Air India, the national carrier which was declared sick by heavy industry minister Anant Geete, received another jolt recently when no candidate turned up for the walk-in interview to recruit new pilots.

The airline is already struggling with the shortage of around 200 pilots.

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Officials and experts invited from other countries to recruit pilots were also perplexed. The airline had to suffer heavy loss as huge arrangements were made for the set up, which included booking of hotels and travel expenses of the invited experts.

According to sources, there are two main reasons behind the outright rejection by the pilots. First, the airline wants to recruit pilots on contract basis for five years and they are expected to pay their training fee on their own. The salary structure offered  to them is less than the existing market threshold.

“Under such circumstances it just appears as an eyewash to look at Air India as a job option,” shares a pilot.

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The second reason is that the Indian Commercial Pilots’ Association has appealed to the pilots not to accept jobs with Air India on contract basis.

The airline is also struggling due to shortage of cabin crew. It has a shortage of 800 cabin crew members. The airline is in process of recruiting the cabin crew members after the approval from the government. It expects to complete this process by May-June.  Many cases of flight delays have already happened due to shortage of staff.