New Delhi: The Civil Aviation Ministry wants younger air hostesses to
serve on Air India flights because it feels younger girls are quicker,
lead to faster aircraft turnaround and ultimately help improve airline's
bottomline.
But is it feasible or even practical to ground staff just because of age? A lot of foreign carriers employ older cabin crew - the criterion there is obviously not age, but competence!
Though minister A Gajapathi Raju has not specified the age limit in writing while issuing his 26-point instructions to Air India recently, verbal communication by ministry officials initially said cabin crew over 35 years of age should be put on ground duties.
This was later modified to crew over 45 years. Raju and his officials say players like IndiGo employ younger cabin crew, which is why their aircraft turnaround time is much faster and their on-time performance much better than Air India's.
A senior AI official told Firstbiz on condition of anonymity that the airline has written back to the minister expressing its inability to follow this particular dictat on grounding older cabin crew. On an average, every fourth air hostess in Air India is aged 45 and above. If Air India were to ground 25% of its cabin crew, how will it fill the vacancies?
Read news in full25/08/14 Sindhu Bhattacharya/First Post
But is it feasible or even practical to ground staff just because of age? A lot of foreign carriers employ older cabin crew - the criterion there is obviously not age, but competence!
Though minister A Gajapathi Raju has not specified the age limit in writing while issuing his 26-point instructions to Air India recently, verbal communication by ministry officials initially said cabin crew over 35 years of age should be put on ground duties.
This was later modified to crew over 45 years. Raju and his officials say players like IndiGo employ younger cabin crew, which is why their aircraft turnaround time is much faster and their on-time performance much better than Air India's.
A senior AI official told Firstbiz on condition of anonymity that the airline has written back to the minister expressing its inability to follow this particular dictat on grounding older cabin crew. On an average, every fourth air hostess in Air India is aged 45 and above. If Air India were to ground 25% of its cabin crew, how will it fill the vacancies?
Read news in full25/08/14 Sindhu Bhattacharya/First Post
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