A team of officials from Emirates Airlines will arrive in India later this week to hire cabin crew who can speak fluently in Bengali, besides English. Lufthansa is looking for qualified cabin crew from India with Tamil-speaking ability. Qatar Airways last month selected 40 candidates from India for its cabin crew pool.

After a lull in the first half of 2010, placements in the aviation sector have once again taken off, with domestic and international carriers hiring in the past few months. Training institutes are ramping up capacities to meet the demand growth.

“We see airlines, both domestic and international, picking up on average 25 to 30 cabin crew candidates from India every month. In the last 10 months, about 5,000 students from our institute have got placement in the aviation, hospitality and travel industries,” says Mr Samir Valia, vice-president of Frankfinn Institute of Airhostess Training.

The institute, part of leading aviation services company Frankfinn group, has 75 centres across India, each training about 200 students a year.

Overseas expansion

Spurred by the increased hiring by airlines, Frankfinn is hastening its expansion plans, both in India and overseas. In India, it will focus on tier II and III cities.

“A bulk of our capacity addition will be overseas, in geographies such as the Middle East, Africa and South-East Asia, where the demand for cabin crew is growing at a faster clip,” Mr Valia told Business Line .

The company is investing about Rs 300 crore to set up 150 centres in these regions in the next three years, through tie-ups with local partners. “In 2011, we plan to set up five to seven new centres in these regions. We already have a presence in Dubai, Mauritius and Hong Kong,” he said.

The company has also started new courses in soft skills development, under the brand name ‘First Impression', to give students an edge in cracking interviews, including those beyond the realm of aviation.

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