Air India to induct 800 additional cabin crew by October

Move to meet acute shortage of staff after a spate of delays and flight cancellations

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The planned intake of 800 additional cabin crew by Air India is expected to be completed by October to help the airline tide over the massive shortage and improve its on-time performance.

"We have completed the recruitment process of hiring 800 cabin crew. Of these, a batch of 311 cabin crew have already joined the duty while another batch of 270 cabin crew, which is currently undergoing the mandatory training will be joining soon," sources close to the development told PTI, adding that the process would be completed before the Winter Schedule.

"The training process of another batch of 111 cabin crew is likely to commence by August and for the remaining ones thereafter. We hope to have all the 800 cabin crew on duty by October and this would help us improve our on-time performance besides providing better onboard services," they said.

The winter schedule of airlines in India commences from the last Saturday of October every year and goes on till March end.

The Civil Aviation Ministry had given a go-ahead to the state-run airline in February to induct 800 additional cabin crew to meet the acute shortage of staff after a spate of delays and flight cancellations.

Air India's on-time performance (OTP) in June stood at 75.7 per cent in the previous month, one of the lowest in the industry after budget carrier SpiceJet, which clocked an OTP of just 60.2 per cent during that period.