Aviation India: Careers

New Delhi: Facing a severe shortage of pilots, the state-owned Pawan Hans Helicopters Ltd (PHHL) has decided to upgrade skills of its aeronautical engineers to make them pilots. This process will cost the PSU Rs 15 lakh per person and in return it will seek a 10-year bond from the engineers, who will be required to invest Rs 7.5 lakh from their own packets for the training programmes abroad.
The helicopter major has started this as a small project for 10 people and would extend it later. The 35-chopper company wants to acquire nearly 20 more helicopters and cash in on the current aviation boom. So, the training programme has been mooted to overcome the pilot shortage scenario.
Currently India has about 170 choppers and a severe shortage of pilots. As an illustrative case, a paramilitary force had bought six MI-6 choppers about three years back and they remain parked at Safdarjung Airport as there were no pilots. In a few years, the number of choppers is going to rise to 500 and the requirement of fliers will only grow.
In fact, so bad is the situation that PHHL does not even want to divulge the number of pilots it has for running the 35-chopper fleet for the fear of poaching by other operators.
20/11/07 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India