a part of me,but I needed to do something else,something new,” he says.

The BJP’s long sabbatical from power has contributed. “Had I been active in government,possibly I couldn’t have been doing this,” he nods,carefully choosing his words.

Flying is an old passion that began in the late 1970s during Rudy’s days as an NCC cadet in the Government College,Chandigarh,and almost died prematurely when the nearby Patiala Flying Club closed down after an air crash. In 1990,as an MLA,Rudy says he asked then Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad to allow him to fly at the Patna Flying Club,“but he refused permission”.

After losing to Lalu in the 2004 elections,Rudy,now a Rajya Sabha MP,went back to the flying club in 2006,trained on a Cessna 172 R and returned in 2008 with a commercial pilot’s licence (No. 5682). “But I wanted to fly something big,like an Airbus,” says Rudy,who with the blessings of the BJP top brass,including L K Advani and Rajnath Singh,flew to the SimCenter in Miami,Florida,in November 2009 for training on A 320 simulators.

“He has been flying with us as an honorary pilot with no remuneration,” confirms Aditya Ghosh,president,IndiGo. Since joining the airline in January,Rudy has had delightful onboard encounters with other politicians. And the view from the cockpit,he says,is different: “I learnt things that I never bothered about as a minister,like the need for radars in Patna and the wastage of fuel due to minor issues like the absence of a holding line in a particular runway. There is a huge gap between the operating side and the policymaking side.”

He is not worried about a conflict of interest: “It is open competition now. If I suggest something for civil aviation,it will benefit every player,not one particular airline.

He will be back in the cockpit in May,after the House session ends. “I will fly as long as I am medically fit,” he says.