Flight of fancy

Ambitious youngsters from small towns are flocking to Chandigarh and other cities in pursuit of a high-flying career in the booming aviation industry. Sukhdeep Kaur checks out institutes that train cabin crew and looks at the prospects and pitfalls.

HER humble existence did not deprive Ruby Joseph of the power to dream big. Fighting criticism and resistance at home in faraway Uttaranchal, she decided on Destination Chandigarh with the hope of literally flying high. "Dreaming of an exciting career in the airline industry? We’ll help you get there." This catchline had taken her on a flight of imagination so many times. Pictures of smartly clad, attractive young girls smiling out of ads in newspaper pages wove their magic on her. She wanted the promised job to be hers.

Ruby registered for a one-year diploma course with the Air Hostess Academy. She brushed thoughts of how to pay the course fee aside as a minor deterrent that she could deal with. The academy’s instalment plan with the promise of a job that would bring in good money and a great time was far too enticing.

Midway through the course, after she had coughed up most of the fee, realisation dawned. The job did not entail glitz and glamour alone. It called for daily make-up, a rigorous dress code, brushing up of communication skills and also wearing the right attitude. Accompanied by the rude awakening that such institutes did not, per force, provide the ticket to flying in the skies was a dose of guilt. Was it overestimation or poor judgment that had brought her to this juncture?

One wonders how she made it to the academy in the first place. If only she had been told the simple truth`85she lacked certain essential attributes — good height, complexion and communication skills – to bag the airline job. Discontinuance of the course meant letting a tidy sum go down the drain. Ruby went on to earn a diploma, which is today gathering dust in a corner of her house.

The academy refuses to share the blame. "Even doctors take an undertaking from the patient’s relatives before an operation that it may not be successful. We do the same. She was told where she was found wanting. She gave us in writing she would not hold the academy responsible in any way. She was discouraged but given admission on compassionate grounds. We have had some students who have improved dramatically during the training process," the centre head, Kamal Sidhu, asserts.

Meanwhile, the influx of 18-somethings from small towns in Punjab, Himachal, Uttaranchal, Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir to cities for such training programmes continues. The institutes are reaping the dividends of the aviation windfall. Celebs like Soha Ali Khan are endorsing "branded" institutes. Glamour, money and a`A0high-flying lifestyle are a combination with an enduring appeal for young, starry-eyed boys and girls. It is an arithmetic many airhostess and flight purser academies are cashing in on, handing out dreams with the academy’s prospectus.

The institutes, which have proliferated by the dozen, play safe. Most of them offer a one-year programme encapsulating aviation, hospitality and travel management. A few like the Institute for Tourism and Future Management Trends (ITFT), which is affiliated to the Punjab Technical University (PTU), offer a three-year bachelor’s degree.

"Hospitality and travel also offer a good opening. We tell our students to be mentally prepared in case they are unable to land a plum airline job," says Kamal Saini, centre head, Frankfinn Institute of Air Hostess Training, Chandigarh.

Increasingly, Punjabi girls want to be airhostesses. Fat pay packets given by even domestic airlines are a major attraction. The international airlines are offering lots more. Coupled with the prospect of seeing the world and meeting new people via flying with big names in the aviation industry, the career qualifies as ‘a dream job’ for many. "We are getting students from cities like Ludhiana, Amritsar, Jalandhar and Patiala as also towns like Abohar, Moga, Gurdaspur, Muktsar, Sangrur, Nabha and Bathinda. Our students are from places as far off as Kulu in Himachal, Jabalpur in MP to Leh in Ladakh. Their first choice is aviation, then travel and tourism, with the hotel and hospitality industry being the third choice. Northern India is a major manpower destination for the airline industry," she adds.

With the aviation industry emerging as the new haven for young job-seekers, much like the call centre boom of the past few years, it is business time for the institutes training airhostesses and flight stewards. Not one of them has a tie-up or some form of understanding with the aviation players. Yet, they charge between Rs 70,000 and Rs 85,000 for "100 per cent assistance" (some also offer a guarantee) in job placement.

As a host of domestic airlines, such as Kingfisher, Go Air, Air One, Magic Air, Visa Air and Air Deccan, get ready to launch operations this year and carriers like Jet Airways and Air Sahara expand their international flights, cabin crew jobs are the hot, new option. The profile and pay packages – from Rs 20,000 to more than Rs 1 lakh – paint an alluring picture.

If the airlines take off as promised, 4,000 jobs in the cabin crew category alone will be up for grabs in one and a half years. This is not all. With the aviation industry in India expected to grow at the rate of 25 per cent this year, a large number of jobs are likely to come up on the ground and at airport terminals.

Added to this is a spurt in the signing of bilaterals. This translates into more international airlines touching down in the country. Also, even the existing airlines are looking at increasing their frequency and starting operations from new centres within the country. Put together, the scene looks far too sumptuous for training institutes not to vie for a share of the pie.

And what better place to look for aspirants than Punjab? No wonder, the tall, fair and well-versed Punjabi lasses are emerging as the flavour of the aviation market in the government’s open skies policy. The bullish aviation industry has set the cash registers of many a training academy ringing. Riding on the crest of a demand for cabin crew, a large number of such academies have sprung up and are doing brisk business.

However, the surge is numbers is not industry-driven. Mr A. K. Sivanandan, head of Jet Airways’ Public Relations Department, puts it very simply: "All airlines train their staff according to their specific requirements and as per the guidelines of the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA)."

For Air Deccan, the first low-cost airline launched in India, it is efficiency above all. Kingfisher’s flamboyant brand image, on another end of the spectrum, puts greater premium on looks and communication. More so, as girls double as ramp models for its airborne fashion shows. This also explains why airlines prefer training their own staff.

Ideally, an institute should back up quality education with effective placement service. If it wants to ensure this, it becomes imperative to have a tie-up with international and domestic airlines besides hotels and restaurants. Many academies/institutes promise all this and more. They take you down a maze of terms like affiliation, collaboration, recognition, understanding and tie-ups with various airlines. But none of the training academies, including the Frankfinn Institute for Air Hostess Training and the Air Hostess Academy (AHA), which are ISO 9001-2000 certified companies, can boast of any such thing.

Airlines advertise and conduct their own walk-in interviews or spread the word about an opening in the targeted market. According to Frankfinn, 17 of its students have been recruited on campus by Modiluft’s Spicejet. AHA puts the same number of students having made it to Royal Airlines through campus selection. The claims, if true, could include those selected for ground staff duties and catering and other services. They may have only a few cabin crew success stories.

Sapna Gupta, all-India chief consultant of the Air Hostess Academy, says they aim at grooming students for the interview. "Out of 10,000 candidates, the airlines have to choose just 50. It is far easier selecting out of trained ones. Also, our trainers are from the aviation industry with at least 10 years of experience. There is a lot they can share with the candidates and prepare them accordingly," she claims. When queried if the candidates selected by the academy had the requisite attributes she said most of them did. "A few in whom we see the potential to improve are given admission but only after they give us a written undertaking that they were told about their drawbacks and the institute is in no way responsible for no improvement in them," she declares.

Others in the field, too, insist on a written undertaking. Then comes their commitment to provide in-flight experience. While the Frankfinn Institute of Air Hostess Training claims to provide 30-hour training inside a leased airbus — A-300 — the Air Hostess Academy assures its students of in-flight training (Delhi-Jaipur-Delhi). Their brochure shows the Jet Airways crew training students inside the aircraft. Only, in this case, it is a chartered plane. The British Academy, which launched its aviation programme this year, goes a step further. It says, "Fly high with British wings." Again, it has no affiliation to talk of.

As for the ‘100 per cent job assistance’ jargon, Mr Rakesh Aggarwal, all-India marketing manager of Frankfinn, clears the air: "No one can guarantee a job, not even the IITs. Ours is a preparatory training programme. Since we are privy to inside information in the airline industry and have special correspondents and reporters, who are in regular touch with the aviation players, we are able to provide relevant information to our students through our institutes and in-house publications." He claims international airlines — Yemen Airways, Royal Jordanian and Delta — had conducted interviews of Frankfinn students. "Through public relations liaison, we try to get the best placements for our students," he stresses.

Esha, who passed out from MCM DAV College in Chandigarh, was recently selected by Lufthansa Airlines for a cabin crew job. The daughter of an Army officer, she says she did train at any institute. "Either you have it in you or you don’t. At best, an academy can groom you. As many of my friends are airhostesses, I feel one just has to have a natural flair. And yes, an Army background helps," she affirms. Yet, this is the same reason the training academies tout to vouch for their existence. "Not everyone is born into a family where children get the best of education, grow up speaking English and know how to present themselves. We try to fill in the gaps," avers Kamal of AHA.

Sources in the aviation industry have an interesting observation to make. On why they conduct direct interviews, they say: "Freshers and not those churned out by the academies make better trainees. The pre-trained ones need to be de-trained."

But these academies have their own success stories. Anupreet from Muktsar in Punjab fought parental disapproval to reach Frankfinn’s doors in Chandigarh for training as an airhostess. She went through a complete makeover here and within five months was selected by Jet Airways. Frankfinn’s Kirandeep, Monica, Ragini and Tamana have made it to Yemen Airways while AHA’s Manreet will be flying with Air Deccan and Gurveen with Jet Airways. Almost all institutes have a long list of achievers. It is, however, not possible to check every claim.

A young girl can become an airhostess after she passes class XII. But many international airlines ask for a graduation certificate. Most of the institutes put the minimum height requirement at five feet two inches (also a safety requirement, as the emergency equipment is usually kept in the overhead bins and needs to be grabbed fast in a crisis) and enrol students in the age bracket of 17 to 26 years.

"The service industry has become very professional. They need people with qualities and skills that go beyond looks, a pleasing personality and excellent communication skills. Increasingly, the focus is on confidence in handling various situations, patience and intelligence. Though IQ and EQ govern the selection process, a clear skin and charming personality are also mandatory," says a trainer at an academy.

So how do these institutes equip their students to handle a cabin crew career? "The students have to sweat it out," proclaims the training coordinator at AHA, adding, "They are put through rigorous training in flight safety and service. They are also educated about first aid, skin and hair care, fitness, hygiene and personal grooming. They even have to learn to swim. We also conduct mock interviews so that the students know what they will have to endure."

Recently, CNBC-18’s Uncovered programme revealed how a Mumbai institute cheated 350 students by taking Rs 15,000 for a three-month training programme with the promise of selecting them as crew members for special Haj flights. The murky details of the plan tumbled out after none of the students was offered a job and they sought police help. So, the next time you want to fly high know one thing for sure. There is no government body watching over these institutes.

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