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: As the economy expands and flying becomes affordable, the aviation industry is throwing up a plethora of job opportunities. The World Travel & Tourism Council estimates that India will have at least 1.5 million openings in the industry and related sectors by 2010.

It is estimated that by 2020, airports in the country would handle 100 million passengers including 60 million domestic passengers. The industry is facing acute shortage of trained personnel and the demand-supply mismatch has thrown open opportunities for training institutes for air hostess and ground personnel and they are mushrooming across the country spinning good business.

Says Rajat Bhatia, a pilot with a leading private airline, “It’s what the BPOs were to youngsters a few years back. The aviation industry is today the hottest job option for most youngsters.” And thanks to the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games, the industry is all ready to hit another high of sorts.

In fact, a 2007 Assocham Business Barometer study says that disciplines like retail, aviation, hospitality and brokerages offer high growth potential for students aiming for a rewarding career. The study says the industry is growing at 25% per year, creating abounding job opportunities.

Every aircraft which has the seating capacity of 200 passengers employs about 60 people. This includes airhostesses, pilots, co-pilots, engineers and maintenance staff. India already has about 380 scheduled aircraft and 200 chartered aircraft. This number, according to Harsha Vardhan who heads Starair Consulting, is expected to inrease by 400 and 300 respectively.

Experts feel there was always a demand for skilled manpower in the industry but the speed at which the aviation industry is growing is the reason behind the mushrooming air hostess and pilot training institutes.

If one scores the brownie point because of its international tie-up, the other might shrink the one-year course into three months.

Sapna Gupta, director and founder, Air Hostess Academy (AHA), who began the academy with three students in 1997 now trains about 10,000 students every year. She says that the aviation industry has grown at break neck speed. “Today there is a constant demand for people right from cabin crew to ground staff to pilots. We began with one and now have 38 centres across 29 states. The growth rate is so fast that it has led to airhostess and pilot training institutes mushrooming so quickly.”

It is little surprise that there are hoardings at metro stations, full page advertisements, billboards on roads telling you to take a leap into a new life by becoming an airhostess. And if cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai took the early lead, now even tier II and tier III cities are catching up.

Take for example a niche brand like Kingfisher Training Academy, which opened its centre in Mumbai last year. The academy now has nine centres in the country and plans to take the number to 25 by year 2010. Besides metros like Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata, it has opened centres in Pune, Nagpur, Guwahati, Jaipur, Indore and Chandigarh.

Frankfinn considered the oldest player in the market has about 119 centres across India, 39 of these are information centres in tier two and three cities. In fact, the concentration now is on smaller towns. The idea, says Samir Walia, vice-president, communications, Franfinn, is to meet the demands of the growing aviation industry. “Since the metros already have centres, we are looking at tier two and three cities.” What is helping, says Walia, is the change in attitude of people, “The low cast airlines changed a lot of things in India. For example, with Air Deccan, even parents of children from small towns were using air as means of transport. That is when the industry actually came closer to them. They probably realised that sending their daughter in airlines wasn’t as bad a thing as they imagined.”

Today of course the story has changed completely. Monika Arora who runs Sky Academy in Delhi, an airhostess training institute, is pretty impressed with the enthusiasm that girls from the academy’s smaller centres like Bareily, Jalandhar, Rudrapur and Rohtak show. “The fact that they come from smaller towns only makes them aspire for the glamorous life a little more. They strive harder and their aspirations are much higher. In fact a lot of them are even more sincere than girls from bigger places.”

But if smaller towns have aspirants, metros have people who want to make it big soon, which is a reason for institutes with shorter course durations becoming popular as well.

Take, for example, Falcon airhostess training academy. They offer a course as short as 40 days to train you to be a cabin crew. The idea, says Mona Gill, a director with the academy, who is an ex- cabin crew of Sahara and Jet, is to teach the basics. “It’s no use getting into little details. We give the basic grooming, the things that you might need to know to get through the interview. The other things you will obviously learn on the job.”

The academy also trains pilots, another job pretty much in demand.

A worrying factor however, says captain Bhatia, is the quality of people coming out of training academies. “There was a time when people flew only for the love of it. Today, glamour plays an important role. Money is another lucrative factor.” Walia adds,“If a call centre job gives you Rs 10,000 to begin with, a domestic airlines will give you Rs 25,000 as starting salary. It’s a lucrative job for sure.”

Aditi Srivastava, CEO, Flying Cat, echoes the same feeling. “Today the aspira- tion values are high. Everybody wants to make it big. The aviation sector is booming and there is a constant demand for trained staff. It’s a field that gives you exposure and pays you well. It’s a constant cycle of demand and supply that is running this rapidly growing industry. What is however worrying is that Indians are still not at par with other countries when it comes to air travel.”

Air Travels between India & World, a paper released by Assocham, adds that India is one of the least penetrated markets for air travel as it is among the most expenive in the world whose air penetration levels are even lower than that of its neighbours Sri Lanka, Pakistan and countries with poorer GDP such as Ethiopia and Nigeria.

The study highlights that 40% of passenger traffic is concentrated at main airports of Delhi and Mumbai. The top five airports in India account for over 70% of traffic and the top 25 almost 95% of the air traffic in India.

The study highlights that 40% of passenger traffic in India is concentrated in the two main airports of Delhi and Mumbai. The top five airports in India account for over 70% of traffic and the top 25 almost 95% of the air traffic in India. Along with the fact that these airports have limited tunnel facilities, outdated infrastructure, inadequate ground handling system and poor passenger amenities increases the traffic congestion in airports.