The Hindu Business Line : Malaysia Airlines to recruit more Indians

IN a bid to give an Indian touch to its India flights, Malaysia Airlines is seeking to recruit at least 100 Indian cabin crew. The airline is also in advanced stages of discussions with Air India to introduce more flights between the two countries.

The first batch of 17 Indian cabin crew members was inducted into active operations on Friday last week after four months of intensive training at the Malaysia Airlines Academy at Kelana Jaya here.

Briefing Indian newspersons here after the graduation ceremony of the new recruits, senior Malaysia Airlines executives said that the company would recruit at least 100 Indians by June next year as part of its massive expansion plan that will see at least 1,000 cabin crew personnel being added to its strength of 4,500 air hostesses and pursers.

"We are already recruiting from India, China, Japan and hope to pick up cabin crew from Spain and France in the near future. This is part of our effort to add local touch to our operations to these countries. We believe that crew from the same country as the passengers will understand the needs of our customers better," said Captain Mohd Nawawi Awang, Senior General Manager (Flight Operations).

The second batch of 16 Indians has already completed three months of training and is likely to be inducted by early January 2004, while the third batch is reporting at the academy soon, he said.

Besides the 33 Indian cabin crew, Malaysia Airlines has 63 Japanese, 20 Indonesian, 14 Korean and some staff from Mexico and South Africa, Capt Awang said, adding that three per cent of the service staff of the airline was made up of non-Malaysians.

The airlines expects a 30 per cent growth in traffic between India and Malaysia and is in an advanced stage of negotiations with Air India for more flights on code-share basis.

"We hope to work out an agreement next month and introduce additional flights soon. Besides more flights to New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, we are planning to deploy a Boeing 747 for Chennai to cater to the demand," Capt Awang said.

The airline operates a daily flight to Chennai and flies four days in a week to New Delhi and Mumbai. It also operates flights to Hyderabad and Bangalore.

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