We're jobless, but Air India hiring: Pilots

The battle between the Indian Commercial Pilots Associaton (ICPA) and national carrier Air India (AI) is hotting up. While the airline recently advertised for recruitment of pilots for its subsidiary Alliance Air, the ICPA has termed it as waste of public money as its members are underutilised and can be used for flying Alliance Air aircraft Airbus 320 and Airbus 330.

On Thursday, the ICPA had a meeting with AI board of directors and joint aviation secretary, Prashant Shukul. “Why does Air India need pilots for their existing fleet of A320 family airplanes when their utilisation is less than 55 hours and contrary to what was decided in the meeting with you on May 7, where you had very clearly stated that every effort will be made to increase the flying so thatpilots are utilised at least for 75 hrs,” said the ICPA. AI has total 1,600 pilots out of which 850 are from erstwhile Indian. While the AI commanders fly for 80 hours per month, erstwhile Indian pilots are utilised for 49 hours to 55hours maximum. This greatly reduces the Indian pilot’s salary.

The ICPA also expressed the willingness to operate other Boeing aircraft of AI if need be. “Now both the airlines have a common code, have common aircraft manual. Recruiting expats is a scam,” it said.

Moreover, globally aircraft utilisation is 13 hours while the ICPA alleges that in AI it is nine hours per day.

“The assurances given to us by the ministry about the flying of airplanes, currently at nine hours, would be pushed up to at least 12-14 hrs thereby increasing the pilots’ utilisation,” says the ICPA.According to AI sources the airline decided to recruit pilots as the recent 10 day strike by 810 Indian airline pilots paralysed the airline’s operations and caused losses over Rs150 crore. The daily earning of the airline reduced to Rs2 crore per day compared to Rs 15 crore.

The AI spokesperson was unavailable for comments.

Airlines are hiring - Dubai Chronicle

Gulf Air, headquartered in Muharraq, has advertised a number of jobs including vacancies both for its aircrafts as well as ground staff. The airline is currently hiring Direct Entry Rated First Officers for Airbus A320, along with Direct Entry Rated captains and Sky Chefs.

Dubai-based Emirates, recently crowned 2011 Airline of the Year by leading trade magazine Air Transport World is on a hiring spree. The national airline of Dubai is currently recruiting for the positions of Cabin Crew, Operations Manager, Senior Food & Beverage Manager, Sales & Marketing Manager among other areas.

Etihad airline that operates close to 147 daily flights to 64 destinations in over 40 countries has posted a list of jobs for Cabin Crew In-Flight Services along with Onboard Food and Beverage Manager In-Flight Services in addition to several functional vacancies.

There’s a growing market these days for pilots to work in the region. Air Arabia has a number of postings for Pilots, Turnaround coordinators, Cabin crew and A 320 First officers. The airline is the first and the largest Low Cost carrier in the Middle East, North Africa and Indian Sub continent.

The Southwest Airlines way, using the power of relationships to achieve high performance

The American aviation experience, a history

Jobs '92

Black Enterprise

Aviation week & space technology