A Looming Pilot Crisis

With Airlines Looking To Expand Their Fleet And The Country Unable To Produce Flyers Fast Enough To Keep Up With The Escalating Demand, Indian Airlines Could Be Heading For A Pilot Shortage

- Avishek G. Dastidar

AS INDIA'S AVIATION INDUSTRY PREPARES TO BECOME THE THIRD LARGEST DOMESTIC MARKET in the world and new airlines enter the competition while existing ones expand, a troubling question looms on the horizon: who will fly their planes?

Pilots are becoming a prized resource for the simple reason that there may not be enough of them soon. Currently, India has 800-plus aircraft-mostly narrowbodies-between its airlines, which employ 11,775 pilots. However, while the country was able to issue 5,700 commercial pilot licences or CPLs in the past five years, it produced only 2,982 commanders or captains, who are given the charge of an aircraft and its entire crew, in the same period. And it is a commander crunch that the country has been grappling with at present, something that the ministry has admitted to time and again. To meet the shortfall, 120 foreign commanders have been given Foreign Aircrew Temporary Authorisation (FATA) to work in various Indian airlines.

But the situation is expected to get more acute as India's aviation sector is looking to expand its fleet-primarily on the back of the growth of two of its largest carriers, IndiGo and Air India, as well as Akasa Air, which since 2015 have collectively ordered 1,976 planes. Of these, 324 had been imported by June 2024. As per the delivery schedules, another 1,147 aircraft are supposed to be inducted in phases by 2030 and the remainder by 2034. Even if we account for the existing aircraft whose lease will end in this period, a top ministry official estimates the fleet size to touch "at least 1,400 by 2029".