Arora gone, but staff, mgmt issues haunt AI Express

Mumbai: Air India Express, which hogged the limelight last week after it sacked its chief operating officer (COO) Pawan Arora, needs to immediately address critical issues related to staff, management and operations to get back to health, industry sources said.
The airline which mainly flies to West Asia and South East Asia, along with its 10% capacity deployed even on domestic routes, needs to hire cabin and cockpit crew to improve its utilisation hours from around 9 hours to 11 hours and above. Sources said there has been a drastic curtailing of AI Express flights in recent months due to an exodus of its cabin and cockpit crew after an AI express flight crashed in Mangalore in May this year killing over 150 people. The airline needs 440 cabin crew, but has around 361, hence, flights per week were reduced to 155 from 205. The airline currently falls short of around 20% cabin crew staff.
When contacted on the matter, an AI spokesperson said, “Recruitment in the cabin and cockpit crew category are being done in phases as per the requirement. The airline is conducting interviews and appointments are done, provided the candidate meets our standards.”
22/10/11 Shaheen Mansuri/Financial Express

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