High-flying dreams of students get clipped before taking off

New Delhi: If You enroll yourself in a fancy cabin-crew training programme, on the face of it you’re being groomed for a career in the skies — but the harsh reality is that after the completion of a year-long course and spending over a lakh rupees, you may end up as a receptionist or at most work in graveyard shifts at a call centre.
What comes as a surprise is that none of the airlines show any preference for students coming out of such institutes. “……Often during recruitment, we find applications from those who don’t have the eligibility in terms of physical stature. These institutes enroll as many students they can and only a few lucky ones manage to get the desired job, which such institutes overtly advertise,” says a senior HR manager, Air India. With the unprecedented growth in the aviation sector all across India, various cabin crew academies have sprouted, which promise to help realise your dream to fly. But what remains unknown is that your wings can be clipped right at the doorstep of such academies.
Air Hostess Academy (AHA), which has been in the business for the last decade, vehemently denies the charges.
AHA has 32 centres across India and has around 10,000 students on their rolls. “At the inception of the course, we make it clear that some may not be able to get a job of cabin crew but they can apply for ground staff. And in today’s world you can’t fool the students for long,” argues AHA director Sapna Gupta.
It’s the same story with, Frankfinn Institute of Air Hostess Training, where only 30% and Avalon, where 40% of the total placement join flying jobs and the rest have to be content with ground jobs or other hospitality-related jobs. Frankfinn has 78 centres across the country as compared to 60 centres last year. Its course duration is one-year and charges are over a lakh for the training programme.
All the academies are increasingly focussing on Tier-II and Tier-III cities, where it becomes easier to lure candidates promising ‘sky-high’ jobs. Avalon Aviation Academy, which is focussing on Tier II and Tier III cities, plans to increase its advertising spend by a whopping 5 crore in the next year.
19/08/07 Dheeraj Tiwari & Vishakha Talreja/Economic Times