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Jet Airways on a hiring mode
By siliconindia
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Thursday, 25 November 2010, 22:58 IST
Mumbai: A controversy pops up between the two leading airline industries which include Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines wherein the latter has blamed the former of recruiting 50 Kingfisher benched pilots as co-pilots. Jet Airways denied the recruitment and commented that Kingfisher has voluntarily let those pilots off because of no immediate requirement.
The Naresh Goyal controlled India's largest private carrier by market share also plans to hire some experienced pilots as commanders from the competitor. The first batch of the 29 benched pilots has already joined them. The airline has also confirmed the number of pilots sent.
Due to the assumption of facing an opposition within the management, the airline has planned to hold a meeting on 30th of November, so as to discuss the new recruitments. "How can we allow pilots to come and fly with us when our own pilots are not given their due, are not promoted and the salaries have not been reinstated post the revival," said a disgruntled pilot, who did not wish to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Due to such reactions, a huge opposition is expected from the serving pilots for the newly recruited pilots.
With the growing demand for air travel, Jet still has hiring plans as according to the industry estimates, Air travel is set to grow by 20-25% in the year ending March 31, 2011.
Although Jet leads with a market share of 26.2% followed by Kingfisher of 19%, Jet has had no choice but to hop pilots from its rivals Air India and Kingfisher because the manpower resources have not kept pace with its growth in aviation industries. Pilots need to be trained with an experience of a few flying hours before their recruitment.
For the newly recruited pilots from Kingfisher, just a week's long training is sufficient for the transition to fly Jet's A330 from Kingfisher's Airbus A320.
As informed by the industry executives, Jet's management is looking forward to hiring around 300 more commanders over the next three years who have more than 3000 hours of flying experience,although the airline totally declined to give the exact figure.