The interview for a newly-created post of Director (Operations), Air India, is scheduled to be held tomorrow. With less than 24 hours remaining for the shortlisted candidates to hit the testing ground, speculations are rife as to who would make it. In case everything goes as scheduled, the first Director (Ops) of Air India may be recommended for ACC ratification on May 24. Indianmandarins has reliably learnt that five aspirants, having wide experience of flying aircraft, have been shortlisted for the selection interview. Among the candidates called for the interview figure the names of three Air India Executive Directors, namely, Capt Arvind Kathpalia, Capt Anil Kumar Govil and Capt Chetan Prakash and GM (Air India) Capt Amitabh Singh. Air Vice Marshal Amit Tiwari (Ministry of Defence) would be the only aspirant as an external candidate. Unlike the other CPSEs, Air India narrowed down the competition by making flight experience a mandatory qualification. The post requires a commercial pilot with at least 10,000 hours of flying experience in the various type of aircraft available in the passenger transportation in India, of which 5,000 hours should be as Pilot-in-Command on any type of aircraft in the current fleet of Air India i.e. Airbus, Boeing and turbo-prop type of aircraft. The post, created in the third week of November last year, was advertised on March 09 this year.