Foreign flavour for desi flights?

New Delhi: Kingfisher Airlines’ application seeking regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation’s (DGCA), permission to use expat cabin crew in international and domestic routes has sent many in the corridors of power into a tizzy. At first, airlines don’t need to take permission from the regulator to hire cabin crew. Secondly, this is the first time any airline is planning to deploy expat cabin crew in domestic routes.
Apart from the novelty factor in the whole exercise, many in DGCA feel there has to be adequate justification for hiring expat cabin crew, when adequate numbers can be trained and deployed locally. “We have sought more information from Kingfisher as to why it needs to deploy expat cabin crew in domestic routes,” DGCA chief Kanu Gohain told ET.
Senior executives from Kingfisher have indicated to DGCA that it could possibly tide over the language issue over expat crew’s knowledge of Hindi, by using a mix of Indian and expat crew in each flight. But DGCA officials have insisted that as per current regulations, each cabin crew member flying in the Indian skies should be able to interact with passengers in both Hindi and English.
Kingfisher wants to start the whole exercise of hiring expat cabin crew over the next 2-3 months, once it gets the go-ahead from the regulator.
17/07/07 Sudipto Dey/Economic Times