Air India is cutting down on flights to loss-making foreign routes and ramping up its domestic network in its summer schedule. Air India deploys its Airbus A320 fleet both on domestic and Gulf routes. The airline operates about 15 flights daily to Gulf sectors using the A320 planes. Over the next few months, Air India will be replacing all its A320-operated Gulf routes with Boeing 787 planes. “Currently, the Airbus A320 fleet utilisation is about 10-11 hours. The A320 aircraft will now be flown only on domestic routes and few South Asian routes. This will enable us to add more flights and routes within India. We plan to increase our domestic capacity in the summer schedule,” the spokesperson added.

Air India has defended the sale of five Boeing 777-200LR aircraft to Etihad Airways, saying retaining the fuel-guzzling planes would have aggravated its losses.

The government-owned carrier had acquired eight Boeing 777-200LRs in 2007 for $127 million each (Rs 787 crore as of Monday’s conversion rate). Air India sold five to Etihad for $68 million (Rs 421 crore).

The government is unlikely to go for any dilution of its stake in national carrier Air India in the near future and divestment may be “looked at” once the airline improves its balance sheet.

Noting that Air India has seen a marked improvement in its on-time performance, which is being monitored by the Civil Aviation Ministry on a day-to-day basis in the last few weeks, highly-placed sources said that the reason for flight delays like shortage of flight and cabin crew is being addressed by the management.

State-owned carrier Air India (AI), which began its recruitment process recently, is finding it hard to get the right kind of candidates, compelling it to re-advertise its requirement for 197 commander and senior trainee pilots.

A spokesperson of the national flag carrier said there were just not enough qualified candidates available in the market.

The union of Air India pilots, Indian Commercial Pilots Association, has directed its members not to operate flights with commanders which the airline proposes to hire on contract.

The Association, which represents pilots on narrow body Airbus A320 fleet has also asked the management to withdraw the recruitment advertisement. Last week, the airline had announced it would hire 197 pilots including commanders and senior trainee pilots for its Airbus A320 fleet.

An Air India pilots union has directed its members not to operate flights with commanders which the airline proposes to hire on contract.

The Indian Commercial Pilots Association which represents pilots on narrow body Airbus A320 fleet also has asked the management to withdraw the recruitment advertisement. Last week the airline announced it will hire 197 pilots including commanders and senior trainee pilots for its Airbus A320 fleet.

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.

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