Air Force-AI pilot pact crashes

New Delhi: An eight-month-old ambitious plan to end the shortage of pilots in Air India with the help of the Indian Air Force has failed to take off. Only nine IAF pilots have joined the national carrier so far, and there are no indications of more joining in the near future.
According to the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), Air India is short of 200 pilots. Presently it has 777 pilots, including 117 expatriates.
In a memorandum of understanding signed between the IAF and Air India in April this year, the former was to provide 15 to 20 pilots, aged 54 years and above, to the national carrier.
However, Air India says that only nine out of the 30 selected IAF pilots have joined so far. “In the first batch, 14 officers appeared and all were selected. Of them only seven have joined. In the second batch, 16 officers were selected; only two have joined,” said AI corporate communications head Jitender Bhargava.
“Civil aviation flying testing procedure is over-hyped and impractical, whereas the IAF procedure is more practical, result-oriented and operates within flight safety envelopes,” a senior IAF official told HT, explaining the reluctance of fighter pilots to join the private carrier.
The IAF’s insistence on sending pilots aged 54 years and above has complicated matters with Air India, which was not keen to have pilots approaching retirement age, sources said.
The IAF, however, has maintained that pilots who are 54 have a lot of flying left in them.
27/11/07 Nagendar Sharma/Hindustan Times