Tata-owned Air India, which recently announced a massive order of 470 aircraft with Boeing and Airbus, now plans to hire over 4,200 cabin crew trainees and 900 pilots this year. The airline is also mulling to rapidly expand its domestic and international operations, it said.
It has already announced plans to lease 36 aircraft, of which two B 777-200 LR have joined the fleet.
Training programme
The cabin crew, who will be recruited from around the country, will undergo a 15-week programme imparting safety and service skills, and will be coached to exemplify the best of Indian hospitality and Tata group culture. The training programme will include extensive classroom and in-flight training at the airline’s training facility in Mumbai as well as familiarisation flights.
Notably, between May 2022 and February 2023, Air India hired over 1,900 cabin crew. Over 1,100 of them were trained between July and January, and in the past three months, approximately 500 cabin crew have been released for flying by the airline.
Shaping the future
Commenting on the hiring plans, Sandeep Verma, Head — Inflight Services, said, “With a sizeable aircraft order that was announced earlier in the month, more flights on international and domestic networks and re-alignment of domestic routes with AIX connect, cabin crew will play a decisive role in shaping the present and future of Air India. The addition of fresh talent will also accelerate the pace of cultural transformation at Air India, which is an integral part of our Vihaan.AI transformation programme. We are also looking to step up hiring of more pilots and maintenance engineers.”
businessline had recently quoted HR industry players who had said there could be an uptick of 15-20 per cent of jobs in the short term and the employment generation within the Indian aviation sector could double by the time the aircraft order is completed.