Air India has recruited more than 650 pilots since April 1, says CEO Campbell Wilson

 The Air India group has successfully hired and brought on board a total of 650 pilots since April this year, Air India CEO Campbell Wilson said in his Friday message.

His message comes days after the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had suspended simulators training for A320 pilots at Air India's Hyderabad facility and Boeing pilots at the Tata Group-owned airline's Mumbai facility.

The CEO also said that in the first week of this month, Air India is set to acquire two additional Boeing 777 aircraft for its widebody fleet, with one of them already in operation, adding that this addition will enable the airline to improve its services to the US and increase overall capacity.

"It's the first week of September, and this week saw the addition of not one but two new Boeing 777 aircraft to our fleet - the fifth and sixth of the year so far. One is another 777-200LR that will be deployed to North America, allowing us to upgrade more San Francisco and New York frequencies with better seats, inflight entertainment systems and a Premium Economy class, as well as improve schedule reliability," he said.

"That we can operate these additional aircraft is thanks in no small part to the efforts of our Group Hiring Cell (GHC), which has seen folk from Al, AIXL and AIXC come together to recruit pilots en masse. The GHC is one of our first integrated, cross-AOC and cross-functional teams, and has successfully recruited and onboarded more than 650 pilots since April 1," he said.

"Recruitment work is ongoing, but so many new Air Indians in such a short time is a fantastic achievement so on August 17, we took the opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate the efforts of more than 130 people from across the GHC team," he said.