’Recruitments on to cut down delays’

New Delhi, January 6: tiol passenger carrier Air India on Tuesday said it is on a recruitment overdrive to fill on–board manpower vacancies that have affected some of its intertiol flights lately. According to a senior Air India official, the recruitment drive which has been going on for some time is expected to overcome the on–board manpower shortage.

Lately, some of the airline’s flights to the US got delayed, leaving many angry passengers. Some passengers of a delayed New Delhi–New York flight even created a ruckus recently at the Indira Gandhi Intertiol Airport (IGIA) here. “We have been carrying out walk–in interviews and recruitment have also been carried out from the industry. These recruitments are being carried out for various cabin crew posts,” the airline official told IANS.

“The cabin crew shortage has caused some delays but that is being taken care of by maging existing manpower available with the airline.” The official further said that currently, all intertiol flights are being operated on–time.

“Trained cabin crew, who are capable of operating long–haul from the domestic sector, are also being made available to fill up the short–fall,” the official said. The development comes a day after hundreds of New York–bound passengers were stranded at the Indira Gandhi Intertiol Airport (IGIA) here following delays on the Air India flight which was caused due to cabin crew shortage.

Airport sources familiar with the incident said that some of the passengers, who had a long stop–over here, created a ruckus forcing the airline to redeploy its cabin crew from another flight to carry out the New Delhi–New York operations. “Ruckus was created by some of the New York–bound passengers who were stranded here. The airline had to filly bring–in cabin crew from its Chicago flight to take care of this operation,” the source said.

“The Chicago flight eventually got cancelled and the passengers of that flight were accommodated on other flights.”

Meanwhile, the cabin crew shortage is causing a heavy blow to the airline’s image. Lately, the airline has been trying to refurbish its operations with on–time performance. “This type of incidents cause embarrassment. All employees are working very hard to provide best possible service to passengers and give a face–lift to our operations as on–time and efficient,” another Air India official told IANS. (IANS)