In a bid to cut its expenses, Air India plans to re-organise its fleet and shift some of its aircraft to its subsidiary Alliance Air. The airline is also hiring cabin crew on a contractual basis through its subsidiary Air India Charters Ltd.

This is likely to help trim the airlines wage bill which is about 35 per cent of its total costs. “Air India has some Airbus A-320s and Airbus A-330s which are more than 15 years old. There is a proposal in place to shift these aircraft to Alliance Air. But this might take some more time,” an Air India official said.

Air India has also begun hiring cabin crew on a contractual basis through its subsidiary Air India Charters Ltd. Airline officials said that the move is expected to help in “huge” savings in cabin crew costs.

The national carrier is also planning to approach the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for a special waiver of its provisioning norms. AI has defaulted on payment of service tax and interest on working capital, and owes around Rs 48,000 crore in loans and payments to vendors. Its loans would become non-performing assets (NPAs) as per RBI provisioning norms, if the interest liability or the repayment of loan is not made by July-end.