Trained to be pilots but dreams grounded

New Delhi: The market for Indian pilots is saturated and industry sources say in the next few years, India will have more than 6,000 unemployed pilots.
Getting a commercial pilot licence (CPL) takes about two years for which one spends Rs 20 lakh. However, despite about 200 flying hours and clearing several papers with the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), many are sitting at home or working in call centres. The DGCA gives initial licenses to about 150 to 200 pilots each month. However, with no other airline other than Air India purchasing new aircraft at present, stress of rising aviation turbine fuel (ATF) prices and capacity of co-pilots already exhausted , there seems to be no space left for newcomers. “…with many people having gone abroad for training, we have many more pilots than needed. Where earlier we used to get 40-50 applicants for a post, we now get about 600,” said Jitendra Bhargava, director of PR, Air India. Pilots say the problem has been compounded by the high number of foreign pilots employed by airlines. Captain Vikram Yadav of the Indian Commercial Pilots’ Association alleged that with the government not doing anything actively for Indian pilots, about 3,000 of them are sitting unemployed.
“The salary of a foreign pilot is about Rs 6 lakh as compared to about Rs 4 lakh that an experienced Indian pilot gets. However, since an airline does not have to spend more money on training pilots and getting them endorsed abroad, getting trained foreign pilots is much easier,” said an airline official.
06/08/08 Neha Lalchandani/Times of India