Airliners-India.com

selecta · Member Joined: 24 Dec 2006 Posts: 813 Location: ORD

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NEW DELHI: Faced with a mounting shortage of over 500 commercial pilots every year, action has been initiated on several fronts to mitigate the problem. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) will reduce the period for acquiring a commercial pilot licence (CPL) from 16 to 12 months, and will introduce an multi-engine pilot licence (MPL) in 2007. The DGCA will also grant CPL to about 250 foreign pilots in Q1 next year.

Besides, DGCA will acquire about 11 trainer aircraft from the Aero Club of India, and distribute them to top aviation training academies at a cost of Rs 1 crore per aircraft. “A new pilot training institute in Gondia near Nagpur will also be opened for which expressions of interest (EOIs) have already been invited from foreign companies for collaboration.

The intake per session for the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Uran Akademi (IGRUA) will be increased to 100 from 40 at present,” DGCA director general Kanu Gohain told ET.

Currently, about 500 pilots are needed per year, whereas only 200 pilots are being produced in India. With these measures, DGCA plans to increase the availability to about 400 pilots. There are about 39 pilot training schools in the country now. “We will do a performance evaluation and give trainer aircraft to 11 best performing schools.

This is an important move, as it will help in better and speedy training of the pilots,” Mr Gohain said. “Overseas, pilot training schools have 12-month courses. We have decided to bring it at par with global standards by cutting the training duration. DGCA will also introduce the MPL,” he added.

The industry seems buoyant on the DGCA measures. “India will require about 3,000 pilots in the next five years. Currently, 2,500 pilots are working with 11 airlines in India.

MPL will be of tremendous help as it will save the pilots the number of flying hours required to shift from one type of rating to another,” says the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation India CEO Kapil Kaul. About 250 foreign pilots will also be granted a CPL by DGCA.

Currently, India has about 475 expat pilots. Pilots from the US, South Africa, Thailand, Nepal, Indonesia and East Europe are currently being interviewed by DGCA. The average salary of an Indian pilot is about Rs 5 lakh. On the other hand, hiring an expat pilot costs around 20% more than an Indian pilot (including the cost of accommodation and travel).
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