NEW DELHI: This is a telling comment on the decline of Air India from a glamorous airline where dreamy eyed girls dreamt of getting a job in the heydays of JRD Tata’s stewardship, to a sarkari organization now fraught by uncertainty following years of government mismanagement. The Maharaja has discovered that almost 400 airhostesses of its cabin crew strength of 3,600 who had taken a two-year leave without pay as per company policy have simply not returned to work although their leave got over a long time back.

AI has now declared them absconders and is beginning a process to sack all those who fail to give a convincing reason for their continued absence from work. Almost 300 of the 400 absconding airhostesses are learnt to be from Delhi alone.

"They must have left at a time when the airline faced uncertainty (which it still does); salary payment was irregular and must have taken up job elsewhere. Once they got jobs elsewhere, they should have resigned from here and not remained on the rolls. However, we officially have no information on them. The probe of the first tranche of 44 absconders will soon be over and we may sack many of them,” said a senior official.

The government’s questionable decision to buy 111 new planes for over Rs 50,000 crore and drowning the airline in debt has led to a state of complete penury in AI, forcing it to survive on taxpayers’ bailouts. "Salary payments remain uncertain and the airline’s survival looks bleak. In this atmosphere, a number of people are eying jobs elsewhere,” said a senior employee.

The airline stumbled on the absconders while asking all of its cabin crew to appear for medical test from January. After much reservation from the mostly unfit and overweight AI cabin crew, a majority of whom are airhostesses, the airline conducted fitness tests on 3,200 employees from January to March while having a total strength of 3,600.

"Almost 40% of the 3,200 cabin crew was found to be unfit, with 557 of them being ‘morbidly obese’. These personnel face the risk of being put on ground duties unless they get back in shape within a deadline of six months. The second round of tests is going to begin now for those who gave the medicals in January. A majority of the airhostesses found really overweight are from erstwhile AI,” said the official.

The management’s move is being backed by the parent aviation ministry with the latter now toying with an idea which is a norm for all private carriers but not heard of in AI — fixing a lower maximum age to remain an airhostess. The retirement age for AI employees is 58 and an airhostess can fly till the day she retires.

Many years ago (in its heady days) the age limit was 45 to have a mix of youth and experience. "The ministry is now planning to have a lower age ceiling for AI airhostesses after which they will transferred to ground duties where they will remain till the age of 58,” said an official. Outgoing CJI’s bid to appoint SC judge nipped