Air India moves forward on five-year transformation roadmap

New Delhi, Oct 20 (IANS) Moving forward on its five-year transformation roadmap, Air India, which had not recruited in the non-operations areas for more than 15 years, has started adding talent in all spheres of its business.

The airline's aggressive expansion plan, which has already seen 17 long-grounded aircraft return to the skies with 12 more to follow, and the lease-in of 30 narrow- and wide-body aircraft over the next 12 months, also necessitates a significant expansion in flying crew.

The first phase of this initiative to augment talent has received an overwhelming response. Over 1,752 applications for pilots and 72,000 applications for cabin crew have been received in the last two months, which are in the process of assessment.

Interest from management post-graduates with three years' experience to fill ground based-business roles has been similarly strong, with over 25,000 applications received in little more than one week. On appointment, those selected will be placed in various functions in Air India, including airport operations, commercial, engineering and human resources among others, and will form an important part of Air India's internal talent and future leadership pipeline.

Whether it is commercial functions like revenue management, sales, distribution, network planning and marketing or Business Support Services, including HR, finance, IT and analytics; as well as Operations, spanning inflight product design, ground, engineering and airport services, rostering and operations control, talent will be added to all the sections.

Placing high priority on becoming a world leader in information technology, Air India has received more than 2,000 applications for a New Tech centre at Kochi, Kerala, including developers, architects, cyber security professionals, programme managers and UX/ visual designers among others.

Commenting on the focus on next-gen talent acquisition, Suresh Dutt Tripathi, Chief Human Resources Officer, Air India, said, "An entire generation of workforce has missed the opportunity to work for Air India due to limited recruitment over the years. We are seeking to make up for this organisational gap as we work to make Air India the world's leading airline with customer focus at the heart of its operations.

"Our talent acquisition initiative is focused on identifying and recruiting the right talent in order to ensure that our human resource capabilities keep pace with the growth momentum and evolving needs of the organisation."