PAWAN HANSPawan Hans faces staff exodus
Pilots, avionics engineers, AMEs quit in droves
BY A CORRESPONDENT
March 2006
Pawan Hans is in trouble. The government-owned helicopter service,
which mostly caters to ONGC's offshore operations, is facing a serious
problem. with rising staff exodus. The villains are the same: poachers
from the private airlines and helicopter charter operators.
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Higher salaries in the private sector are luring Pawan Hans (Golden
Swan, translated) pilots, avionics engineers and aircraft maintenance
engineers (AMEs) to Kingfisher Airlines, Go Air and chopper charter
operator Global Vectra. The employees are lured by salaries which are
ofte more than double the figure offered by Pawan Hans.
For the private sector poachers too, it is more economical to recruit
from low-paid government airlines and Pawan Hans than the more
expensive talent pools in rival private airlines.
The AMEs with Pawan Hans can upgrade to become airplane AMEs after
writing an exam. For them, the salary difference is big enough to
switch to a career with planes.
Currently, existing staff in Pawan Hans are working overtime to
fulfill duties. It is believed that the last three months have seen
the exiot of 25 AMEs. More are on way out.
Pawan Hans management is yet to devise a strategy to cub the exit of
trained talent. In government-owned airlines like Air India, Air India
Express and Indian Airlines, pilots and employees had agitated to get
salary hikes. But in Pawan Hans, it seems the staff are quietly on
their way out. Until the management wakes up and finds solutions to
the issue, the staffers remain easy target to poachers from private
airlines.
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