A-I Set To Hire Consultant

The Centre seems to have shifted gear from divestment mode to an investment mode for Air-India (A-I). The national carrier is now scouting for an international consultancy major for outlining its overall growth strategies.

A-I is also planning a major restructuring and re-engineering of its operations that would directly contribute towards emerging as an efficient organisation.

Roy Paul, the Union civil aviation secretary, and the acting chairman of A-I, said, "We are not looking at emerging as a dominant player. Our focus is more towards emerging as a preferred and a respected airline. We have decided to appoint an internationally reputed consultant for designing the overall growth strategies of A-I."

"There are several areas which needs to be looked at specifically. For instance, the human resource development department of A-I requires an efficiency evaluation. Product upgradation would be another area of focus," Paul said.

The company is also exploring the opportunity of hiving off its maintenance wing into a separate subsidiary. However, it may be mentioned that the airline has been talking about this step for quite sometime now.

The airline has now also decided to recruit ground support executives under its wholly owned subsidiary -- Air India Charters. According to the company, recruiting staff under the A-I banner is more costly.

Recruitments under the subsidiary is cost effective considering that the employees with the subsidiary are not entitled for several sops that the A-I employees get.