'AI Express is a very viable airline'

This is probably the worst air pocket he has ever faced. Captain Pawan Arora , the new COO of Air India Express, has had questions raised about his salary and integrity ever since he was offered the job. A former air force pilot who later worked in Jet Airways, Paramount, Kingfisher and Indigo, Arora spoke to Shobha John :
Your annual salary package of about Rs 1.2 crore has raised the hackles of many, especially at a time when AI is in a financial crunch. Are the complaints justified?
No. When i left Indigo to apply for this post, my package was much more. I am 53. As a pilot i can serve till 65, so i have another 12 years of service. I am on a three-year contract at AI Express with six months probation. So this is an uncertain job. But i came here for the challenge of turning around an airline. And AI Express, despite the Mangalore crash, is a very viable airline.

There are allegations you were removed as flight operations inspector (FOI) in the Directorate General of Civil Aviation.
These are made by people with vested interests. I had applied to the DGCA to be relieved of my FOI duties on August 24, 2010, due to a personal crisis. It relieved me on September 13, 2010. If my services were terminated, wouldn't i have been relieved immediately? Even after that, i was signing DGCA papers related to low visibility take-off, etc, without the FOI designation. I have all the relevant papers to validate my professional standing.

AI Express has seen an exodus of cabin crew. How do you plan to stem this tide?

Cabin crew salaries here are among the lowest in the market. I plan to go to the AI board and hope that in stages, financial relief will be provided to them. Flying modules for pilots too have been reduced from six months to eight weeks so that they can be inducted faster. We have recruited 40-45 first officers.
05/11/10 Times of India

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Categories: Air India Budget Nov 2010, Air India Nov 2010