NEW DELHI: Air India is planning to hire over 4,200 cabin crew trainees and 900 pilots this calendar year as the Tata Group-owned airline is eying to expand aggressively in domestic as well as in international market. Earlier this month, Air India had announced the purchase of 470 aircraft from Boeing and Airbus with an option to buy 370 more, to support its growth plans. The carrier had also announced plans to lease 36 aircraft, of which two B 777-200 LR have joined the fleet.
The fresh hiring announcement comes after the airline claims to have hired over 1,900 cabin crew between May 2022 and February 2023. Currently, Air India has 115 aircraft in its fleet. 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 the Air India group.”
Verma added that they are also looking to step up the hiring of more pilots and maintenance engineers.
Tata Group, at present, is realigning its aviation business under the Air India brand umbrella. It plans to have a single low-cost airline and a single full-service airline by the end of 2023.
The former will be a merged entity between AirAsia India and Air India Express while the latter will be the merged entity between Air India and Vistara. The recent hiring started in aviation sector after years of lull. Owing to cut-throat competition and other external challenges, India witnessed closure of a few big airlines last decade.
In recent times, the grounding of Jet Airways in April 2019 left about 20,000 employees with no work. The arrival of covid-19 in early 2020 dealt a big blow to aviation employees as they faced deep salary cuts, leave without pay and lay-offs.
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