Air India may hire laid-off Jet staff

National air carrier Air India is believed to be toying with the idea of hiring some of the laid-off Jet employees, as it would save time and cost on training.

"Air India has plans to hire cabin-crew. However, instead of recruiting freshers and then spending time and money on training them, we are mulling recruiting some of those laid-off by Jet," a source closely connected to the development said.

The Air India management is of the view that this move would help in considerable savings in both time and costs, besides fast-forwarding the recruitment process, the source said.

He, however, declined to reveal the number of personnel the national air carrier plans to take on board.

Jet Airways, plagued by mounting losses, recently laid off some of its cabin crew.

A cabin crew personnel, on joining, is imparted three months training on different aspects of the industry before being put on flying duty.

The industry practice is that prior to hiring, eligible candidates are put through a Group Dynamics and Personality Assessment Test (GD&PAT) before being called for personal interviews.

"If we induct already well-trained staff, we can deploy them directly into our aircraft without any wastage of time. They would, maximum, require about a week's orientation," the source said.

NACIL, which is the holding company of Air India and Indian, currently has around 3,900 cabin crew, both senior and junior staff, on its roll.

Of this, Air India has 2,100 and Indian (erstwhile Indian Airlines) 1,800.

NACIL plans to induct 30 aircraft in the current financial year. These include seven Boeing 777, four Boeing 737-800 and 19 aircraft of the Airbus 320 family, comprising A319s, A320s and A-321s.

The state-run air carrier currently operates a fleet of 153 aircraft.

The airline had placed orders for 111 aircraft, both Boeing and Airbus, entailing a cost of Rs 40,000 crore (Rs 400 billion), to replace its ageing fleet and to expand its network. The induction process which began in 2007 would continue till 2012.

Of the total order, 45 have already fructified. The airline currently has 14 long haul B777 planes and with the delivery of seven more this year, it would increase its fleet strength by half.