Jet set to take 2 foreign pilots despite surplus
Mumbai: Jet Airways may not have funds to pay oil bills and airport charges, but it sure seems to have easy money when it comes to foreign pilots. Despite a surplus of Indian Boeing 737 commanders, the airline will be adding two more expatriate pilots to its crew this week.
“The airline made two foreign Boeing 737 commanders go to Delhi on Friday for the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) oral exam, which will permit them to fly with a foreign licence in India. These two expatriates can start flying for Jet Airways any day now,” said a source.
What is surprising is that the airline has decided to keep the expatriates despite having a surplus of Indian Boeing 737 pilots. “A number of Indian B 737 commanders are under utilised in Jet Airways. Then again, Jetlite’s B 737 commanders hardly get enough flying these days and they could have been easily used,” the source added.
The costs incurred in hiring a foreign pilot are almost double too. “A foreign B737 commander is paid Rs 5 lakh a month and then an additional Rs 2 lakh a month goes for his hotel accommodation. An Indian commander, on the other hand, draws Rs 3.6 lakh for the same job,” the source added. A Jet Airways spokesperson confirmed that the airline will be having two expat B 737 pilots flying from this week.
When it comes to Boeing 737 aircraft, Jet has about 225 B 737 Indian pilots who have all qualifications to move on to a bigger wide-bodied A 330 aircraft.But the progression has been blocked as the airline has been lax in replacing expats on bigger aircraft with Indians.
“Even the few Indian pilots who have managed to get promoted to the A330 get to fly only for 30 hours a month as compared to the 70-80 hours that an expat pilot in Jet Airways gets,” the source added.
The salary difference between an Indian pilot and his foreign counterpart is too huge to be ignored. “An Indian A 330 commander draws a gross salary of Rs 4.90 lakh a month, while a foreign pilot draws Rs 7 lakh (non-taxable) as gross salary,” the source added.
27/10/08 Manju V/Times of India