What's that purr?

Flying Cats, the latest inflight service school, tries to catch the tailwind of Frankfinn.

As I peeped out from the window of a chartered Kingfisher flight last week, the view was spectacular "" a fluffy cloud cover tinted with the sun's rays.

But inside the aircraft, it was chaos. Chaos? Media cameramen scampered down the aisle, over the seats and through the crowd to capture the photo-op as Flying Cats unveiled its prospectus and designer uniform with Kareena Kapoor.

Flying Cats is the latest entrant to the bustling market for air hostess training institutes. With a start-up investment of some Rs 50-70 lakh on 20 centres across India, the school claims to equip youngsters with all that they need to make careers in aviation hospitality and tourism.

The aim, it says, is to end the groaning of airlines that they have to train their inflight staff from scratch no matter where they hire from.

What's more, the sector is set to expand phenomenally. "As India has placed an order for 430 additional aircrafts over the next five years," says Kapil Kaul, CEO, Indian subcontinent and Middle East, Center for Asia Pacific Aviation, "the demand for just cabin crew would be 5,000, with airlines direct employing 40,000 people in the next 5-7 years." And this would be just for the aviation sector.

With youngsters seeing the profession as a passport to the high life (salaries of Rs 18,000 per month being an immediate lure), airhostess training schools have never had it so good, charging about Rs1 lakh as annual fees.

For that sum, the schools impart the regulation "finish" by smoothening out the rough edges of inflight decorum and running through the technicals (of flight safety et al).

Most of the career-glamorisation work has already done by the earlier entrant, Frankfinn Institute of Air Hostess Training, which ran a high-decibel ad campaign on TV that positioned the job as the "in" thing for girls who don't want to be homebound.

Frankfinn already has 65 centres across India, and "targets 85-90, with centres in UAE, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh by year end," says Samir Valia, vice-president, Frankfinn.

Then there's Air Hostess Training Academy (AHA), with 26 centres across India, that claims that its course is validated by Cambridge, UK, and has "a tie-up with most airlines for placements" according to Sapna Gupta, chief consultant, AHA.

But isn't a Rs 1 lakh fee a bit much? Not for the opportunity, claim the schools, given the high placement rates. Then why all the complaints airlines still have about fresh recruits? According to Kaul, airlines still do need to train these hostesses after they sign up, but at least some prior training is better than none.