Paramount to hire 500 pilots and 600 cabin crew

New Delhi: Paramount Airways plans to hire 500 pilots and 600 cabin crew in the next two years as it eyes nation-wide presence and a five-fold increase in fleet size by 2011.
The airline, which currently has five Embraer jets, will take delivery of another 20 aircraft by 2010-11.
“We employ 25 pilots and 30 cabin crew per aircraft. Accordingly the numbers will go up (with the addition in the fleet),” Paramount Managing Director M. Thiagarajan said. The carrier would begin the hiring shortly with two more Embraer aircraft slated for delivery by the end of March.
The airline, which offers only business and first class configuration, deploys a higher number of flight attendants than others.
“We deploy five cabin crew per flight against the industry average of two per flight for economy class,” he said.
Paramount currently has about 125 pilots and 150 cabin crew members.With the increased resources, the airline wants to first ‘saturate’ the western India market and then launch operations in the northern and north-eastern regions.
The carrier, which currently connects Goa, Ahmedabad and Pune to various cities in the South, will make Mumbai the hub for it operations in the western market.
“We will add 500-600 flights per month in the next six months and make Mumbai the hub for our inter-region and intra-region operations in the west,” he said.
The company will also launch its international operations by 2012-13 for which it already in advanced stages of dialogue with aircraft manufacturers Airbus and Boeing to place orders for about 7-10 planes.
19/01/09 PTI/Livemint