The Hindu Business Line : Expanding market, shortage of experienced hands

WITH the Indian aviation industry progressively expanding, airline companies are encountering a new problem — shortage of experienced pilots to operate the proposed flights. And to get over this impediment, several airlines are planning to employ foreign pilots.

Admitting the problem, the President of Air Sahara, Mr Rono Dutta, said there was a unique phenomenon in India. "Most countries have a fairly regular flow of pilots from the Air Force, but that is not the case here. In India, it is a trickle from the Air Force, not a flow. We will also have to look to get some expatriates. They will probably be for the position of commanders. We have not yet decided on the numbers. But this problem will not delay any of our plans," Mr Dutta said.

With Jet Airways and Air Sahara having been given permission to operate to London and the former also getting the nod to fly to the United States the need for trained pilots will go up.

At present there are said to be about 2,000 licensed pilots in the country, with nearly half of them being employed by the airlines operating regular flights. Most others are attached with individual companies or with airlines that offer chartered services while some hold the commercial pilots licence but are not into regular flying.

On the other hand, the unfolding aviation scenario is something like this: Air India Express has ordered 18 Boeing 737 aircraft and is likely to require close to 150 pilots, Kingfisher Airlines has ordered 28 Airbus aircraft and would require about 140 pilots, while Spice has ordered 20 aircraft and therefore its requirement is likely to be of close to 100 pilots. This is just an illustrative scenario as other airlines have also drawn up huge expansion plans.

Some airlines have already indicated their requirement. Air Sahara is said to be looking for 70-80 new pilots and Air India, which is planning low-cost flights to the Gulf and the far East is converting 20 pilots who would be posted as co-pilots on Boeing 737s. AI does not operate Boeing 737s as of now. This national carrier is also planning to hire close to 20 foreign commanders for some of its existing overseas operations.

The new airline from the Vijay Mallya group, Kingfisher Airline, however, sees no major problem as of now. The Chief Operating Officer of Kingfisher, Mr Alex Wilcox, said that the start up would look at employing about 20 foreign pilots during the course of the coming summer. "We are getting the aircraft in a phased manner with the first one arriving in April. So getting a set of five pilots — which is the per aircraft norm on the domestic sector— is not that challenging," he added. This low-cost airline is planning to launch services in May this year.

Officials of almost all airlines feel that the need of the hour is to make the flying clubs in India more professional. "There was a time when there were more pilots and less jobs. Now the situation is the opposite. We need to get the flying clubs to train pilots faster without compromising on safety. Just look at the huge number of people going abroad to get trained as pilots," an airline official said.

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