'How Frankfinn clipped my wings'

Student claims the airhostess training institute duped her. She was reportedly told she was too short to qualify for a job on board and was offered work with a fast food chain instead

Student claims the airhostess training institute duped her. She was reportedly told she was too short to qualify for a job on board and was offered work with a fast food chain instead

Garima Mittal missed her flight by just one inch.The Delhi girl, who wanted to become an airhostess, is now staring at a job with a fast food joint.

Dreams dashed: Garima Mittal poses with her Frankfinn ID card.
Pic/Rajeev Tyagi

Garima had joined Frankfinn Institute of Airhostess in 2008 at its Rajendra Place centre. But as the number of students in her batch was "insufficient", the centre was closed down and they were shifted to Rajouri Garden. She told MiD DAY that none of her batchmates were intimated about the change.

"I took admission at Frankfinn because there were many lucrative commitments. They were offering placements for Rs. 20,000 per month to Rs. 75000 per month. Once I completed eight months of the course, I was surprised to see that the institute was hardly making any effort towards placements," said Garima, a resident of Shakarpur in east Delhi.

She claimed that she had paid Rs 1,32,000 as fees for the course."After completing the one year course, none of the students got placements. Since most of my batch mates were outstation candidates, they went back feeling harassed, cheated and distressed. Some of us, who were stranded, persisted with the efforts to get a job," she told MiD DAY.

When finally she got to meet the centre head, Garima was told that she could not become an airhostess, as she was short.

"They told me that I am one inch short of the mandatory 5 feet 2 inches. Though I would like to believe that the reason I was given was utter rubbish, even if it was true then why would they gave me admission in the first place," she asked.

Garima claimed the centre head offered her a Rs 5,000-6,000 per month job with a fast food joint. "They said I can qualify for just that."

"Most of the students who got admitted took a loan to finance their course. All of us were in a fix. From time to time they also pressurised us to buy expensive formal wears and cosmetics etc," added Pranuj, Garima's batch mate, who managed to get a job on his own.

Code of ethics

The new advertising code for the education sector, that is coming into force from Wednesday, prohibits advertisements claiming comparative ranking of institutes without giving details of the ranking organisation and the date the ranking was published. Similarly, a new clause prohibits display of building or infrastructure from models and computer graphics, requiring institutions to show actual and existing facilities, if the facilities are shown in the ads.
The new code, propounded by Advertising Standards Council of India, also attempts to clamp down on misleading testimonials of students that may not even have been part of the educational programme, exam or subject. A new clause makes it mandatory for advertisements to give exact details of students giving testimonials. Similarly, the new code takes another technicality into consideration by asking advertisers to mention total number of students who passed out from the class, whenever they claim an absolute number of students placed in jobs. The final set of advertising guidelines for educational institutions, among other things, prohibit institutions and programs from claiming recognition, authorization, accreditation, or affiliations without providing proper evidence.u00a0
With the new guidelines, educational institutions will not be able to promise jobs, admissions, job promotions, salary increase, etc. without substantiating such claims and also assuming full responsibility in the same advertisement. The proposed guidelines discourage institutions from claiming success in placements, student compensations, admission to renowned institutes, marks and rankings, and topper student testimonials unless every such claim is substantiated with evidence.

The Other Side

Samir Valia, Vice-President, Frankfinn Institute of Airhostess, said: "We are an institute who mostly helps people getting placed in aviation, hospitality and travel management sector. As we are a training institute we groom people and assist them in getting a job but we don't assure or give any kind of job guarantee. We can help our students in getting an interview call but finally they have to face the interview and match up to the company's criteria."
"For the cabin crew all the airlines have minimum height requirement which is 5 feet and two inches and each candidate have to fulfill it to get the job. If a candidate fall short of criteria and still wants to make it in aviation industry one can choose for ground staff job. Each candidate before joining our institute is clearly told that for cabin crew a candidate needs to fulfill minimum height requirement but still they can make their carrier in other sectors."
On why the Rajendra Place centre was shut down, he said, "It was a franchisee which was not doing good business so we had to close down and shift all the students to other centers according to their convenience. We have never promised to give 100 per cent jobs as cabin crew but yes we are the best in our segment with the highest placement record and world class training facility."