The Hindu Business Line : Over 500 Air India recruits await appointment letters

Mumbai, July 29 Nearly 550 candidates interviewed by Air India in April for the post of trainee cabin crew are virtually languishing. The airline has still not made public the results or sent any formal communiqué to them.

Air India had first advertised for recruiting trainee cabin crew last August for its Airbus 320 aircraft. The first round of interviews was held in October in four regional centres, which comprised group discussions and personality assessment test. The results were declared on October 13, said an airline source.

Liquidity crunch

While Air India maintained that it would get back “immediately” to the candidates on the next round of interviews and medical tests, they were only intimated in April this year. The interviews were then held between April 17 and 20 but there has been complete silence since, said a source.

It is hardly difficult to pinpoint the reason for this delay, which is merely a fallout of the airline’s current liquidity crunch. The irony is that despite its 31,000 bulging workforce, it is facing a shortage of cabin crew in its domestic and some short-haul international operations, undertaken by IC coded flights (the former Indian Airlines).

An Air India spokesperson declined to comment on the issue.

A trainee cabin crew in the airline earns approximately Rs 28,000 a month (inclusive of variable flying allowance) along with benefits such as provident fund, gratuity, pension, medical facilities, and free or concessional air travel.

Crew requirements

Over the last few months, Air India has barely been meeting the mandatory crew requirements set by the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation. Typically, an Airbus 320, which has a minimum requirement of four crew members, needs a (crew) complement of at least six. However, the airline has confined this to the basic four onboard.

On the other hand, private airlines, which have also gone in for stringent cost-cutting measures such as pruning capacity, rationalising routes and laying off staff, have managed to hold on to the required crew complement.

For instance, Jet Airways, which uses mainly Boeing 737s for domestic operations, deploys six crew members even though four would suffice, said a company executive who did not wish to be named.

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