Air India set to hire 80 co-pilots for Boeing jets

mumbai — State-owned Air India is hiring over 80 junior pilots for its wide-body Boeing 777 and 787 aircraft to meet the shortage of cockpit crew.

The process to induct these first officers or co-pilots is in the final stage and they are expected to join Air India by next month, an airline source said here.

Air India currently has about 170 co-pilots to steer its 15 777 and 23 787 planes against a requirement of over 370, the source said. It is scheduled to take delivery of four more 787s as well as three 777s between July this year and March next year. The airline operates these planes on its long- and ultralong-haul routes.

“As many as 95 candidates were selected for the simulator test after they cleared the written examination. Of these, 85 could clear the simulator test and they are now in the process of joining Air India,” the source said. These candidates are already type-rated on narrow-body Boeing 737s and conversion as pilots for the wide-body 737 can be done easily, he said.

“Conversion from a narrow body Boeing pilot to a wide-body Boeing aircraft pilot is easier than from Airbus to Boeing or vice versa as the training period then gets reduced from eight sessions to about four sessions,” the source said. This, in turn, reduces the type rating cost as well, he said.

Of the 85 co-pilots who are expected to join the airline in May, 45 are likely to be deployed on 777s and the remaining on 787s. — PTI