After the technical snags of Air India, its low cost subsidiary, Air India Express, is suffering from a man power crunch.
Airline struggles to cope with the shortage of technical crew
After the technical snags of Air India, its low cost subsidiary, Air India Express, is suffering from a man power crunch. According to sources from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), Air India Express has been receiving step-motherly treatment by Air India. The aircraft-engineer ratio at Air India, as compared to Air India Express, has a vast difference.
Says a DGCA source, “The Air India Express delays that have taken place are due to the shortage of manpower especially among engineers and technicians.”
Interestingly the next-generation Boeing 737 aircrafts of the airlines were being maintained by rival companies, Jet Airways and Air Sahara, since Air India Express was short of engineers.
A source from the engineering team of Jet Airways said, “For one and a half years we did the line maintenance of Air India Express. This includes minor change of oils among other things. But, for the last seven months, they have been doing the maintenance work themselves.”
Captain P P Singh, chief operating officer, Air India Express, confirmed the shortage. “Engineers for the Boeing 737-800 aircrafts are not many in number. For sometime, the maintenance of our aircrafts was done by Jet Airways as well as by Air Sahara.”
Air India Express, which currently has 13 Boeing 737 aircrafts which would be increased to 17 by the end of the year, has 38 engineers and 40 other technicians. “To correct the shortage we are now recruiting some engineers with Basic Aircraft Maintenance Engineer’s Licence (BAMEL). Also, we are in the process of recruiting some Aircraft Maintenance Engineers (AME’s), who will be trained to work for the Boeing 737 aircrafts. We will get 80 more aircraft mechanics from the air force,” Singh added.
But, a highly placed source in the Air India Aircraft Engineers’ Association says Air India, too, is suffering from manpower shortage. “Although we have 500 engineers and 125 executive engineers, for 38 aircrafts, which include four wet leased aircrafts, we also look after some maintenance work of Air India Express aircrafts. Apart from line and major maintenance, we are also made to do overhauling of the accessories and the engines, which in other airlines is sent abroad.”
Although adequate steps are being taken by Air India to correct this shortage, it will take time for the engineers to actually join work, because the process is very long.
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