Air India to open engineering base in Dubai

Air India is set to open an engineering base in Dubai to help streamline the airline's operations in the Gulf sector, its chairman and managing director Arvind Jadhav said.

Jadhav said that Air India proposes to put five aircraft on standby in Dubai to solve emergency technical snags.

The base is likely to be set up either in Dubai or Sharjah depending on the cost factor, he told media persons in Dubai yesterday.

The national carrier will also lease out five new aircraft besides opening a 24-hour toll free call centre to disseminate information. Jadhav informed that there is a potential to add 200 flights in this region.

Speaking to PTI, Jadhav said the airline has been looking inward during the last two years, which didn't help important markets like the Gulf.

"We are looking to increase our services in this region by 15 % than what it used to be two years ago," he said.

On the issue of unionism, he said that problems were not being duly dealt with.

"It has taken a year to convince employees about the problem and we need to sort it out. We need to change our way of working and will have to bring in a lot of training," he said.

The decision in this regard was made during a meeting with the regional manager and station managers of the airline from eight Gulf countries and its director board member M A Yusuffali in Dubai yesterday.

"We are making efforts to include white collar workers in our scheme of things". A lot of changes are to be foreseen by the time Commonwealth Games take place, he added.