News From Russia
Lyuba Pronina , Moscow Times 6/8/04
Sergei moves people. By day he pilots a commercial airliner for a domestic carrier. And by night he cruises the streets of Moscow in his car, in search of fares to supplement his paltry monthly salary.
Sergei, who refused to reveal his full name and employer, would be the first to call his moonlighting as a gypsy cab driver a scandal, considering his responsibilities as an airplane captain.
"Our managers treat us like bus drivers," Sergei said bitterly.
The domestic airline industry is in its fourth straight year of growth. But for the country's pilots, rising passenger volumes translate into longer hours for roughly the same pay.
On average, a Russian pilot earns $9,500 per year. By comparison, the starting annual salary for Lufthansa pilots is $67,000 and moves up to $135,000. Delta Air Lines pays its pilots between $100,000 and $300,000.
In Soviet times, flying planes was a prestigious profession, remunerated with above-average salaries, benefits and pensions.
But today, the country's pilots are facing a crisis. The high demands of the job and poor pay are scaring off a new generation of pilots. Since 1991, the average age of airline captains has risen to 47, up from 40 to 41, according to the Cockpit Personnel Association of Russia, the pilots' trade union.
Over the past decade Russia has lost a third of its cockpit crews, down from 32,000 to 20,000, according to the union, while passenger volumes last year once again hit 1995 levels.
In 2003, Russia's 200-odd airlines flew 11 percent more passengers, or 29.5 million, on the year, and in the first half of 2004 traffic grew by a record 19.6 percent, according to the Federal Air Transport Service.
"If [industry growth] continues at such a pace, in two to three years we on't have enough pilots to meet demand," said Miroslav Boichuk, president of the Cockpit Personnel Association.
"Pilots are leaving airlines, and those who stay are treated like slaves," said Oleg Prikhodko, head of Bashkir Airlines' pilot union.
In July, Bashkir Airlines pilots went on a one-day strike. They were protesting monthly salaries below the industry average of 23,000 rubles ($750) and demanding a commitment by management to rest times mandated by law, Prikhodko said.
While Bashkir adheres to the maximum allowed 80 flying hours per month -- which is in line with international norms -- Prikhodko said that "some airlines are having their crews flying double that norm -- up to 150 hours. There are not enough pilots."
The problem is affecting airlines large and small.
No. 2 carrier Sibir recently hired and retrained 14 pilots from a smaller regional airline, said Vladislav Bayev, head of Sibir's trade union. But that is only a stop-gap measure to compensate for the 19 pilots who left Sibir earlier this year in search of better wages with other airlines.
The shortage of pilots, coupled with increased demand, is forcing the industry to take desperate measures.
"Without extending flying hour limits, it has become impossible to meet the orders from management," Bayev said. "The flight plans we get -- if divided by [the number of] crews -- is over the 80-hour standard flight time. That's not because of some force majeure, somebody on sick leave or getting married." Sibir did not reply to repeated requests for comment.
Flying up to 100 hours per month is only allowed three times a year.
Boichuk said the industry lives by regulations that were temporarily adopted in 1993 and have yet to be updated.
As airlines come under increasing pressure to meet demand, the unions claim that some are cutting back on benefits and reducing adequate rest times.
"Conscientious airlines still provide them in their social packages, but not all," Boichuk said.
"Aeroflot complies with current regulations. We have had a check by transportation inspectors two months ago and no violations have been found," Aeroflot chief pilot Anatoly Yakimchuk said in an interview.
In January an Aeroflot pilot, 54-year-old Alexander Krasovsky, died from a heart attack in the cockpit shortly before takeoff from Hong Kong.
Yakimchuk said that an investigation found that Krasovsky's death could not be traced to any violations of mandatory rest times by Aeroflot.
But other airlines commit gross violations of the maximum allowed flying time, Yakimchuk said. "They keep afloat by increasing flight hours."
"If they have not rested enough and must worry about how to support their families, pilots cannot concentrate on their jobs," Georg Fongem, vice president of the International Federation of Air Line Pilots' Associations, said in a telephone interview from Germany.
"This is not in the interest of [passenger] safety."
In December, IFALPA, which represents more than 100,000 professional pilots in 90 countries, wrote to President Vladimir Putin outlining the problems of Russian pilots. They have not received a reply, Fongem said.
While the trials and tribulations of Russian pilots remain largely out of the public eye, the profession has also lost much of the prestige and glamour that once lured prospective recruits in Soviet times.
An ongoing poll on
www.pprune.org, an online forum for pilots, found as of Thursday that 38 percent of respondents said the job is still glamorous, despite eroding salaries. Roughly the same number said they are "just drivers locked in our cockpits."
"The glamorous image pilots once had is gone, especially with upcoming low-cost airlines," said Fongem, who is a pilot for Lufthansa.
"Nevertheless in Germany we still have enough young people who would like to be a pilot," he said.
To become a Lufthansa pilot requires up to 2 1/2 years of training. The airline largely covers the costs, which are as high as $240,000.
In Russia, where tuition for commercial pilots is free, there are no lines outside flight schools.
"Since Soviet times, the number of our students has fallen tenfold," said Valery Zaorov, head of the Sasovo flight school near Ryazan.
"Where before we used to get 300 students annually -- or even as many as 500 -- this year we count only 25," Zaorov said.
A lot more young people do not clear the medical commission to be able to enroll in a pilots' school.
"Students used to be a lot healthier," Zaorov said.
In the past there have been problems with fuel supplies to schools, many of which use small, obsolete planes. Instructors typically earn 6,000 rubles per month ($200), Boichuk said.
"Our graduates are finding it hard to get a job with an airline," Zaorov said.
When it takes flight school graduates, Aeroflot gives them up to 12 months of additional training before it allows new pilots to fly Russian-built craft.
"The quality of school training is not sufficient for us," said Gennady Prikhodchenko, head of Aeroflot training. "They come with less knowledge and skills."
Two years ago, Aeroflot took on board 25 graduates and plans to set up a training program for Tu-134s and Tu-154s.
Aeroflot is deciding on how to set up its own training school, chief pilot Yakimchuk said, as is common among major world airlines.
Since 1998 Aeroflot has lost 30 pilots to foreign airlines, among them Korean Air and Vietnam Airlines, Yakimchuk said. A number of pilots from Transaero now fly with Irish low-cost carrier Ryanair, said Oleg Cherepanov, a Transaero pilot.
"They live very well," Yakimchuk said. An Aeroflot pilot of a Boeing 777 can expect to make just over $3,000 per month, a top salary at the airline, he said, while in a country like South Korea he would earn $12,000.
Airlines must join forces with the government to reverse the dire situation, Boichuk said. Current crews deserve more benefits from their employers to ensure that safety standards do not drop due to overwork.
The state must make large investments into the revival of flight schools, Boichuk added.
"Our state has not yet understood the potential loss because it inherited cheap labor from Soviet times. Those resources are about to expire," he said. "If measures aren't taken, we will not have a continuity of generations for pilots and there will be inexperienced people at the controls."
Hiring foreign pilots would cost seven times as much, causing ticket prices to skyrocket, he said.
"We have come to a point where [the airline business] cannot be regulated by the rules of the market alone. Otherwise, airlines will be left without pilots."