National carrier Air India has in the last six months terminated the services of 45 cabin crew on ground of absenteeism and will be serving final notices to 59 more in the next month and half, a senior executive said Monday. “We began this drive last year when we saw a large gap between the number of cabin crew on our rolls and the number reporting for work,” said an executive who didn’t want to be named. The carrier currently has about 3,400 cabin crew on its rolls and above 800 more on contract.

Under the new drive, the carrier sent notices to people who were absent from work without authorized reason for more than 15 days. That was followed a few weeks later with chargesheets and a few months after that, termination notices. About 400 such employees were given such notices last year, the executive said.

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