Tata group promoted, full service carrier, Air India will adopt a totally new rostering system from August which will allow its crew to swap flights and even chose accommodation of their choice during layovers.
Following last month’s introduction of the new crew pairing module, the first Jeppesen-built rosters will go live across the airline’s fleets in August, a mail shared with employees by CEO and MD, Campbell Wilson stated.
“As the system settles in, the crew should see earlier rosters, better integrity of ‘golden offs’ and better standby provisioning to reduce last-minute call ups. Also when averaged over a few months there will also be more equitable earnings,” Wilson said.
Other features such as the ability to swap flights, the ability to register flight or layover preference will be progressively rolled out in the remainder of the year.
With more than 500 new crew being released into service in each of the coming months, Air India hopes to reinstate full crew complements and accelerate training.
“It is a significant investment but one that we feel is worth doing to improve equity amongst crew, more stable work-life balance, better accommodation of preferences as well as better operating robustness and overall efficiency,” Wilson added.
A few months ago, Air India had announced plans to recruit 4,200 cabin crew and 900 pilots in 2023. The airline has been forced to operate flights with last-minute adjustments with the crew due to shortages.
With 470 planes on order, the former flag carrier is expected to keep up the recruitment pace for cabin crew and pilots in the next several years.