Air India Slashes Top-Level Positions
Air India
Air India has significantly reduced the number of top-level positions in a bid to rationalise staff strength. The move was overdue after the merger between the erstwhile Air India and Indian Airlines.
The airline has cut down the number of positions of executive director from 43 to 19, general managers from 107 to 54 and deputy general managers from 143 to 112.
“This rationalisation was long due and the number of posts were required to be cut after the airline was merged. Post the merger, we had to retain the executives from both the airlines and that had been rationalised now,” said a senior Air India official.
These measures, along with several others, will help the national carrier in bringing down its work force to 9,500 by 2015-16 fiscal from over 13,000 currently.
The national carrier has been able to trim its workforce primarily by transferring a large number to its engineering and ground handling subsidiaries.
“With the transfer, our employee to aircraft ratio will come down to 81. We also do not need to recruit operational staff immediately, as there is a scope to increase their utilisation,” the official said.