China Eastern Airlines Co. Ltd announced on Tuesday that 16 Indian girls had completed professional training as air stewardesses and would begin to work on the company's Beijing-Shanghai-New Delhi flight from Saturday.

They are the first group of Indian stewardesses ever hired by a Chinese air company.

Their monthly salary will be 800 U.S. dollars per person, said a spokesman for the China Eastern Airlines.

China Eastern Airlines opened flights from Beijing to Shanghai then to New Delhi in March 2002. Now there are four weekly flights on the route.

The air company also began to provide air services for passengers from Beijing and Shanghai to Bombay and vice versa in April last year, increasing its flights between the two nations to seven a week.

To recruit foreign stewardesses is one of the measures China Eastern Airlines has taken to further localize its air services.

Currently, the company has recruited 100 in flight attendants from foreign countries including Japan, the Republic of Korea (ROK) and India. It is planning to recruit more attendants from Russia and the Philippines, according to the spokesman.

(Xinhua News Agency May 31, 2006)