Considering the fleet expansion government-owned carrier, Air India (AI) is planning to recruit about 500 pilots and 1500 cabin crew in the next 2-3 years.”We are planning to have 700 more pilots in the next two to three years keeping in view the fleet expansion. From last August till now, we have already recruited 250 pilots.So about 500 more pilots we are going to recruit. Advertisement for 400 pilots has already been floated” said AI’S general manager N Sivaramakrishnan.
We have plans to have cabin crew of 3,000 personnel. Beside the existing number, we are planning to take 1,500 more in the next two to three years,” he added.
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He mentioned that last year Air India sought to recruit 200 Trainee pilots among which only 78 of them completed the training. The recruitment was done for senior trainee pilot license holders who come with A320 endorsement.
The state flagged Air India has about 858 pilots among which 100 moved to their competitors due to internal airlines issues. However, by December about 150 pilots are about to complete their training and start flying on various routes.
Mentioning about the training facilities for the pilots he explained that, currently Air India has three simulators in Hyderabad and four in Mumbai. Now the carrier family is planning to order for one more simulator in Hyderabad. This simulator in specific will be for training on ATR aircraft.
The general manager said that the simulator would be operational by next January hopefully, and the cost for the set up of the simulator would be around 65 crores with additional six crores for the construction of buildings and other facilities for the ATR simulator.
Air India has been going through small market shares this year. The fleet expansion is a bold move for the airlines. Recently, Air India started expanding to a global network with Boeing 787 Dreamliner.