Air India seeks to boost its talent pool with interactive program SOAR

Air India has started an interactive programme to hire students from business schools as the airline expands its fleet and operations.

The Tata Group-owned carrier on Thursday said it started SOAR (Spirit of Aviation Reimagined) in August and is a first-of-its-kind student interactive programme in the aviation industry.

This unique move to engage fresh talent to the nuances of the aviation sector will go a long way in augmenting Air India's employee pool with the best talent, it said in a release on Thursday.

SOAR is the airline's business challenge-based annual nationwide B-school competition and part of its campus outreach programme.

The loss-making carrier, which has embarked on a five-year transformation journey under the Tata Group, said its talent augmentation drives over the last one year have been receiving overwhelming response from the market and leading institutes with the initial recruitment drive for management post-graduates drawing response from over 25,000 applicants in just about one week.

"Air India is actively reimagining its role in the aviation sector, and our journey to top campuses in the country is more than just a recruitment drive... SOAR is a platform which benefits industry, academia and students simultaneously," Suresh Dutt Tripathi, Chief Human Resources Officer of Air India, said.

Air India has around 15,000 employees.

On Thursday, the airline announced that Team Horizon of IIM Bangalore has emerged as the winner in the first edition of SOAR.

Team JMH, representing IMT Ghaziabad, was the first Runners-Up, while the teams Republic of Restless, representing IIM Shillong, and Horizon, representing IIFT, emerged joint winners for the second Runners-Up position in the competition that saw 27 premier business schools vying for the top honours, the release said.

Earlier this year, Air India placed orders for 470 aircraft from Airbus and Boeing. The deliveries of the new planes will start from November this year.

Tata Group took control of Air India from the government in January last year.