Air India to train staff in bid to improve its on-board services

In his first media interview after being appointed Air
India’ s chief training officer, Stephen Sukumar said the airline is in talks with
some of the world’ s best hotel chains to train its employees in an attempt “ to bring back some of the once
legendary shine of Air India on-board
service” . And for ground staff, the airline has
developed training programmes
benchmarked to those of other Star
Alliance members, he added.
By the middle of next year, Air India
will join Star Alliance, a global grouping of airlines with 27 members
including Lufthansa German Airlines
and Continental Airlines Inc.
And the airline has renegotiated all its
training contracts and lowered total
training costs by 29%, when compared with the last fiscal year,
according to Sukumar.
However, the airline’ s annual report doesn’ t have a break-up of the amount spent on training.
The appointment of Sukumar, the
former chief training officer at German
airline Deutsche Lufthansa AG, has
been controversial and the
government has appointed a two- member committee to review his
appointment.