Frankfinn set for foreign foray

Mumbai-based Frankfinn Institute of Air Hostess Training will commence its overseas operations by opening a centre in Dubai by next month.

A separate company has been registered in order to handle foreign operations exclusively and six more training centres will be added within next six months.

K S Kohli, chairman of the institute, said that centres would be opened at Muscat, Singapore, Bahrain, Dhaka, Johannesburg and Kuala Lumpur. The company will invest Rs 10 crore for its overseas expansion project and Rs 30 crore in toto for various expansion projects in India and abroad.

Addressing a press conference here today, he said that Frankfinn would enter into the airline service by 2009 by introducing low-cost airline and set up a separate division, Frankfinn Aviation Services (P) Limited.

The division has acquired 14 acres of land in Goa for commencing a commercial pilot training institute and an aircraft maintenance engineering institute.

The centre will be operational by 2008. The company will also open 20 more air hostess training institutes, including one each at Thrissur, Kottayam and Kollam, taking their total number to 85.

The new centres would be operational by the beginning of 2007-08 financial year. Kerala already has three Frankfinn training centres at Kochi, Thiruvananathapuram and Kollam.

Kohli said that within next two years airline industry would need 20,000 more trained cabin crew as the total number of aircraft would go up to 450"�500 from the present 250-plus.

The company, which had set up its first training centre in Mumbai in 2003 has diversified into film and music industry recently. Three Hindi movies starring leading stars like Abhishek Bachchan would be released within a year.