Aviation India: Careers

Belgrade : Serbian authorities are probing the activities of a state-run flying school, following charges from the country’s civilian aviation authority, Balkan Insight has learnt.
A criminal complaint from aviation safety inspectors to Belgrade’s district prosecutor, made available to Balkan Insight this week, said that at least two pilots earned their instructor licenses without completing the compulsory instrument-flying course on a single-engine aircraft.
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Air India hunting for pilots overseas
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Belgrade prosecutors handed over the case to the police department and local prosecutor in the northern town of Vrsac which has territorial jurisdiction over the JAT Airways’ flying school, an official of Serbia’s Directorate for Civilian Air Traffic said speaking on condition of anonymity.
Officials from the JAT Airways flying school in Vrsac refused to comment when reached by phone.
The probe follows recent accidents involving a crop-spraying helicopter which crashed in a lake in Serbia’s north and a single-engine aircraft towing a commercial banner which collided with masts of yachts moored in a Belgrade’s marina.
Investigators said that pilot errors and gross violations of safety procedures were to be blamed for both accidents which ended without fatalities.
29/07/08 BalkanInsight.com, Serbia

“Life is beautiful,” says Meenakshi Anand, seated in her office at Airhostess Training Center, off Delhi’s busy South Extension market. The room is filled with photographs of her many students who now fly on national and international carriers.
The academy draws young girls from small towns with dreams of flying to distant lands but no means of making it possible.
Ten years ago when Meenakshi’s army officer husband was posted in Delhi, she decided to take up a job. She had only a graduate degree. The first place she went to was the Women’s Polytechnic at South Extension. Unmindful of status, she took up a front office job for just Rs 2,500 per month.
Four years into her job, Meenakshi observed that many tourism students wanted airhostess training. She studied the market and saw its potential. Together with Abha Singh, a friend from the same institute, she started the Airhostess Training Center (ATC) in 2000. “We put in Rs. 1,00,000 initially. We started with just one telephone, a computer and 25 students. We had to pay royalty to the Polytechnic. Today we rent this space for over Rs. 1,00,000 a month. We also have a branch in Jabalpur.”
As head of operations Meenakshi travels to small towns, holding seminars and talking about the ATC. She has an easy charm and her enthusiasm brings results. “We started with 25 girls; now more than 200 fly with various airlines, and there are the those in the hospitality industry,” she exults.
The six-month course, priced at Rs. 75,000, teaches everything from grooming to social skills and how to face interviews. “When the kids go for their interviews, I call my hairdresser and tell her the hair and make up style for each one. Many girls, once they get jobs and start flying, come back to the centre with clothes meant for others who may not have the means to buy outfits appropriate for interviews. I am just very grateful that I have been able to create a family.”
Meenakshi is proud that ATC has made a name in the industry. “I mentor them like a mother; we do not take more than 20 in one batch. I still conduct classes and am with them for all in-flight trainings. It is a pleasure to watch them blossom.”
She points at a smiling, fresh-faced girl on the ATC brochure, “Narender Kaur is our brand ambassador. She is with Etihad Airlines. When she came from Modinagar, her father was jobless as he was laid off from Modi Mills. Today this child has bought a Rs. 25,00,000-flat for her parents in her home town. She epitomises the possibility of small town girls reaching for their dreams.”
27/07/08 Madhu Gurung/The Hindu

Punjab's oldest aviation club established in 1962 in Amritsar has got a fresh lease of life with securing ultra-modern four-seater Cessna 172R aircraft.
For the past one and half year practical flying sessions were not taking place in the absence of aircraft. Around half a dozen old aircrafts have been lying dysfunctional from the past several years. As the new aircraft has arrived, the flying club is aiming at inducting 20 students more by October. Aero Club of India had given two Cessna 172R aircrafts of worth Rs 2 crore to the Civil aviation department of Punjab and one has been kept at Patiala flying club while other one has gone to Amritsar club.
Talking to FE, chief flying instructor of Amritsar Aviation Club, Rachhpal Singh said, “Currently 13 students are registered with the club but these were getting ground coaching only under the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) approved chief ground instructor. We have got the aircraft for free to conduct flying training for issuance of pilot licence.
This Cessna 172R is a modern aircraft having all gadets such as glass cockpit with ILS (instrument landing system), VOR (very high frequency omni range), NDB (non directional beacon) and Garmin GPS...".
The club is also mulling over to increase the fee and to get flying lessons students will have to shell to out Rs 7,000-8,000 per hour. To get the commercial pilot license the students required to get flying training for 200 hours.
24/07/08 Swarleen Kaur/Financial Express

Toronto: A Winnipeg-based aviation school, which is first-choice training facility for Indian students aspiring to become pilots, will soon start its training programme in India where the aviation industry continues to soar. Winnipeg Aviation School, which along with another local Harv’s Air Pilot Training School, has trained hundreds of Indian students as pilots, is on the verge of signing memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with three Indian airports to commence pilot training.
“We have been approached by three state governments with an offer of a land lease of 20 years to start pilot training schools. Winnipeg Aviation Corporation has already been registered in India. We have also bought an aircraft for training in India and set for take-off,” Hemant Shah, Winnipeg Aviation’s managing director for Asia, told IANS.
The mission heaped a huge harvest immediately as Indian students made a beeline for pilot training in Winnipeg.
He said the aviation sector in India will keep booming despite soaring fuel prices. “Not only airlines but also corporate houses face shortage of trained pilots there,” he said.
Shah said there are over 380 corporate-owned airplanes in India, and they are perpetually short of trained pilots.
“Corporate houses offer a great opportunity for newly trained pilots. I always advise Indian students who train as pilots to look to corporate houses for a career..."
24/07/08 Gurmukh Singh/IANS/Thaindian.com, Thailand

Cockpit4u receives from DGCA India the approval as a Type Rating Training Organization (TRTO) for pilot training courses on Airbus and Boeing aircraft. The grant of this approval means that Cockpit4u conducts type rating training classes and examinations for Indian pilots.
This will expedite the training process and supports airlines in India to satisfy the future demand of qualified and well trained airline pilots.
The Cockpit4u training program covers the entire ground and simulator training for Airbus and Boeing aircrafts, based on JAA regulations and DGCA requirements and leads into license endorsement for Indian pilots.
“Our training follows strictly the JAA and DGCA regulations. The usage of a Maintenance Flight Training Device (MFTD) provides Cockpit4u students with a very realistic und functionally accurate training platform during the Airbus ground course. Thanks to the MFTD, students become familiar with operations in the cockpit from the beginning of training and benefit from an interactive learning of aircraft procedures according the Airbus training syllabus.”, said Stefan Heuss, Head of Training, Cockpit4u.
23/07/08 openPR (press release), Germany

New Delhi: As airlines cut back on expansion plans and battle lower occupancy and rising costs, the roughly 1,500 trainee pilots awaiting jobs opportunities in India have virtually been grounded.
Pilots were in great demand just a year ago and a trained one could easily fetch a starting monthly package of Rs 2.5 lakh onwards with some additional perks. However, rising fuel prices have changed the entire scenario. To fight the slump, the aviation industry is cutting costs with a vengeance. It has virtually stopped fresh appointments to control its wage bill, which is the second highest operating cost after fuel.
Airlines are delaying new aircraft deliveries and postponing induction plans, which has further hit job prospects. Though airlines have not retrenched their pilots, they are shelving recruitment. Result: very few pilots have been hired in the last six months.
“Airlines have delayed delivery of 50-60 new aircraft this year. This fleet would have absorbed around 1,000 additional pilots, but the looming bleak scenario in the industry may not help these fresh pilots get job offers...,” said a senior executive of Kingfisher Airlines.
Shortage of skilled crew had resulted in a steep rise in the salaries of pilots as growth in the aviation industry took off in the past four years (between 2003 to 2007). A pilot’s salary varied from Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 8 lakh depending on the experience. Demand exceeded supply till last year and every fresher was recruited by the new airlines.
As the demand for pilots dips, training academies are also feeling the impact. It costs approximately Rs 16 to Rs 25 lakh to churn out a fresh pilot with a mandatory flying experience of 200-hours and an additional 25-hours of multi-engine rating.
17/07/08 Chanchal Pal Chauhan/Economic Times

Hayward: As many as 50 former students of the failed American School of Aviation have retained a lawyer who is now gathering information in pursuit of a lawsuit against the school.
And at least three local flight schools are now coming forward to help the students since reading of their plight in India-West and other news outlets.
The help is welcome good news for the young men and women, most in their early 20s, who saw their families’ fortunes disappear when they were unceremoniously dumped by a flight school that had promised them a path to high-flying careers.
Of the approximately 100 students left stranded by the closing of ASA, more than half have chosen to remain in California to continue their flight training; the rest have gone back to India.
Several flight schools have come forward to offer assistance to the students since reading news reports of their unfortunate situation.
Hiren Jetha, the owner of flight schools in Van Nuys, Calif., and Houston, Texas, offered aid after reading about the students in India-West.
Between 30 and 40 former ASA students are now studying at Flying Vikings, Inc., a school operating out of the Hayward Executive Airport in the eastern San Francisco Bay Area.“With the heightened price of fuel, we can’t give a discount,” the school’s chief financial officer, Celine Correa, told India-West. “But we are letting the students pay in small installments, which ASA refused to do.”
Flying Vikings is owned by Joe Correa, originally from Goa; his wife, Celine, and son-in-law, pilot Mats Salomonsson, also run the school with him. The current crop of new students is not the first batch of disillusioned ASA students to seek out Flying Vikings, said Celine Correa — 10 former ASA students came to study at Flying Vikings as far back as July 2007 and they have all earned their pilots’ licenses.
California Airways, another flight school based at Hayward’s airport, has accepted 10 former ASA students.
“We are also lending our hands to our faltering brothers down in Atwater,” Jigme Bhutia, of the school’s admissions department, told India-West in an e-mail. “We are providing them with the I-20 (visa sponsorship letter) at no cost, for which we usually charge $200. My school does not accept students who are in the middle of their training course, but we have made some exceptions only for these students.”
18/07/08 Lisa Tsering/San Leandro India West, CA, USA

Chennai: The demand for pilots has dropped as the industry scales back, cutting down on flights and fleets to weather the rising cost triggered by the fuel price hike. Industry experts say there would be just three or four airlines on the domestic scene in the future.
The bad patch for fresh-out-of-school pilots has begun because airlines prefer experienced foreign pilots to avoid the trouble and expense of sending fresh recruits abroad for Boeing or Airbus ratings. "More than 1,000 fresh CPL holders are waiting for jobs," says flying school instructor and former director of aviation meteorology Ravi Shankar. Airline officials too confirm the numbers.
Though they have not retrenched pilots, airlines have either shelved plans for recruitment or have slowed down the process. "The intake of pilots has been low in the last three months," said a Jet Airways official. Air India continues to hire but at a slow pace. "It is a long process and is aimed at meeting future vacancies," said an Air India official.
"Pilot training takes long in India, so students go abroad. But schools abroad and some in north India do over-logging (do not allow students to fly the mandatory 200 hours, but show it on record). Such students fail to get jobs in India; they fail the simulator test," said K Venkatesh, a student of Madras Flying Club.
When Ashwin Sakthiram joined Madras Flying Club (MFC) in June 2006 there were 24 students in his class. But when news of an impending boom in aviation started to trickle in, most of them dropped out and joined flying schools abroad to get a licence faster.
Ashwin is still undergoing the course here, but his former classmates, who went abroad, are back with a commercial pilot licence (CPL). But "10 of them are yet to get a job. Most of the airlines ask for a CPL with multi-engine rating (which requires an additional 25 hours flying in a multi-engine plane). The fresh students do not have this. Hence, they do not get preference for jobs," he says.
Ashwin was not lured by foreign flying schools and stuck to MFC because "I get quality training here and am sure of landing a job even though it takes time. The contract of the foreign pilots will get over in two years, so there will be vacancies again."
14/07/08 V Ayyappan/Times of India

Mumbai: Banks are reluctant about disbursing loans for aviation studies on fears that a slowdown will hamper the job prospects in the aviation sector. The move, say analysts, may affect the fortunes of aviation training insitutes.
India has more than six branded aviation training institutes. According to industry experts, 12 new institutes have started in the last six months alone.
Most of these institutes offer one-year diplomas after higher secondary (+2), to train the candidates aged 17 to 24 years as cabin crew. The fees range anywhere between Rs 1 lakh and 1.25 lakh per student.
Many institutes also provide part-time courses. These jobs pay around Rs 16,000 a month. According to rough estimates, over 70,000 students have been trained in the last two years alone.
"With a drastic change in the business environment, students who took loans for cabin crew (purser/air hostess) courses may not get jobs in the aviation sector. Instead, they may end up in the hospitality sector, which offers lower salaries compared to airline jobs. This has adverse implications on the repayment schedule. So we are going slow on loans in this space," explained a Bank of Baroda executive.
Aviation courses are classified as career training and not professional education, for the purpose of loan disbursement. Banks categorise these loans as personal loans and seek collateral accordingly.
The Reserve Bank of India's prudential norms make it mandatory for banks to set aside a high risk weightage amount (125 points) for personal loans. Banks charge higher rates to cover the costs and risks.
The interest rates will therefore be higher than prime lending rates (PLRs), which currently range between 12-50 and 16.50 per cent.
14/07/08 Kalpana Pathak & Abhijit Lele/Business Standard

India is currently on the map of most international airlines. One happy fallout of this is that Indian cabin crew is being sought after by them in greater numbers as they increase flights to what they see as a strategic market.
Aviation academies confirm that it's India Calling for foreign airlines. "HR heads of Emirates, Qatar, Etihad Airways and Oman Air have been making several trips to India in recent times to scout for talent," says Sapna Gupta, director, Air Hostess Academy. "Most Gulf airlines have been on an expansion spree in recent times, adding new aircraft and increasing services to India. Consequently, vacancies too have increased."
And this expansion is despite skyrocketing oil prices.
Rakesh Agarwal, MD, Frankfinn Institute of Air Hostess Training, says Gulf airlines are the main recruiters of Indian cabin crew.
Of course, it also works out cheaper. "Cost factor is one of the reasons we employ Indians," agrees a source from a foreign airline, who didn't want to be named. Housam Raydan, corporate communications manager, Air Arabia, says Indian cabin crew forms around 21% of his airline and more will be recruited.
Even Qatar Airways, says Naveen Chawla, regional manager, India, has the largest percentage of cabin crew from India — over 20%.
For top-notch airlines such as Singapore Airlines and Lufthansa too, there's nothing airy-fairy about recruiting more Indians.
Singapore Airlines confirms recruitment of more Indian cabin crew in the last two years.
And to give that authentic Indian touch, airlines either recruit directly or have tie-ups with aviation academies. The general height requirement for girls is 5'2" and 5'7" for boys. The minimum age asked by most Gulf carriers is 21 as employment visas are issued only then.
Gulf carriers also prefer trainees who can work for a longer duration there, as they invest a lot in them.
Also, with some domestic airlines on the verge of going international, there's scope to fly abroad while being based in India. Starting salaries in domestic airlines vary between Rs 20,000-40,000; in international airlines, it's between Rs 50,000-1.2 lakh, says Agarwal.
Singapore Airlines and Lufthansa recruit directly through ads. Short-listing is done by teams from these countries and depends on fleet size. They train cabin crew in their respective countries where standards are stringent and facilities, world-class.
13/07/08 Shobha John/Times of india

Mumbai: The turbulence in the domestic aviation industry has forced two leading airlines to rethink plans to set up training academies for pilots and aircraft engineers.
Jet Airways (India) Ltd and Deccan Aviation Ltd, which runs Simplifly Deccan, had planned the facilities to fill gaps in their staffing needs when they were expanding operations.
But with domestic airlines facing a combined loss of $2 billion (Rs8,540 crore) in fiscal 2009, because of spiralling jet fuel prices and excess flights in the local market, these airlines are trimming both staff size and routes.
“Three years back, India needed an additional 2,000 pilots by 2010. Now, I would imagine the country is in excess of pilots,” said an aviation expert, who has been tracking the industry for about two decades.
“There are more pilots than necessary now because airlines are grounding their flights and rationalizing routes. Already, domestic airlines have asked their foreign pilots to go back,” he added.
Chief executive Wolfgang Prock-Schauer said over phone from Europe, “It is too premature to comment about that. There are various other things deciding the fate of this project.”
Jet Airways, which had consolidated losses of Rs653.87 crore in fiscal 2008, was in talks with Brussels-based Sabena Flight Academy for a possible tie-up, and was scouting for land in Mumbai and some southern cities to set up a facility for training about 200 candidates a year.
Deccan Aviation, which was taken over last year by Kingfisher Airlines Ltd’s owner UB Group, had planned to establish a residential training centre at Bangalore by December 2007, at an estimated cost of Rs65 crore.
Private training institutes not run by airlines claim they are faring better.
“More candidates are enrolling with our academy, irrespective of the change in the scene,” said S.M.A. Salam, director (training) with Yash Air Ltd, an aviation training centre based in Indore. “Though there’s no dramatic growth in the number of aspiring pilots, there is no slippage either,” he added.
12/07/08 P. R. Sanjai/Livemint

New Delhi: Studying science and maths till Class 12 level is going to remain a must for all those who dream of becoming a pilot, for now at least. The aviation ministry has put on hold a radical proposal to relax this rule and make students who have studied science (physics) and maths till Class 10 eligible to become a pilot.
"In the recent past there have been reports of near misses and some other incidents that caused concern for fliers. Clearly, the aviation ministry did not want to take a step, which although perfectly logical, may have led to accusation of diluting standards and imperilling safety," said ministry sources. Not surprisingly, this proposal was recently sent to aviation minister Praful Patel who did not clear it and sought further discussions on the issue.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had made the proposal as the basic things a pilot needs to know are part of the science and maths curriculum in Class 10. These include - conversion of different units; basic maths; trigonometry for calculating height and distance; speed of sound and light; differential pressure; torque and retardation. Moreover, increased automation in cockpits of new-generation aircraft have also made pilots' lives easier.
11/07/08 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India

The defunct American School of Aviation in Atwater, Calif., is now facing a rash of complaints and lawsuits since it closed down in the last week of June, leaving more than 100 students — most of them from India — empty-handed after each of them prepaid more than $40,000 in tuition.
“We might have to go through bankruptcy,” Reny Kozman, who owns the school with her husband, Manpreet “Prince” Singh, told India-West in an e-mail July 2.
“We are working on refunds, and all the airplanes are listed for sale,” she said, without specifying the number of airplanes owned by the school. The total amount of their liability is undetermined.
The school’s Web site, www.iflyasa.com which had been recruiting students as recently as last weekend, is now offline.
Kozman claims that two ASA colleagues in Gurgaon, India, stole ASA’s money, leading to the school’s closure. “We are accusing Lalitha Krishnamurthy and Arvinder Singh of ASA Gurgaon of stealing over $300,000,” she told India-West.
The small flight school in central California is being sued by a flight supplier for not paying fuel bills, and the school’s failure to pay its water and electricity bill led to the eviction June 27 of around 100 students from housing on the former Castle Air Force Base.
Many of the students are under 25 and have told India-West that their parents in India had mortgaged their homes to afford the ASA’s tuition.
ASA has also been cited for at least eight violations by the Federal Aviation Administration and is accused of a state code violation for insufficient insurance.
Jeffrey Poindexter, an attorney in Chula Vista, Calif., calls the school’s accounting practices a “ponzi scheme” in court documents obtained by India-West. Poindexter is representing several students, including Hetal Patel, who attended ASA last October.
In her complaint, filed in Superior Court in Merced June 16, Patel alleges breach of contract and demands a refund of $23,292.
Another suit, filed by Poindexter on behalf of 10 Indian students, alleges fraud and demands $200,000 in damages. In this suit, the students said that after prepaying approximately $40,000 in tuition, they were instructed to log on to ASA’s Web site to keep track of how much of their money had been deducted for each session of training.
Meanwhile, two other aviation schools run by Indian Americans, after hearing of the students’ plight, have announced that they are willing to accept former ASA students and offer them every possible discount and housing assistance.
Flying Vikings School in Hayward, Calif., has taken on about 20 students, said Joe Correa, one owner of the school, who is originally from Goa, India.
Hiren Jetha, owner of the MVP Aero Academy in Houston, Texas, and Hollywood Aviators in Van Nuys, Calif., who read about the students in India-West, has also come forward to offer assistance.
11/07/08 Lisa Tsering/San Leandro India West, CA, USA

Imphal: In an effort to create job opportunities for the growing number of unemployed youth in Manipur, the government is trying to set up a school with central help to train them as air hostesses or flight stewards.
The State Transport Minister, Mr L Jayenta Kumar, held a meeting with central officials, including the civil aviation secretary in this regard on Monday in New Delhi. The meeting discussed modalities of setting up such a school, official sources said.
The central officials in the meeting insisted that the school - which will be the first of its kind in the state - was meant for all Northeastern states.
10/07/08 Business Line

Bird Group has launched specialized aviation and hospitality courses at the Bird Academy.
The academy has also entered into collaboration with Miranda House (Delhi University) to impart training in CRS, Air Fares, Ticketing and Tour Operations to the students of the Certificate Course in Travel & Tourism which is also UGC approved.
The courses are conducted at the facility at Manesar and Connaught Place. All courses are accredited and the affiliations include IATA (International Air Transport Association), UFTAA (United Federation of Travel Agents’ Associations), FIATA (Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations) and Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
A total of 13 courses have been introduced which include the Diploma in Aviation & Travel Industry with IATA Certification, IATA/UFTAA Consultant Course and IATA International GDS fares and Ticketing Course. Other courses include IATA/FIATA Cargo Introductory Course, IATA/FIATA Cargo Rating Course, IATA/UFTAA Foundation Course, Dangerous Goods Regulations (DGCA & IATA approved, Certificate course in travel and tourism, CRS training, Cargo Operations, Airport Handling and Operations, Travel Agency and Tour Operations, Tally Financial Accounting Program, Customer Service & Personality Development and Computer Application & Internet Basics.
09/07/08 ASIATravelTips.com, Thailand

Nedumbassery: Jet airways has become the first airline to obtain the approval from the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) for its Type Rating Training School, Type Rating Training Organisation (TRTO).
The TRTO school which has been launched at Mumbai will expedite the training commitments and enable Jet Airways to induct pilots in smaller batches at regular intervals in order to optimise the usage of simulator and ground school training facilities.
Jet Airways Training School which will function as a TRTO will conduct endorsement training refresher/recurrent training and checks & specialised operations on B737 NG, B777 & A330 A/C, Ragini Chopra, vice president of Corporate Communications of Jet Airways said.
09/07/08 Newindpress

Bangalore: Keeping in view India's projected three million job opportunities in the civil aviation sector, New York-based Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology has tied up with Sreenidhi Institute of Science and Technology to launch a four-year programme in aviation.
It would offer courses in airline management, airport management and electronics engineering technology (avionics) and have been approved by the All India Council for Technical Education said Vaughn College Vice President Kalpana Jain here today.
Director of SNIST P Narasimha Reddy said the programme would also include an international internship with some of the leading international airlines and training by a faculty comprising both SNIST and from Vaughn College.
Students would study at the Hyderabad campus of SNIST but also had the option of later completing their course at the US campus of Vaughn. The courses starting from August would have batch of 60 each in three of the BS courses.
07/07/08 PTI/Economic Times

Now over 1,000 foreign captains, expatriate pilots are part of the Indian airspace. Their tenure, however, appears to be tenuous. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) wants all aviation operators to phase out foreign pilots and replace them by trained Indian pilots. "Foreign pilots will be phased out in five years," Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel has told Parliament, adding, "In another five years, India will need 6,000 more certified captains."
Where these numbers will come from is a matter of conjecture: the nation's premier training institute, Rashtriya Uran Akademi, can train just 40 pilots a year. Patel's ministry is upgrading infrastructure to make that 100 a year and by 2010, it will have established another institute. The ministry has also increased the upper age limit from 60 to 65 years. But, as Sean Butler, director, sales and marketing, Parc Aviation, says, "There will be a need for 8,000 pilots by 2020."
Indian aviation is likely to first suffer a resource crunch and then, a glut. Currently, a new entrant needs two years to get adequate flying experience for a commercial pilot's licence (cpl). So, most trainees rush to foreign flying schools. An estimated 6,000 young Indians have already embarked on training courses over the last 18 months.
But is the growth in Indian aviation actually enough to absorb these numbers? India currently has less than 400 aircraft, and orders for the next 5-10 years will add 500 more. Current policy requires a manning level of five sets of crew per aircraft (that's 5,000 more pilots). Half would be First Officers (from the current crop of trainees).
And the growing numbers still don't solve the problem of the lack of trained captains. CPL holders can graduate to a higher grade only after three years, a gap that's being filled by expatriate pilots now. They are also filling positions that Indian pilots refuse. "Indian pilots don't want to fly ATRs and we have to get foreign pilots for them," Captain G. Gopinath of Air Deccan told TEHELKA. That's also true for private small aircraft.
Now, with the present government wanting the expatriate pilots to be phased out, it's quite likely that pilots are going to be spread very thin in the Indian airspace.
05/07/08 Krishn Kaushik/Tehelka

Anjuli Bhargava
Business Standard
New Delhi: Even as airlines cut back on capacity and staff, air hostess and crew training institutes are springing up with gay abandon in all nooks and crannies of the country. In the last few months itself, a series of new crew training and air hostess training institutes have sprung up, all of which promise great careers and rewards to anyone willing to enroll.
Just last month, we saw the entry of Maples, which promises to train you not just for a successful air hostess job, but also a successful career ahead. In fact, it presents a three year bachelor's degree in aviation, travel and tourism. I'm taking their word for it but the advertisement claims that the three year degree is a "university approved degree programme". Which university, where, what kind of credibility will it lend and what kind of quality it will deliver is far from clear.
A few months prior to Maples' entry, I read of a new academy called Flying Cats, that announced a grand alliance with "top international corporate giants" to provide a "unique training experience" to its students. It has signed a memorandum of understanding where the top three winners of the Femina Miss India World and Earth 2008 will visit all its centres to give them grooming tips. Flying Cats was launched in August 2006 by one of the ?Bollywood divas' mid-air on a chartered flight 35,000 feet above ground level. In a stunning growth story, the training school already claims to have a pan-India presence with 40 centres from Jammu to Guwahati. Whew !
Earlier this year, Kingfisher launched the Kingfisher Academy. It's the first ever and only training academy to offer the facility of V-UNIV, a single window e-portal for their students to learn, get accessed and have access to reference material online. Another academy called Avalon is offering a BBA and MBA in aviation. There's TCA Air Hostess Academy that is affiliated to Breyer State University in Alabama, USA. The list goes on.
Smothered by new competition, Frankfinn (one of the older and better-known institutes) has been advertising heavily. The institute with an astonishing 115 institutes across the country including places like Rohtak and Panipat claims leadership of the market. Frankfinn claims that that Frankfinners are taught the "minutest nuances of the English language with English edge", a programme specially designed in association with BBC Active, a claim I find hard to swallow every time I fly.
Someone needs to actually regulate the quality of programmes offered by these institutes which often promise the moon to impressionable young aspirants who are lured by their promises, but often find that they don't have much to fall back on but their own devices. Almost all the institutes have an alarming number of foreign associations and affiliations. It's not very clear what the affiliation implies or entitles it to. In most cases, even the credibility of the association it claims to be affiliated to is hard to establish.
Two, people need to exercise some caution before they chose one institute over the other as it is impossible to separate the wheat from the chaff. DGCA or some other regulatory authority needs to warn aspirants that enrolling in one of the programmes is not a sure way to either a job or any kind of career ahead.
Meanwhile, I'm not sure which airlines in India will or will not survive the latest oil carnage but one thing is for sure: India won't be short of air hostesses anytime in the near future.
July 04, 2008

Ludhiana:The sudden closure of an aviation institute here has left several students high and dry. Nearly 25 boys and girls, who paid Rs 90,000 each to enroll in the institute, said they were students of the Air Hostess Training and Global Retail School (GRS) and pursuing a one-year diploma at Flying Cats.
The institute that boasts of brand ambassadors like actors Kareena Kapoor and Malaika Arora was found closed this morning. An instructor sitting in the office said the institute had been shifted to Chandigarh. This came as a shock to the students of the institute who had gone there for classes.
“Our course was still in progress at the institute and the authorities closed the institute without even intimating us,” students said. They said the course was a certified course from Annamalai University and they were promised several personality development and grooming courses, besides a trip to Singapore, at the time of admission.
The parents demanded that the institute refund the fee, but the institute has said no. They are now planning a legal action against the institute.
Aditi Shrivastav, CEO, Flying Cats, claimed: “The institute had introduced a one-year course for air hostess training last year and it ended on May 30.”
She said at present the institute had not enrolled any student. “We were the first to start the institute in this building. Now, many institutes have set up shop here. Therefore, we decided to leave the place. We will soon have a new place to run our centre.”
02/07/08 Mohit Khanna/Chandigarh Tribune

Bird Group today announced the launch of specialized aviation and hospitality courses at the Bird Academy. The courses offered by the academy are accredited by global bodies. The academy has also entered into collaboration with Miranda House (Delhi University) to impart training in CRS, Air Fares, Ticketing and Tour Operations to the students of the Certificate Course in Travel & Tourism which is also UGC approved.
The courses are conducted by proficient trainers at the state-of-the-art facility at Manesar and Connaught Place. All courses are accredited and the affiliations include IATA (International Air Transport Association), UFTAA (United Federation of Travel Agents' Associations), FIATA (Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations) and Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
A total of 13 courses have been introduced which include the prestigious Diploma in Aviation & Travel Industry with IATA Certification, IATA/UFTAA Consultant Course and IATA International GDS fares and Ticketing Course. Other courses include IATA/FIATA Cargo Introductory Course, IATA/FIATA Cargo Rating Course, IATA/UFTAA Foundation Course, Dangerous Goods Regulations (DGCA & IATA approved, Certificate course in travel and tourism, CRS training, Cargo Operations, Airport Handling and Operations, Travel Agency and Tour Operations, Tally Financial Accounting Program, Customer Service & Personality Development and Computer Application & Internet Basics.
02/07/08 Moneycontrol.com

Okeechobee: The National Transportation Safety Board determined "probable cause" against the pilot involved in a mid-April plane crash on "Prison Road" in Okeechobee County.
According to details of a report released Monday, pilot Divya Manchanda, 24, failed to conduct an adequate preflight inspection before taking off in a Cessna brand model 152 single engine, two-seat plane.
Federal Aviation Administration inspectors found no "obvious mechanical deficiencies," the report stated. But a FAA inspector noticed the gascolator, a filter that drains water out of the fuel, contained water.
During the investigation Manchanda said she did not drain the gascolator before the accident, the report stated.
About 4 p.m. on April 14, Manchanda was traveling with passenger Mayank V. Nimbalkar, both flight students from India, when the plane lost engine power while 2,000 feet in the air. Manchanda tried two unsuccessful attempts to restart the engine while searching for a safe spot to land.
The plane flipped over during the crash, resulting in "substantial damage" to the airplane and Manchanda receiving a minor head cut.
02/07/08 TCPalm, USA