For every three pilot in the nation who end flying coaching, there is one who is without a job and this is due to an “oversupply” which might be met in the years to come as airways develop their fleet, in accordance to Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) chief Arun Kumar.
“There are nearly 9,000 pilots currently employed with Indian carriers. Add to that those who work for non-scheduled operators such as charter aircraft of private players as well as State governments. Then a couple of thousands have gone to foreign airlines such as Qatar. If you add all these numbers, you will have 13,000 pilots in total. But there are still nearly 5,000 to 6,000 pilots who are out there in the market looking for a job,” Mr. Kumar advised The Hindu in an interview as he will get prepared to dangle his boots after almost 4 years because the DGCA Director-General, which adopted his nine-year-long tenure on the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MCA) the place he additionally oversaw airports in addition to Economic Affairs.
Watch | Retiring DGCA chief Arun Kumar in dialog with The Hindu
“There is no guarantee that everybody who is trained to be a pilot will have a job instantly. It takes three to five years for them to find a job,” the highest officer explains.
Licence renewal
Many pilots typically are compelled to search for different jobs as unemployment for a very long time outcomes in their licences getting expired and renewing them prices extra money. For instance, a hole of three years would require a pilot to get type-rating [rating for a specific aircraft type] afresh, which may entail an expenditure of ₹16.5 lakh.
Dismissing considerations over an acute scarcity of pilots voiced by some airline officers heading flight operations, the senior official mentioned that there was in reality an extra provide of pilots.
“Last year we saw a record number of licences issued — 1,200 for co-pilots and 600 for commanders. While there is no dearth of pilots for narrowbodies such as Airbus A320s and Boeing widebodies such as B777s, we do face issues with smaller aircraft such as Q400 and ATR,” the officer mentioned.
The situation of pilot scarcity has come to the fore as soon as once more following Air India’s announcement final week to add 470 twin-and single-aisle plane from Airbus and Boeing and induct them over a 10-year interval.
Those carefully acquainted with Air India’s operational necessities, as reported in The Hindu on February 19, say that the airline will want to shortly ramp up pilot hiring, and induct as many as “7,000-8,000” pilots. On Friday, Air India introduced that it would rent 900 pilots and 4,200 cabin crew in 2023 alone.
Air India incident
Speaking on the latest controversy involving a male passenger urinating over a lady co-traveller on an Air India flight, the officer mentioned that there was a “cover-up” by the airline which had failed to report the errant passenger to the police in addition to inform the DGCA concerning the incident.
Mr. Kumar mentioned the crew additionally failed to carry out their obligation. “You can’t stay away from your responsibility. They have to follow the Civil Aviation Requirement [rules] for unruly passengers and initiate the process of reporting. The crew can’t sit in judgment and decide whether there was an offence or not. That’s the job of the police,” mentioned Mr. Kumar who imposed a positive of ₹30 lakh on the airline and suspended the pilot-in-command for three months after the incident attracted media consideration final month.
Staff crunch
On the vital situation of the DGCA’s personal capabilities to guarantee oversight over the civil aviation sector at a time of fast development, in explicit its workers crunch, the Director-General mentioned that there have been plans to ramp up recruitment and take the whole workers power from 700 at current to 1,100 in the following two years, and add a complete of 1,000 technical personnel by the yr 2030 to guarantee oversight.
There have additionally been calls for for extra rigorous monetary audits of airways to assess their capability to higher keep their plane and supply protected operations – final yr the regulator pulled up SpiceJet for failing to pay distributors for spare components and upkeep ensuing in its failure to present dependable providers, and likewise grounded 50% of its fleet for eight weeks.
Mr. Kumar mentioned that the regulator has a “a limited role” as airline enterprise is an “economic and a private enterprise.” Aviation consultancy agency CAPA has typically mentioned that there is a want to be sure that airways have 5-6 months of reserves to guarantee continuity of operations and to elevate the minimal threshold of ₹50 crore wanted to begin an airline.
The following is the interview in full
‘We are back in action after COVID-19’
You have spent shut to 11 years in the civil aviation space- 4 on the DGCA, 5 on the Ministry of Civil Aviation and a pair of on the Haryana Civil Aviation Department. You got here to the centre inMarch 2014. So what are the modifications you’ve seen in this area, and what are the vital challenges earlier than us?
Between 2014 to 2023, the expansion has been phenomenal. 10 years again, we used to 3 million to 5 million passengers per thirty days, or 2.5 lakh passengers per day. Now, this quantity has grown to 13 million, which is a 250% development. How did this occur? The revolution and the variety of passengers rising is primarily due to the expansion of the low-cost carriers, and one of our LCCs is one the most important in the world. Our plane fleet – in 2019 we had been at 700 plane, out of which 600 are narrowbodies. And the expansion has additionally been primarily provide driven- when there have been much less plane, there have been fewer passengers however when airways introduced extra plane the growth in the amount of visitors was additionally huge. And then there is additionally a aggressive atmosphere which has pushed costs down, which permits passengers higher frequency, extra locations and so on. Covid-19 acted as a speed-breaker in this development briefly, however now we’re again in motion.
Given the exponential development, how is DGCA planning to ramp up staffing necessities particularly in vital areas equivalent to flight security and enhance institutional capabilities?
We are additionally upgrading ourselves and professionalising. We have almost 700 personnel working for us and we’re going to add 400 extra in the following two years. The authorities has additionally allowed us to add a complete of 1,000 personnel in the following eight years by 2030. This will deliver a lot of technical personnel in our workforce to perform oversight actions.
One of the important thing challenges earlier than a quickly rising sector is additionally one of paucity of pilots, and this is as soon as once more a scorching matter of dialogue as a result of Air India has positioned an order of 470 plane and plenty of ask the place will the pilots come from. How is pilot coaching capability being improved in the nation?
Our knowledge exhibits that there are 9,000 lively pilots presently employed with numerous airways. Then there are some pilots with non-scheduled plane operators equivalent to non-public gamers and State governments. There are additionally those that work for international carriers equivalent to Qatar. This provides us a complete variety of 12,000 pilots employed in the current. This leaves us with almost 5,000 to 6,000 pilots who’re nonetheless searching for a job. There is no assure that if you’re a pilot, you’re going to get a job. It takes time, perhaps three to 4 or 5 years . We ourselves employed somebody for a function at DGCA, who was a faculty instructor in Bahadurgarh in Haryana regardless of being a fully-trained pilot? There are many like him who’re compelled to search for secondary selections. But we’re a human-resource wealthy nation and there is no scarcity of pilots, barring some sorts of plane equivalent to Q-400 or ATR for which we enable hiring of international pilots.
But, since plane growth is underway by numerous airways and almost 1,000 plane are already on order, many pilots will discover alternatives.
I need to discuss to you about a latest controversy, which concerned a passenger on Air India urinating over a lady co-traveller on a flight from New York to Delhi on November 26. What went fallacious right here? You had been additionally criticised for giving a 3-month suspension to the pilot? Was the crew at fault or the airline?
Something like this could not have occurred in the primary place. The second factor is, in case it occurred, this might have been dealt with higher. The individual [pilot-in-command] concerned additionally felt it may have been dealt with higher. What is vital right here is the shortage of enforcement by airways in extra circumstances than much less, which end result in embarrassing occasions in the aviation sector.
So, a commander of an plane you’re the boss of that airplane, you’ve to take sure calls and you’ll’t draw back out of your duties. Your job is to act as per the Civil Aviation Requirement on unruly passengers and inform the bottom workers, and provoke the reporting course of laid down. You can’t sit in judgment or examine the matter. The police have to be allowed to try this. Then the airline too tried to cowl up the entire incident.
But lo and behold, since our resolution [ to impose a penalty of Rs 30 lakh on the airline, and suspend the pilot for 3 months] the reporting of such incidents has gone up and now every day we see on a mean two or three incidents of unruly passengers behaviour being reported to us which embody passengers smoking the rest room or misbehaving with crew or co-passengers in a drunken state.
In India, we’re seeing many financially weak airways. Last yr, you grounded 50% of SpiceJet’s fleet on the bottom that it didn’t have adequate funds to assist their upkeep which was impacting air security? Do you assume the DGCA then wants to conduct a extra rigorous monetary audit additionally because it impacts passenger security?
We have a restricted function to play right here. These are financial and personal enterprises and so they have to generate cash and pay those that work for them or assist them. But, hopefully with Covid-19 now over issues are trying higher for the aviation sector, passengers are again in the market and hopefully airways will carry out higher financially.
In the previous 4 years right here on the DGCA, which was your hardest resolution. And what is that one resolution you want you had the time to take earlier than retiring on February 28.
When I joined the DGCA in 2019, the situation of Pratt and Whitney engines of IndiGo was a massive problem. Every day there could be an inflight shut down and so on. There was a lot of media glare on this situation too. So, we began speaking to the airline who mentioned it is not in their palms and the engine producer is not listening. Then Airbus was not very forthcoming in any respect. So, we had to put our foot down and a level got here the place we mentioned we’ll now enable such engines to fly in the nation. We gave them a stringent timeline of three months to exchange the engines.
And the one resolution I’d have preferred to have time to take is the problem of cabin crew coaching. Many individuals who journey assume the cabin crew is meant to solely greet them and serve them espresso and tea. This is not their major job. They have a much more severe obligation which is to guarantee security of passengers and the plane. But since airways are a non-public enterprise, and cabin crew coaching programmes should not being carried out correctly.
