National carrier Air-India today inducted a brand new aircraft to its fleet after a gap of ten years, and said it plans to induct a fresh batch of pilots keeping future deliveries in mind."The last induction of a new aircraft was in 1996 when we'd got a Boeing 747-400 and we have been struggling with old aircraft. With today's induction of a brand new Boeing 737-800 for our sister concern Air-India Express and the deliveries to come in the next few months, we are preparing oursleves a force to reckon with in the global aviation space," V Thulasidas, CMD of Air-India, said. He said the carrier was inducting a fresh batch of 20 pilots considering its future aircraft inductions.Air-India had last year placed an order for 68 aircraft from Boeing at a cost of $11.6 billion."We will continue to hire more pilots as we have many more aircraft to be delivered...the airline is hiring expat pilots due to unavailability of qualified ones at home," he said.Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel said new aircraft should rejuvenate the state-owned carrier and prepare it for the tough cometition."We need a strong national carrier which can withstand stiff competition in this age of perform or perish," he said.Allaying fears on the fallout of the merger of Air-India and Indian, the minister said the government was fully supportive of the future of the merged entity.
