No Shortage Of Pilots In The Country , But FATA Will Be Used To Recruit Certain Aircraft Type Foreign Commanders , Says Indian Government.

Indian Government has said that currently there is no shortage of Pilots in the country, but they see the new aircraft types being imported to the country as a challenge. India has a scarcity of captains for these new aircraft models.

Minister of State in the Ministry of Civil Aviation  Gen. (Dr) V. K. Singh (Retd) , in a written reply to a question in Indian Rajya Sabha , said :

There is no shortage of pilots in the country. However, there is a shortage of Commanders on certain types of aircraft which is addressed by utilising foreign pilots through Foreign Aircrew Temporary Authorisation (FATA).

The minister highlighted that the shortage of commanders is due to the import of large number of new aircraft types to the country, by two leading carriers. He said,

M/s Air India Limited and M/s Inter Globe Aviation Limited have given orders for purchasing new aircraft in the last one year. The airline wise details are attached as Annexure.

However, he assured the Rajya Sabha that Indian Government is taking appropriate measures to address the demend of pilots in the country, he added further ,

The Government has taken several steps to establish more flying schools across the country to train greater number of commercial pilots. These include the following:

• 2021 onwards, after a competitive bidding process, AAI has awarded 15 FTO slots at 10 airports of which 5 are operational. Among these FTOs, Helicopter training is being imparted at Khajuraho.
• Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Uran Akademi (IGRUA) at Amethi has been permitted to carry out pilot training at Gondia (Maharashtra) and Kalaburagi (Karnataka) to enhance its flying hours and aircraft utilisation.
• Currently, there are 34 Flying Training Organizations (FTOs) in the country operating at 55 bases which are imparting flying training to cadets. During the current year 2023 (till November), a total of 1491 Commercial Pilot Licenses( CPLs) have been issued so far. The trend indicates a substantial increase in number of CPLs issued in comparison to previous years.

Human Resources has never been a problem, infact , Aviation has been an attractive career option, not only for the males, but for the females in India, which is again creating a talent pool , as far as Pilot training as a career being opted in the south asian country !

After leading the world list with an approx. 12.4 percent female commercial pilots, India has also projected it's Female forces to take the lead in the Defence sector.

After Pandemic hibernation and change of ownership, Air India order aimed to both modernise and expand it’s fleet with the objective of creating a larger and premium full-service carrier that would cater to the growing travel demand in the region.

Also in July 2023, acknowledging the development in Indian Civil Aviation sector, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had granted in-principle approval to Air India and IndiGo for the import of 470 and 500 aircraft, respectively. 

Boeing has a forecast for India , to be the fastest-growing aviation market in the world over the next two decades, with the country’s carriers expanding rapidly to meet the travel demand.

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