Media Release
Mar 9: Ahead of Internation Women's Day this year, Air India created history by flying the world's longest all-women operated and supported flight from Delhi to San Francisco in March 6.
The flag carrier has the biggest women workforce of about 3,800 women employees including women pilots, cabin crew, engineers, technicians, doctors, security personnel and executives.
In keeping with the tradition of celebrating International Women's Day on Wednesday March 8, Air India Express operated nine all women crew flights to international destinations.
These flights originated from Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, Kozhikode, Mumbai, Delhi, Dubai, Sharjah and Dammam. Women engineers of Air India Express handled these flights at the respective airports and all ground handling activities were also managed by women employees.
Out of the nine flights, eight flights operated to the Gulf stations of Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, and Dammam, wherein all check in and related ground activities were handled entirely by women employees. All lady passengers travelling on these flights were greeted at the check in counters with flowers. The women crew operating these flights were felicitated with bouquets on the occasion.
Fourteen women pilots including captains Tanya Anand, Martina, Kavita Rajkumar, Nancy Nayyar, G K Sandhu, Saloni Rawal, Kanak Chaturvedi, Srishti Singh , Ami Sanghvi, Masood, Bindu Sebastian, Kanchan Telang, Sakshi Kumar and Komal Bharati, and 34 women cabin crew members, operated the all-women crew flights as under:
1. IX 382 - Dammam - Kozhikode
2. IX 688/681 Chennai - Singapore- Tiruchirappalli
3. IX 247 Mumbai - Dubai
4. IX 248 Dubai - Mumbai
5. IX 537/538 Thiruvananthapuram - Abu Dhabi - Thiruvananthapuram
6. IX 351 Kozhikode - Sharjah
7. IX 354 Sharjah - Kozhikode
8. IX 4191452 Kochi - Abu Dhabi - Kochi
9. IX 141/142 Delhi - Dubai - Delhi.
In 2016, the national carrier expressed its respect towards women by operating over 20 all-women operating flights to three continents and seven domestic routes as part of the lnternational Women's Day celebrations. Air India operated flights on the Delhi-Sydney, Delhi-London and Delhi-San Francisco sectors thereby covering Europe, Australia and the US by flights all operated by women crew.
India's first International budget carrier, Air India Express is an equal opportunity employer and 40% of its workforce consists of women employees. The country's first international budget carrier, Air India Express is a wholly owned subsidiary of Air India Limited. It has 535 departures per week, and currently connects 15 Indian cities to 14 international destinations in the Middle East and South East Asia .The airline has a fleet of 23 Boeing 737-800 NG aircraft, six of which are brand new having joined the fleet recently on dry lease. These new aircraft are equipped to carry more capacity and come with lighter seats and higher performance capabilities.