Air India, India’s second largest airline by fleet size, said it has received more than 1,752 applications for pilots and 72,000 applications for cabin crew in the last two months.
The Tata Group-controlled company had not recruited in non-operations areas for more than 15 years. It is now adding manpower in areas like revenue management, sales, distribution, network planning and marketing.
Other areas like HR, finance, IT and analytics as well as operations, spanning inflight product design, ground, engineering and airport services, rostering and operations control are also witnessing recruitments.
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The carrier also received more than 25,000 applications in little over a week from management post-graduates with three years’ experience to fill ground-based business roles.
On appointment, those selected will be placed in various functions in Air India, including airport operations, commercial, engineering and human resources among others, and will form an important part of Air India’s internal talent and future leadership pipeline.
The airline’s hiring spree is a result of expansion of operations which includes 17 of its long-grounded aircraft returning to the skies with 12 more to follow, and the lease-in of 30 narrow- and wide-body aircraft over the next 12 months.
Suresh Dutt Tripathi, chief human resources officer, Air India, said, “An entire generation of workforce has missed the opportunity to work for Air India due to limited recruitment over the years. We are seeking to make up for this organisational gap as we work to make Air India the world’s leading airline with customer focus at the heart of its operations. Our talent acquisition initiative is focused on identifying and recruiting the right talent in order to ensure that our human resource capabilities keep pace with the growth momentum and evolving needs of the organisation.”