Don't restrain the pilots. Let them go

On September 1, the government made it mandatory for pilots to serve a six-month notice prior to quitting an airline and also not refusing the flight duties assigned to them during this period. Pilots stand to lose their licenses in case of violation.

This directive, issued by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, comes in the wake of rampant poaching of pilots among airlines, flouting regulatory norms relating to the bonds, notice-periods, and even no-objection certificate at times, which resulted in numerous cancellations of flights and inconvenience to the passengers.

While this new directive would help in curbing the poaching and abrupt cancellations of flights, it is not a long-term solution. The six-month notice period is too long to be implemented permanently, to be fair to the pilots.

Moreover, this rule by itself does not address the root cause of the poaching problem -- the shortage of pilots. So, it is time the government addresses this issue and solves all the related problems permanently, poaching being just one of them.

Shortage of pilots is the result of demand for pilots increasing faster than their supply, a trend being witnessed since the 1990s, when private airlines started entering the industry.

The shortage has, however, aggravated after the launch of the country's first low-cost carrier -- Air Deccan -- in August 2003, and its success bringing in a number of other low-cost airlines in industry. The ongoing expansions of the existing airlines are further contributing to the problem.

At present, there is a demand for 1,650 pilots (assuming 1:10 requirement of aircraft to pilots) against a supply of just 1,200. The shortage of 450 pilots results in around 5 per cent aircraft being grounded at any given time. The gap between the demand and supply is all set to widen with more than half a dozen airlines still waiting to enter the industry.

In the next five years, there is expected to be a demand for 3,500 additional pilots, which is a huge requirement considering the present annual supply of just 100 pilots a year graduating from 39 flying schools (many of these are defunct) of the country.

The shortage of pilots, besides poaching and abrupt cancellation of flights, has also contributed to a sky-scraping salary of pilots, thus affecting the airfares. A captain of a commercial airline can command a monthly salary of anywhere between Rs 400,000 and Rs 450,000, compared to only Rs 25,000 to Rs 40,000 by his counterparts in the Indian Air Force.

The commercial pilots stand apart in terms of international comparisons, too. In 2000, our pilots were found to be the highest paid (in real terms per unit of output) amongst the 17 selected airlines of the world.

This distinction, however, does not augur well for a poor country like India, where just 15 million passengers travel by air every year, out of a population of over 1 billion. In comparison, Malaysia has 13 million annual air passengers with a population of 22 million.

Addressing the shortage of pilots requires identifying the various supply bottlenecks. First, most of the existing flying schools are financially unviable and operating with poor infrastructure and limited scale. All of them are losing their flying trainers to the airlines, who pay several times better.

Except Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Uran Academy, others have an infrastructure that is barely comparable to international standards. In terms of scale, IGRUA -- the largest flying school of the country -- produces only 40 pilots a year, compared to 1,000 pilots by the CTC Aviation Group of the UK.

The government needs to revive the health of the flying schools by restricting their numbers to around 10 and providing them with lucrative tax concessions (on buying of aircraft, simulators, land, aviation turbine fuel and so on) and other incentives necessary at the take-off stage.

Provision of some subsidy may also be considered by generating revenue through imposing a cess on the earnings of the airlines.

Second, the financial support and the job assurance needed to encourage the flying trainees are absent in India. Pilots' training is an expensive course and obtaining a commercial pilot license may cost anywhere between Rs 800,000-15 lakh. Even after obtaining a CPL (commercial pilot's licence), there is no guarantee of getting a job since the market conditions are highly volatile.

In this situation, it would be ideal if flying schools work in close connection with banks and airlines. This would help the trainees to meet the financial requirement of the training and also increase their chances of getting jobs with airlines.

Airlines sponsorship should be particularly encouraged since it not only helps the trainees but also the airlines by bargaining a lower salary in lieu of financial support and the job assurance.

Three, a majority of the flying schools do not have simulators and, hence, it is left to the airlines to train the pilots for a specific aircraft. Hence, the effort should be made to help equip the flying schools with simulators, enabling them to produce aircraft-specific pilots.

Four, at present, the DGCA takes around three months to clear the appointment of a foreign pilot and the contract is valid for just three months. A speedier processing and a contract of a year would immensely help in solving the shortage problem. The ban on employing the foreign nationals as co-pilots also needs to be lifted for the time being.

Five, the IAF has made it difficult for its pilots to go for an early retirement even after completing 20 years for pensionable service, following the exodus of its 263 pilots between 2002 to 2004.

The IAF should, however, temporarily ease the exit process of those who have completed 20 years of service, considering the fact that many of them -- especially those flying fighter aircraft -- are past their prime.

The government, after having suppressed one of the symptoms of the shortage of pilots (that is, poaching), still has a long way to go before it roots out the source of many problems. An early take-off in this direction would help everyone, including the pilots.

The author is a Consultant at ICRIER, New Delhi. The views expressed here are personal.