Poaching by India, China: Nigeria faces acute pilot shortage

The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has solicited the assistance of state governments in efforts to have well trained pilots for the nation’s aviation industry.
NCAA’s call came against the backdrop of the shortage of seasoned pilots in the country, following poaching of the very good ones by airlines in Asia, especially India and China.
Director-General of the NCAA, Dr. Harold Demuren, who made the appeal in the agency’s newsletter, said the cost of training pilots was too high for individuals to bear, adding that state governments could sponsor their own indigenes who aim at becoming pilots.
According to him, it will be very difficult for individuals and most airlines to train a pilot at the rate of N8 million.
Demuren, who noted that only a well trained airline crew could guarantee safety, said the NCAA was already discussing with states on the possibility of getting involved, but expressed regrets that nothing concrete had come from the state governments.
He said: “We have been speaking with the state governments and somehow they are not forthcoming, and their reason being that it is very expensive to train, eight million per pilot. With this eight million, they can train about ten doctors in Nigerian universities.
The NCAA boss noted that the acute manpower shortage in the nation’s aviation sector was not limited to pilots, but also aircraft engineers and air traffic controllers (ATCs). He said the regulatory agency had taken it upon itself to train personnel for the sector to address the shortfall.
He was, however, quick to state that the NCAA alone does not have the wherewithal to single-handedly address the problem, saying there was need to train and inject new blood into the system, people who could take over from present aging personnel.
09/10/07 Kenneth Ehigiator/Vanguard, Nigeria