Letters to the Government and the Media re: Apparent Pilot Shortage

[tubby one]

Fed Up 1

Quote - India, a third world country has recently announced that it will stop foreign First Officers from obtaining work visas on domestic airlines. The airlines in India are offering great opportunities for bright youngsters enticing them away from other career paths and into aviation. As a result they no longer have the need for foreign First Officers. - Unquote

That is not quite correct. The actual position is that the DGCA expect that they will no longer need foreign pilots in about five years, which given the training numbers they are quoting would have to be extemely optimistic
Quote - "These include conditionally increasing the age-limit to 65 years for pilots, upgradation and modernisation of training infrastructure of the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Uran Akademi to enhance training capacity from 40 to 100 pilots per year.
Apart from this, steps are also being taken to set up a world class flying training institute at Gondia, Maharashtra for training 100 cadets and assistance to flying clubs by allocating trainer aircraft through the DGCA and Aero Club of India, he said." - Unquote

Those training numbers are highly unlikely to meet the acknowledged requirement over the next 5-6 years of >5,000 pilots.