IIPM business magazine and section Economy: Of broken wings & unmet dreams

Saturday, March 06, 2010

Of broken wings & unmet dreams

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Many of these institutes have diversified. Their courseware now offers more than just training for aspiring cabin crews. For one, they are extending their soft-skill training and grooming sessions to polish management executives from many corporate houses. “We have tied up with a number of business houses to train and polish their employees to acquaint them and develop in them various interpersonal skills,” confirms Pammi Talwar, Chairperson, Inflight Air Hostess Training Institute (IAHTI). The good news is that these training sessions are proving to be a rather lucrative business, as corporates are beginning to understand the need to inculcate such interpersonal and soft skills in their employees. Kohli of Frankfinn is also planning along similar lines as he affirms, “We are re-launching our corporate training division by the name Frankfinn Corporate Cell, in November 2009. This division would specialise in imparting soft-skill lessons not only to the top managers, but also to employees at lower levels...”

There is more. With the increasing demand for various management courses, some of these air hostess training institutes have also started imparting management courses at both the bachelors and masters levels through distance learning courses, which are affiliated to various open universities. Courses such as management in hotel, hospitality and travel have also been introduced by many of these institutes. “We have recently started our distance learning MBA and BBA programs affiliated to the Global Open University of Nagaland,” states Talwar of IAHTI. All this diversification in the course content would definitely help these niche players to cater to a wider audience but the catch is that there are already a number of institutes which specialise in the above-mentioned courses, and unless these institutes succeed in eroding market share of the established management institutes, the future will only get more hopeless.

However, there is still hope that the future may not yet become a reverie for these crew planners, with the trajectory of both the economy and the aviation sector (air traffic registered a 26% y-o-y growth during August 2009) looking upwards. Moreover players like SpiceJet, Paramount Airways and IndiGo have unleashed fleet expansion plans, thus opening new opportunities for the prospective in-flight crew members. “As per DGCA, it is mandatory for airlines to have a certain number of cabin crew per flight. Thus the various expansion plans would once again encourage the students to pursue their flying dreams,” supports Kohli.

All said and done, for now the idea of course diversification seems to be the best bet for these air hostess training institutes in the country. Their journey into the skies may not yet be over, but for once, fortune has taught them how realistic things on the ground are... (Wonder if they were ever groomed for such a change!)

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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