Air india plans to hire 225 cabin crew members

Mumbai: Air India’s management has mooted a plan to hire 225 cabin crew members, a first in five years, even as the carrier continues to battle heavy losses one of the key reasons for which is an inflated wage bill. Three senior executives at the airline confirmed the plans. One of them said the hiring is for additional flights planned by the carrier.

ET had on June 30 reported on the state-run carrier renewing discussions on hiring additional cabin crew. The reason, according to a source in the know was more “an improvement in service standards”, after it joined global airline group Star Alliance. This meant the airline planned to have more cabin crew on board some international flights to better attend to passengers.

“For instance, for a 787 Dreamliner, the minimum number is seven, which can be increased to nine. But now there may be a proposal for 11,” the person had said. Hiring cabin crew will be a tricky operation for the carrier which has been widely criticised for having overweight cabin crew. The DGCA in early May put out new rules specifying weight and body mass index or a measure of weight relative to mass and height for cabin crew.
04/08/14 Anirban Chowdhury/Economic Times