India’s largest civilian airline, IndiGo, is preparing to mass-hire pilots. The company plans to appoint more than 1,000 pilots. Reportedly, this is one of the largest recruitment drives undertaken by any airline in the Indian aviation sector. This decision has been taken after operational difficulties faced last year in December, which caused a major collapse of the aviation infrastructure. Around 5,000 flights had to be cancelled in just 7 days due to crew shortage, causing major problems for the passengers. Recruitment will be for positions from Trainee to Captain According to media reports, IndiGo’s recruitment is intended to meet the regulatory requirements. Positions include- 1. Trainee First Officer 2. Senior First Officer 3. Captain. 4 new aircrafts added every month IndiGo will add 4 new aircraft to its fleet every month. New pilots are needed to fly them. The company is promoting 20 to 25 First Officers to Captains every month. It takes 6 months for a trainee officer to be ready. 1,500 hours of flying experience are necessary to become a Captain. The company is tightening these standards. Compliance with DGCA rules is a challenge According to the rules, three sets of pilots (one Captain and one First Officer) are required for each aircraft. However, IndiGo’s aircraft are used extensively, so it needs twice the number of pilots than the standard. The investigation found that the company needed. 2,422 Captains, but at that time, it had only had 2,357 Captains available. Given the crisis, the DGCA had granted some temporary exemptions in night duty rules until February 10. Why did the crisis occur in December? New rest rules for pilots were implemented in December. Under this, the number of landings between 12 am and 6 am was limited, and the weekly rest period was increased. DGCA’s investigation revealed that Indigo had not made sufficient recruitments according to the new rules, nor had it increased the pace of training. Due to this, the workload on pilots increased, and a large number of flights were cancelled. Source : Google Trends Post navigation Sebi gives nod to 5 IPOs, including Duroflex and Hexagon:Companies to raise funds via fresh issue and OFS
