NEW DELHI, Oct 11: In a significant shift from its decades-old practice, Air India will soon start training the cabin crew for all kinds of aircraft rather than keeping a pool of people for a particular fleet.
The move, the first of its kind by any Indian carrier, comes at a time when Air India is battling staff issues as well as poor ontime performance. In recent times, there have also been instances where flights got delayed due to non-availability of the type-rated crew.
With an ambitious long-term perspective and fleet expansion plans, the airline anticipates to add more number of crew in the coming months. At present, it has around 3,500 cabin crew.
Sources said concurrently training the cabin crew for various types of aircraft would provide multiple benefits for the employees including “greater flexibility” in rostering.
Besides, the cabin crew would have satisfaction with the option of flying in international as well as domestic routes, they added.
The entire exercise of cross-training is expected to be complete by December 2016.
Currently, Air India has three types of aircraft — A-320s, Boeing 777s, 747s and Boeing 787 Dreamliners. There are sixty-five narrow-bodied A-320s, twenty-one wide-bodied Dreamliners, fifteen 777s and five 747s.
The current fleet clocks about 960 flying hours per day and Air India expects the cross-training of cabin crew would push this number higher, sources said.
While A-320 and B-777 planes are required to have at least four cabin crew each, Dreamliner should have a minimum of nine while flying.
Meanwhile, the carrier has managed to bring down the number of employees per aircraft by almost two-thirds to 108 compared to 300 more than two years ago.
The state-owned airline’s aircraft-employee ratio stood at 1:108 in September, in turn helping it to significantly save on costs.
This figure translates to 108 employees for every aircraft of Air India, which has fleet of more than 100 planes. The airline has little over 20,000 employees.
The ratio of 1:108 excludes the airline’s engineering and ground handling subsidiaries.
Two years ago, this number stood as high as over 300 employees per aircraft and since then the same has been reducing gradually.
Air India is surviving on a Rs 30,000 crore bailout package extended by the previous UPA government in 2012. (PTI)
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