Aviation downturn: Pilots feel the heat
7 Aug 2008, 0129 hrs IST, Manju V,TNN
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MUMBAI: The recurring nightmare that haunts pilots around the world every decade when the cyclic airline industry goes through a downturn has come back to hit the Indian shores.
It started two months ago with
airlines in US effecting a wave of pilot job cuts. This week, keeping in tune with this global trend brought about by rise in fuel prices, Indian low-cost carrier SpiceJet asked about 30 of its pilots to leave.
"Out of these, 14 are first officers and the rest expatriate commanders with thousands of hours on Boeing 737," said a source. SpiceJet confirmed that it had brought about pilot job cuts. Sources said that another
low-cost airline will also be issuing termination notices to a section of its pilots in the coming days. The scale is much smaller in India. Last month, United Airlines decided to cut 950 pilots job and recently it was American Airlines which announced that it would be laying off 200 of its pilots.
"We have revised our current schedule which requires less manpower in the cockpit. Based on this we have initiated talks with trainee first officers to guide and facilitate suitable employment in an alternative organization," said Surajit Banerjee, vice-president, HR, SpiceJet adding that they will not recover the training cost from these pilots. He said that while 14 trainee first officers have been told to leave, a number cannot be put for expat pilots.
"Unlike India pilots, expat pilots have their own individual contracts. Some work for a month, others for three months etc and so we cannot give a number. What I can say though is that we have the same number of expatriates that we had in the end of July. But we won't be adding more," Banerjee said. Whether the number of expatriates will be reduced in the coming weeks would also depend on the contract conditions. "Some have accumulated leave, others contracts would be expiring," he said. SpiceJet employs about 65-70 expat pilots. Sources said that the expat pilots who were on leave have been asked not to return. Pilots salary accounts for 60% of airlines total wage bill, with expats paid a notch more than their Indian counterparts.
Earlier SpiceJet had issued termination notices to its cadets training in the US for a Commercial Pilot Licence under its cadet program carried out in association with United
Aviation Training. The cut in pilot jobs is a fall out of airlines decision to cut down on the number of flights. All airlines, including SpiceJet, had brought about a 10-15% cut in the number of flights they operate to keep up with the rising fuel prices.
Aviation analysts said the good news is that Indian pilots’ job market won't see the kind of bloodshed that is on in the US.