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New Delhi, Feb 14: Gearing up to face increasing competition from private airlines, state-owned Indian Airlines is now seeking younger airhostesses. In fact, it is introducing a new voluntary retirement scheme for airhostesses above 40 years. Keeping in mind the hazards of introducing a VRS in a public sector company, IA is offering a minimum of Rs 25 lakh and also a guaranteed employment for one member of the family as part of the operational crew.
A major attraction of the scheme is that if the employee accepting the VRS has a daughter, she can be taken on board as an airhostess. The average age of airhostesses in Indian Airlines is well above the industry average, largely due to the fact that a government ban on recruitment in the non-operational categories has been in place since 2000. Although airhostess and cabin crew fall under the operational category, only need-specific recruitment was made in the past seven years.
Indian Airlines currently has 1,420 personnel as part of its cabin crew, of which 1,170 are airhostesses each drawing an average salary of Rs 5 lakh a year. The starting salary for the flight crew ranges between Rs 20,000 to Rs 25,000 which can go up to Rs 35,000-40,000 a month. “The only constraint in introducing the new scheme is the huge cost the company would have to incur in the context of the miniscule profit the airline makes. It expects to close fiscal 2006-07 at around Rs 60 crore. Even if 30% decide to opt for the VRS, the cost to the company will be around Rs 90 crore,” an official said.
In Jet airways, the average age of cabin crew is 24 years, with an average initial salary of Rs 28,000 that can go up to Rs 38,000 for crew with more than five years of experience. The average of other private carriers also ranges between 23 to 25 years.
The previous voluntary retirement scheme, which did not prove to be very popular, was introduced in 2004 for both technical and non-technical staff, who had either attained 40 years of age or had completed over 10 years with the company. Besides full-and-final settlement as per the number of service years left, two attractive benefits were also offered. First, the employees were offered medical benefits on the lines of retired employees, while the second was the continuance of ‘passage benefits’, which allows employees to travel on concessional...
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