Air India (AI) is hiring nearly 200 pilots for its Airbus A320 planes, to meet a shortage caused by resignations, transfer of pilots to Boeing 787s and delays in training junior pilots for the rank of commander.

Government-owned AI has 60 Airbus A320 aircraft in various configurations and deploys these on the domestic network. A shortage of pilots and cabin crew is one reason for flight delays, the carrier's on-time performance being the lowest among its peers.

The government plans to set up an expert panel to find ways to improve Air India’s performance but presently no proposal is being considered for its privatisation, Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju Pusapati said today.

“Setting up of an expert committee to suggest ways to further improve the performance of Air India is under consideration,” he said.

Air India is alleged to have been “compromising” with flight safety norms by using a DGCA waiver on minimum cabin crew requirement on some of its long haul flights, a charge denied by the national carrier.

Air India, which is facing acute shortage of cabin crew, declares one door ‘unserviceable’ on some of its long-haul flights, which lowers the crew requirement. And it happens mainly on flights to New York and Chicago, where it operates most of its flights with 11 crew as against a requirement of 14, crew members, who requested anonymity, said here.

NEW DELHI: It took a crippling cabin crew shortage for Air India to realize the extent to which it has been underutilizing its precious human resource.

Aviation safety rules stipulate that an airhostess pilot must stop flying as soon as she reports to the airline that she is pregnant. While all private airlines give women flight crew the option of shifting to ground duties, AI has all along been sending them on long maternity leave as soon as they report pregnancy.

Pilots and cabin crew members of Air India are posing “significant security risk” by exiting the Mumbai Airport without customs check, the national carrier has been told by the Customs Department after two of its employees were allegedly caught smuggling gold.

Officials recently caught two Air India crew members while they were allegedly smuggling three kgs of gold worth over Rs 78 lakh on a domestic flight, the department has informed the airline.

NEW DELHI: An over 16 percent growth in its passenger traffic helped national carrier Air India improve its ticket revenue by 8.4 per cent, which stood at Rs 1,500 crore in January over the period last year, an airline official said today.

Meanwhile, the carrier has also lined up sumptuous Indian cuisines, named after popular cricketers, to cater to its passengers on its flights to Australia for ICC World Cup there.

Air India pilots have questioned the government’s move to penalise airline’s employees for any flight delay by way of cutting salary and said it will create an “unsafe” environment in the carrier.

“This futile exercise is going to be detrimental to flight safety as employees directly involved with the departure of a flight will try to cut corners in the safety practices in order to avoid delays,” said Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA) in a letter to the management.

New Delhi: The government’s appointments regulator has turned down a request by the civil aviation ministry, sent at the behest of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), to allow it to select the next chief of the state-owned Air India through a search committee, bypassing the usual process.

The Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) has told the aviation ministry it does not see any merit in constituting a search committee as the board, which makes appointments to top managerial posts in the public sector, has already started the process of choosing the Air India chairman and managing director (CMD).

Air India has cancelled two of its three non stop flights to the US, with blizzard hitting the country's eastern coast. A state of emergency has been declared in North East states of the US.

New York's JFK and La Guardia and Newark airport are impacted, with airlines cancelling hundreds of flights.

MUMBAI: The Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority (MCZMA) has permitted Air India to reinstall the logo on top of its building at Nariman Point.

A high-level meeting of the MCZMA presided over by its chairman and environment secretary Ajoy Mehta approved a record number of 35 proposals, including the re-installation of the Air India logo and proposed rerouting of the Mumbai-Manmad pipeline section passing through the Vashi creek, Ulhas river and its streams.

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