Air India gives wings to women, doubles female pilot training to 20 per cent

Women pilots flying Air India planes will no longer be a rare sight as the national carrier is on a recruitment spree, training more women to fly than ever before. Women's enrollment for flight training has more than doubled to 20 per cent this year from a meagre 5-7 per cent in the past.

HURDLES FOR WOMEN PILOTS

Shivani Minhas, a trainee pilot hailing from Jammu and Kashmir, said that it has not been easy for aspiring women pilots to cope with societal pressures. "Spending `50 lakh on a daughter isn't a good payback deal. Especially if you are coming from a disturbed place like Jammu and Kashmir," she said.

There are also issues of safety raised by families of these aspiring pilots. "We have to travel a lot and, therefore, safety is an issue for us. When I thought of becoming a pilot, the first challenge came from my family members. There is also myth that no middle class family girl can become a pilot," said Sharmeen Magra, trainee pilot.

DISCRIMINATION

According to the figures of the civil aviation ministry, out of the total 5,100 pilots in the country 600 are women, accounting to about 11.7 per cent of the total number.

While the fresh recruitment by Air India is way above the national average, the real challenge would be to ensure that there is no discrimination with regard to pay, promotion and pregnancy related benefits that women pilots have complained of in the past.

Interestingly, the numbers in India are way above the global average for women pilots, which is a meagre three per cent. Even the world's lone superpower, the United States, has only seven per cent of women pilots in its commercial flights. (It is estimated that out of the 1.30 lakh trained commercial pilots across the world, a whopping 97 per cent are male.)

RATIO TO INCREASE

According to Captain N Sivaramakrishnan, General Manager (Ops-Training), Air India, women pilots are equally capable of flying an airaircraft and in future, the ratio will increase as things have changed drastically in Air India. "Don't get surprised if you see more women pilots flying Air India planes. Soon, we will increase the number," he told Mail today.

Sivaramkrishnan, a veteran instructor with two decades of experience, said he has never seen so many women in a batch as in the current one. "The number of women trainees has never been so high. The batch of 2015-16 has 37 women pilots out of the total 192 recruited. Prior to the current batch, there had been only 145 women pilots in Air India," said Captain Ramesh Sanil, Airbus instructor for Air India.

OVERHAUL OF TRAINING ESTABLISHMENT

Meanwhile, Air India has seen an overhaul to the Central Training Establishment (CTE). For the first time in 10 years instructors have been recruited for the main training centre of Air India.

According to Air India officials, there was a tussle between CTE management and Air India management over recruitment of instructors as top brass used to claim that there is no need of hiring afresh batch of trainers. "This year we started the procedure of hiring ground and crew instructors. Since 2006, there was not even a single ground instructor hired but recently Ashwani Lohani, CMD Air India, gave a green signal for the recruitment. Also, we have accelerated in-house training of flying instructors so that young pilots can get trained in the shortest possible period," said an Air India official on the condition of anonymity.

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