High-flying jobs boom

New airlines are expected to create thousands of cabin crew jobs

When Royal Airways Ltd placed a recruitment ad for flight attendants and ground staff for its new low-cost carrier Spicejet (earlier Modiluft) last month, the response took the company by surprise.

At New Delhi's Essex Farms, the venue for the walk-in interviews, over 1,000 air-hostess aspirants landed up for the 150 vacancies.

"We were careful to be polite as we couldn't hire so many of them. But we will continue need-based hiring as we get more aircraft in the next two years," explains Nurus Sayeed, vice-president, Royal Airways Ltd.

Like the call centre employment boom of last few years, the airline industry is the new haven for young job-seekers.

As a host of domestic airlines such as Kingfisher, Go Air, Air One, Magic Air and Visa Air get ready to launch operations this year and carriers like Jet Airways and Air Sahara brace up to expand their international flights, 20-somethings from Chennai to Chandigarh are experiencing an unprecedented growth in employment opportunities.

Magic Air, expecting its No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the government this week, is looking at hiring 1,500 people. Air Sahara immediately needs 200 people on an all-India basis and Air Deccan has already recruited 50 cabin crew staff for its new flights.

In short, if all the airlines take off as promised, 4,000 jobs in the cabin crew category alone will be up for grabs in one -and-a-half years. The average salary for freshers is expected to be Rs 15,000 a month. Sayeed claims that Royal Airways, promoted by UK-based Kansagra family, have picked up stakes, got more than 10,000 hits from people looking for jobs on its website spicejet.com.

According to Centre for Asia Pacific Association (Capa), a civil aviation consultancy and business advisory, the next 12 to 18 months will see an order placement of nearly 200 aircraft in India. Capa estimates that India will have 400 to 500 aircraft by 2010 compared to the 175 it has today.

Even as the airline companies chalk out their business plans, they are banking on the quality of flight service to speak for their brands. And it's not just service that is crucial for the job.

If Air Deccan, the first low-cost airline to have been launched in India, is focused on efficiency, looks and communication skills are as important for airlines such as Kingfisher.

UB Group chairman Vijay Mallya himself took time off from the Shaw Wallace acquisition deal to interview dozens of girls at the InterContinental hotels in Delhi and Mumbai recently.

Kingfisher Airlines which will start its inaugural Toulouse-Mumbai-Tirupati journey on May 7, has hired a band of celebrity consultants such as speech expert Sabira Merchant, skin care specialist Asha Hariharan and fitness expert Micky Mehta to train the 72 shortlisted girls on exercise, diet and safety training.

To keep up with Kingfisher's flamboyant brand image, Prasad Bidappa has been hired to assist the girls double as ramp models for airborne fashion shows. Alex Wilcox, CEO of Kingfisher Airlines, says about 20 girls will be hired for every airplane.

"There are millions of girls looking for jobs in India and there is no shortage of girls," he says. Kingfisher will start operations with 10 aircraft by end of this year.

Training the cabin crew, however, does not come cheap. According to Wilcox, about Rs 1 lakh is being spent on training each attendant, including their accomodation during training. Other airlines such as Air Sahara spend nearly Rs 50,000-75,000 for a two-month training.

Meanwhile, riding on the huge spurt in demand for cabin crew, a large number of airhostess academies are mushrooming and doing brisk business. Frankfinn Institute of Air hostess Training, for instance, claims to have taken an aircraft on lease to train its students in Delhi.

But while the airhostess academies mint money, Suman Chopra, manager, inflight services at Air Sahara, says, that training at such academies is not necessary as most of airlines train their own staff.

With the aviation industry in India witnessing a 25 per cent growth this year, it is expected to create a large number of jobs on the ground as well, at airport terminals and in vendors and construction. "The potential is huge and it will have a ripple effect," says GR Gopinath, managing director of Air Deccan.