rediff.com: 'A-I has highest number of employees per plane'

With over 16,000 full time staff, Air-India has the largest number of employees per aircraft in the world, according to figures tabled in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.

The airlines, which has a fleet of 28 aircraft, has 588 employees per plane while most leading airliners of the world have half this employee-aircraft ratio, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Shripad Naik informed the house in a written reply.

Assuring the house that the government was aware of this, the minister said as part of rationalising man-power, the airlines had gone ahead with freeze on external recruitment in non-operational fields, abolition of posts abroad, roll back of retirement age from 60 to 58 years and introduction of two voluntary retirement schemes.

Giving comparative figures, Naik said British Airways, a leading airline, has a fleet of 263 aircraft with an employee-aircraft ratio of only 239 while American Airlines, which has 729 aircraft, has a ratio of 128.

On Indo-UK talks on slot sharing, the minister said discussions held in June this year had ended in a stalemate as the British side was unable to give an assurance on slots for Air-India to operate more flights via London to US and Canada.

The minister said a proposal by Indian Airlines' board of directors for acquisition of 43 aircraft, including 19 Airbus 319, 4 Airbus 320 and 20 Airbus 321 fitted with advanced CFM-56 engines, was under active consideration of the Cabinet.

Besides this, he said the airliner was in the process of finalising dry leasing of six 50 seater ATR-42-320 aircraft.

Referring to investigations into civil air accidents, Naik told the house that of a total of 14 accidents during 2000-2001, investigations into 10 had been finalised which revealed that eight of them had occurred due to pilot error.

Naik said that from January 1, 2003, it would be mandatory for all turbine engine planes to install enhanced proximity warning system adding that the Indian Airlines fleet of A-320 planes would be installed with the new system by December 31 this year.



Home > Money > PTI > Report July 23, 2002 \| 1629 IST		Feedback