Washington Times Article on Pilot Shortage
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Washington Times Article on Pilot Shortage
Wanted: Pilots for young airlines
By Daniel Pepper
December 13, 2007
NEW DELHI — India"s rapidly growing airline industry — already plagued by decaying infrastructure, frequent delays and financial losses — is now facing a pilot shortage.
The domestic airline industry"s 47 percent growth rate has led the country"s dozen-odd carriers, many of which are less than five years old, to scour the globe for qualified captains or commanders.
"Ever since the hiring boom here, students are running wherever they can to go to get qualified," said John Ekl, the American chief pilot of two-year-old New Delhi-based SpiceJet, which is patterned after Southwest Airlines.
SpiceJet has 15 jets and 50 on order. With a lack of qualified Indian pilots available, Mr. Ekl has turned to recruiting American pilots. He has hired 42 foreign pilots already, 30 of them American, and expects to hire 30 more by the end of the year.
Going abroad to find pilots is relatively new; when the scramble for pilots began two years ago, airlines would just poach each others" staffs. The practice continued until the beginning of this year, when the major Indian carriers agreed to a no-poaching pact.
But the hiring spree is not expected to slow any time soon. Indian carriers have 425 Boeing and Airbus aircraft on order, and by 2020, India will need 10,000 more pilots, said Kapil Kaul, a consultant in New Delhi with the Center for Asia Pacific Aviation. Currently, there are 3,000 pilots in India — about 600 of whom are foreigners — and almost all are captains with thousands of hours of flying experience.
They can take home between $120,000 and $160,000 a year, with overtime. That is five times what Indian captains could make 10 years ago, when Indian pilots were among the worst-paid in the world and many left for jobs in Southeast Asia. Today, their salaries are huge by the standards of India, where 800 million people still live on less than $2 day.
The pilot shortage is not unique to India; pilots are in high demand in Japan, the United States and the Middle East. In India, though, the problem is part of a larger skilled-worker shortage in the country"s flourishing economy.
However, a pilot shortage has far more serious ramifications than other types of shortages. A frustrated foreign pilot flying with IndiGo, a new Indian discount carrier, said India "is one step ahead of Africa — and Africa is a dangerous place."
"In a lot of respects, I think India is a Third World country," he said.
Kanu Gohain, head of Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the government regulatory agency, blames the airlines for the shortage, saying they have "not made a serious effort to induct and train [pilots]."
At Mr. Gohain's discretion, foreign pilots are allowed to fly in India on a temporary basis for one year — a stay that is usually extended to three years.
"I take the decision, and they have to justify it to me" based on the airlines' efforts to train Indian pilots, Mr. Gohain said.
"The requirement is simple — that the airlines train Indian pilots," he said.
Mr. Gohain expects the influx of foreign pilots to last "maximum another two years." Airline executives and analysts, though, are skeptical and hope the agency will relax its rules even further.
"Finding pilots is the biggest challenge for any airline in India," said Kingfisher Airlines' head of human resources, Rubi Arya, and one that is eating into the airlines" bottom lines. Ms. Arya is lobbying the DGCA to increase the amount of time that foreign pilots can stay in India from three to six years and reduce the time it takes to convert a foreign license to an Indian pilot's license for Indian nationals, which can now take more than six months.
To better prepare themselves for a continued dearth of pilots, airlines are sending promising cadets for training in the United States.
Still, most experts say four or five years will pass before the large numbers of foreign pilots can be pared down and Indian first officers will be able to take over most captain"s seats.
By Daniel Pepper
December 13, 2007
NEW DELHI — India"s rapidly growing airline industry — already plagued by decaying infrastructure, frequent delays and financial losses — is now facing a pilot shortage.
The domestic airline industry"s 47 percent growth rate has led the country"s dozen-odd carriers, many of which are less than five years old, to scour the globe for qualified captains or commanders.
"Ever since the hiring boom here, students are running wherever they can to go to get qualified," said John Ekl, the American chief pilot of two-year-old New Delhi-based SpiceJet, which is patterned after Southwest Airlines.
SpiceJet has 15 jets and 50 on order. With a lack of qualified Indian pilots available, Mr. Ekl has turned to recruiting American pilots. He has hired 42 foreign pilots already, 30 of them American, and expects to hire 30 more by the end of the year.
Going abroad to find pilots is relatively new; when the scramble for pilots began two years ago, airlines would just poach each others" staffs. The practice continued until the beginning of this year, when the major Indian carriers agreed to a no-poaching pact.
But the hiring spree is not expected to slow any time soon. Indian carriers have 425 Boeing and Airbus aircraft on order, and by 2020, India will need 10,000 more pilots, said Kapil Kaul, a consultant in New Delhi with the Center for Asia Pacific Aviation. Currently, there are 3,000 pilots in India — about 600 of whom are foreigners — and almost all are captains with thousands of hours of flying experience.
They can take home between $120,000 and $160,000 a year, with overtime. That is five times what Indian captains could make 10 years ago, when Indian pilots were among the worst-paid in the world and many left for jobs in Southeast Asia. Today, their salaries are huge by the standards of India, where 800 million people still live on less than $2 day.
The pilot shortage is not unique to India; pilots are in high demand in Japan, the United States and the Middle East. In India, though, the problem is part of a larger skilled-worker shortage in the country"s flourishing economy.
However, a pilot shortage has far more serious ramifications than other types of shortages. A frustrated foreign pilot flying with IndiGo, a new Indian discount carrier, said India "is one step ahead of Africa — and Africa is a dangerous place."
"In a lot of respects, I think India is a Third World country," he said.
Kanu Gohain, head of Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the government regulatory agency, blames the airlines for the shortage, saying they have "not made a serious effort to induct and train [pilots]."
At Mr. Gohain's discretion, foreign pilots are allowed to fly in India on a temporary basis for one year — a stay that is usually extended to three years.
"I take the decision, and they have to justify it to me" based on the airlines' efforts to train Indian pilots, Mr. Gohain said.
"The requirement is simple — that the airlines train Indian pilots," he said.
Mr. Gohain expects the influx of foreign pilots to last "maximum another two years." Airline executives and analysts, though, are skeptical and hope the agency will relax its rules even further.
"Finding pilots is the biggest challenge for any airline in India," said Kingfisher Airlines' head of human resources, Rubi Arya, and one that is eating into the airlines" bottom lines. Ms. Arya is lobbying the DGCA to increase the amount of time that foreign pilots can stay in India from three to six years and reduce the time it takes to convert a foreign license to an Indian pilot's license for Indian nationals, which can now take more than six months.
To better prepare themselves for a continued dearth of pilots, airlines are sending promising cadets for training in the United States.
Still, most experts say four or five years will pass before the large numbers of foreign pilots can be pared down and Indian first officers will be able to take over most captain"s seats.
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OUCH!!!
Well it looks like the pool of Ex Pat Pilots from the US is about to dry up. Bush signed H.R. 4343 into law last evening, effectively ending the Age 60 Rule in the US.
Well it looks like the pool of Ex Pat Pilots from the US is about to dry up. Bush signed H.R. 4343 into law last evening, effectively ending the Age 60 Rule in the US.
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Indian cadets... difficult to train?
No it is not difficult to train Indian cadets
I have some experience - and I have trained in Europe as in Asia hundred(s) of students-. But, at condition some rules are applied:
- first selection of students. It is too much demagogic to train any private student recruited only on money basis.
- secondly proper Ground and Flight Training with a team of real Civil Aviation Professional Instructors. Too much schools are suddenly flourishing and for 80% of them the standard is just a little bit over a Flying Club.
- A proper Licensing System: if you put low time hour pilot on the right seat of an Airliner, they must have been trained accordingly. The basic ICAO CPL/IR licence is based on a 50 years old concept and was perfect for DC3 or L1049... but is no more adapted for a Fly by Wire/ Glass cockpit A320 or B737NG. ....MCC, Jet Transition are required (Jet Orientation Training, Entry Level Training) before the Line Induction. In any case it requires a two years training AT LEAST. The CPL/IR is just a first brick in the training of a pilot. The ICAO/FAA licence standard is insufficient, it should be accompanied by an important Military or General Aviation experience. This is the reason of the JAR system organised in order to provide low Hour Ab Initio cadets, the deficient experience replaced by a tough training and an inflated theoretical knowledge. In our Asian regions, how often the commander is flying ALONE because the First Officer is insuficiently trained or has a a too poor experience? Some Airlines begin to realise the safety issue...
- Too much demagogic advertisings, too much students not properly selected and too much new Businesses in the Training Industry without a proper Civil Aviation background just looking for a new source of profit.
Training Pilot is Professional Education and the profit is slim (like in most of education fields).
===>Education is more a vocational activity than a real business.
Business men you have certainly better opportunities in some other fields, do not devastate this activity, let it in the hands of professionals....
- The MPL is an experimental licence and is not Today solution. Already some flaws are underlined. IFALPA is requesting a training in 100 weeks in order to respect the learning curve and if done properly the MPL is going to be a lot more expansive than a traditional scheme supplemented by MCC and transition to jet on a simulator...MPL is not (yet?) a mature solution.
I have some experience - and I have trained in Europe as in Asia hundred(s) of students-. But, at condition some rules are applied:
- first selection of students. It is too much demagogic to train any private student recruited only on money basis.
- secondly proper Ground and Flight Training with a team of real Civil Aviation Professional Instructors. Too much schools are suddenly flourishing and for 80% of them the standard is just a little bit over a Flying Club.
- A proper Licensing System: if you put low time hour pilot on the right seat of an Airliner, they must have been trained accordingly. The basic ICAO CPL/IR licence is based on a 50 years old concept and was perfect for DC3 or L1049... but is no more adapted for a Fly by Wire/ Glass cockpit A320 or B737NG. ....MCC, Jet Transition are required (Jet Orientation Training, Entry Level Training) before the Line Induction. In any case it requires a two years training AT LEAST. The CPL/IR is just a first brick in the training of a pilot. The ICAO/FAA licence standard is insufficient, it should be accompanied by an important Military or General Aviation experience. This is the reason of the JAR system organised in order to provide low Hour Ab Initio cadets, the deficient experience replaced by a tough training and an inflated theoretical knowledge. In our Asian regions, how often the commander is flying ALONE because the First Officer is insuficiently trained or has a a too poor experience? Some Airlines begin to realise the safety issue...
- Too much demagogic advertisings, too much students not properly selected and too much new Businesses in the Training Industry without a proper Civil Aviation background just looking for a new source of profit.
Training Pilot is Professional Education and the profit is slim (like in most of education fields).
===>Education is more a vocational activity than a real business.
Business men you have certainly better opportunities in some other fields, do not devastate this activity, let it in the hands of professionals....
- The MPL is an experimental licence and is not Today solution. Already some flaws are underlined. IFALPA is requesting a training in 100 weeks in order to respect the learning curve and if done properly the MPL is going to be a lot more expansive than a traditional scheme supplemented by MCC and transition to jet on a simulator...MPL is not (yet?) a mature solution.
Last edited by Passenger 07; 16th Dec 2007 at 02:29.
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Sixty-something
Well, the pool will eventually dry up, but there's plenty of people who just turned 60 on December 12th or earlier. Apparently the new law does not mention these folks (haven't seen the actual statute). So ... there will almost certainly be a lawsuit filed by somebody on behalf of those 60 to 64'ers to be rehired at their original date-of-hire. I have no idea how that will play out. Stay tuned until the dust settles.
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To modify the retirement age is just a short term solution.
Civil Aviation professionals should help to train the young generation, it will be more efficient and it is a personal very rewarding activity.
Unfortunately, it is quite difficult to find some experienced professionals accepting to work in the Ab-Initio training
Civil Aviation professionals should help to train the young generation, it will be more efficient and it is a personal very rewarding activity.
Unfortunately, it is quite difficult to find some experienced professionals accepting to work in the Ab-Initio training
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So ... there will almost certainly be a lawsuit filed by somebody on behalf of those 60 to 64'ers to be rehired at their original date-of-hire. I have no idea how that will play out. Stay tuned until the dust settles.
‘‘(e) APPLICABILITY.—
2 ‘‘(1) NONRETROACTIVITY.—No person who has
3 attained 60 years of age before the date of enact4
ment of this section may serve as a pilot for an air
5 carrier engaged in covered operations unless—
6 ‘‘(A) such person is in the employment of
7 that air carrier in such operations on such date
8 of enactment as a required flight deck crew
9 member; or
10 ‘‘(B) such person is newly hired by an air
11 carrier as a pilot on or after such date of enact
12 ment without credit for prior seniority or prior
13 longevity for benefits or other terms related to
14 length of service prior to the date of rehire
15 under any labor agreement or employment poli16
cies of the air carrier.
2 ‘‘(1) NONRETROACTIVITY.—No person who has
3 attained 60 years of age before the date of enact4
ment of this section may serve as a pilot for an air
5 carrier engaged in covered operations unless—
6 ‘‘(A) such person is in the employment of
7 that air carrier in such operations on such date
8 of enactment as a required flight deck crew
9 member; or
10 ‘‘(B) such person is newly hired by an air
11 carrier as a pilot on or after such date of enact
12 ment without credit for prior seniority or prior
13 longevity for benefits or other terms related to
14 length of service prior to the date of rehire
15 under any labor agreement or employment poli16
cies of the air carrier.
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Yeah, I know. Doesn't prevent a lawsuit or a judge bouncing that part of the law. BTW, I'm 53 and don't have a dog in this fight (no, I'm not related to Michael Vick either 
). I don't expect it (them?) to go very far, but you just never know ...
). I don't expect it (them?) to go very far, but you just never know ...
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I am willing to bet.. if the cost of flight training in the US wasn't to expensive (though it's even MORE expensive in the EU) then the US wouldn't be having as much of a pilot shortage... (due to many American pilots going ExPat).. however with a generic 172 costing 75/hr to operate.. plus the rising prices of fuel.. plus many 141 schools charging over 55/hr for flight instruction (even though the CFI won't see 10 bucks of that) it's turning many potential pilots away.
I started flight training in 2000, and it cost me (and price of housing & living) about 80,000 US Dollars.. I think the average now is over 100,000 US dollars.. who in the world wants to pay back a student loan for 20 years as a second mortgage?
I started flight training in 2000, and it cost me (and price of housing & living) about 80,000 US Dollars.. I think the average now is over 100,000 US dollars.. who in the world wants to pay back a student loan for 20 years as a second mortgage?
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Supply / Demand curve
You're halfway there. Plenty of people will shell out 100 g's if the downstream benefit is good enough. It isn't. The pay and (almost no) benefits don't justify the cost of training. Job security is VERY questionable to boot. If you really want to fly, at all costs, okay; otherwise it doesn't make sense. Put the money toward a professional degree, make MUCH more money, then get a license and fly on your (much more)time off.
Expats are a relatively small percentage of US pilots (about 800,000 total - I dunno how many ATP's). Most are over sixty or (like me) fed up. Glad to have a place over here, though.
Expats are a relatively small percentage of US pilots (about 800,000 total - I dunno how many ATP's). Most are over sixty or (like me) fed up. Glad to have a place over here, though.
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Yes, there are up and down in Civil Aviation. The question is: do you want to do this job or make money?
If the answer is making money, then plenty of better possibilities in other fields (computers....), do not loose your time.....
But if you enjoy to see the sun rising on every corner of this planet, if you enjoy to meet different cultures, if you enjoy flying, then there is no choice.... Aviation is for passionated people in priority...
If the answer is making money, then plenty of better possibilities in other fields (computers....), do not loose your time.....
But if you enjoy to see the sun rising on every corner of this planet, if you enjoy to meet different cultures, if you enjoy flying, then there is no choice.... Aviation is for passionated people in priority...
av8r76
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whats the possibility of the unfolding credit crunch crisis putting a brake on the demand for pilots in EU & USA ?
There was recent article on brokers trying to get rid of future orders for G-5s for a premium of less than $2m out of fear for expected drop in demand, normally they would have made as much as $12m for a early delievery slot.
Maxjet the all business airline op between STN-JFK has had its share trading frozen last week by LSE.
Reports of drop in christmas sales is a hint of things to come next summer, a good % of holiday sales were paid for by equity released from property. With the likes of EZY and FR increasing their fleet there could be a blood bath in the shorthaul routes and not to mention the much awaited open skies between EU-USA and its impact on Long haul.
Any idea on the number of rookies graduating out of schools in europe like Oxford, Cabair et al ?
only playing the devils advocate...........your take.
There was recent article on brokers trying to get rid of future orders for G-5s for a premium of less than $2m out of fear for expected drop in demand, normally they would have made as much as $12m for a early delievery slot.
Maxjet the all business airline op between STN-JFK has had its share trading frozen last week by LSE.
Reports of drop in christmas sales is a hint of things to come next summer, a good % of holiday sales were paid for by equity released from property. With the likes of EZY and FR increasing their fleet there could be a blood bath in the shorthaul routes and not to mention the much awaited open skies between EU-USA and its impact on Long haul.
Any idea on the number of rookies graduating out of schools in europe like Oxford, Cabair et al ?
only playing the devils advocate...........your take.
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"The management was given a letter today saying that from Wednesday, we will be strictly following the roster," said a Jet Airways pilot
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bear11
if the expat not been paying twice, how can they stay more than 2 days in "incredible India"
It'll also come as a complete surprise to the expats that they're being paid twice what the local pilots are.
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One of the South East Asia issue is that the new applicants for a position of First Officer have been poorly selected and trained. The reservoir of New Pilots seems very important, flooding... but in fact only few have been correctly selected and trained and are at the standard that Airlines request.
It is understandable... because the cheapest price of training is the criteria of choice for most students. The results are:
The fact of flooding the market fuels the trend to underpay.
Indian students must choose more carefully the training institutions which should be chosen on Quality base criteria and not only on costs.
A regulatory system (selection) must be set to avoid the flooding.
We can predict - as an important percentage of new pilots will not succeed to get a job- that Banks will stop fundings at some time due to difficulties of mortgage payment.
Do not accuse the expats, the situation is a consequence of your behavior.
It is understandable... because the cheapest price of training is the criteria of choice for most students. The results are:
- extra costs of training have to be supported by the Airlines, (For example First Officers who need to be retrained in Europe because a Manufacturer has found them far below standards) and as a consequence a trend to underpay those new first Officer to cover those extra costs
- we can predict that, in few years, the affected Airlines will have huge difficulties in promoting those Low Standard Pilots in Commanding positions. I know an Airlines in which this issue is becoming very corrosive: the local 'poorly selected and trained" first officers becoming an important mass and the Management refusing to give them the responsability of an Airliner in spite of political pressures....
- Safety is affected as more and more Aircraft Commanders have the feeling to be "alone"
The fact of flooding the market fuels the trend to underpay.
Indian students must choose more carefully the training institutions which should be chosen on Quality base criteria and not only on costs.
A regulatory system (selection) must be set to avoid the flooding.
We can predict - as an important percentage of new pilots will not succeed to get a job- that Banks will stop fundings at some time due to difficulties of mortgage payment.
Do not accuse the expats, the situation is a consequence of your behavior.
