Does anyone know what they pay? I have no idea what 9 lakh is.
This comes from
Paramount Airways runs short of Pilots at Indian Airlines News Blog - Covering News & Cheap Air Ticket Offers from all Indian Airlines
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Paramount Airways runs short of Pilots
22 Mar, 2009 Jobs, Paramount Airways
Paramount Airways CHENNAI: Paramount Airways is reportedly running short of pilots with at least a dozen of the foreign pilots, brought in to fly the Embraer aircraft for salaries higher than their Indian counterparts, leaving the company in recent times for various reasons.
While airport authority sources confirmed that the airline is facing a shortage of pilots, a top Paramount official claimed that the airline has 35 captains and about 65 first officers on its rolls.
But for an airline that operates to at least 12 destinations with a mandatory requirement of 25 captains, there are only 16 reporting for duty, airport sources said.
Insiders say the sudden dearth of pilots was due to huge exodus of foreign pilots, who had come from countries like Columbia, Kenya, Venezuela, and parts of America.
“Last month there were only 13 captains as three were on leave. Such a shortage puts a huge pressure on pilots, who are forced to fly flights back to back,” said an Airport Authority source. When the airline was launched, there were no Indians trained in flying the Brazilian-made aircraft and the company employed the foreigners for huge salaries _ captains draw Rs nine lakh per month for flying narrow body aircraft and Rs 11 lakh for wide body aircraft.
Subsequently, Indian pilots were trained and taken in as captains. In the case of first officers, 18 of them recently joined Paramount after coughing up Rs 25 lakh for their training.
But most of the first officers are yet to clear the exams conducted by DGCA to become captains.
Even as the company grapples with the problem, the Indian captains are sour as they are paid only around Rs 4 lakh for narrow body planes and Rs 5 lakh for wide bodied ones. They also complain that foreigners are entitled for more perks than Indians.