Flying clubs face flight of people

Facing an acute shortage of pilots, Indian Airlines, Jet Airways, no-frills carrier Air Deccan and soon-to-be-launched Kingfisher Airlines have started raiding the country's flying clubs and aviation academies.

It is estimated that 30-40 instructors and engineers have been signed on by these airlines in the last few months, creating an acute shortage of staff at the clubs and academies.

The chief flying instructor as well as the chief engineer of Andhra Pradesh Aviation Academy have quit to join Indian Airlines and Air Deccan, respectively.

The Gujarat Flying Club in Vadodara has lost two of its four trainers. A Port Blair-based academy has seen all its three trainers leave. "I am sitting here alone at this academy as everyone has left to join private airlines for higher salaries and perks," says an official of the academy.

The government-run Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Uran Akademi (IGRUA) at Rae Bareli, Uttar Pradesh, too, is feeling the heat. The government has now assured IGRUA of swift replenishment.

"We will shortly get more aircraft and new instructors," said AK Jha, ground instructor of IGRUA.

Of course, the airlines are offering lucrative packages that instructors find hard to refuse. On an average, they are being offered Rs 50,000-100,000 per month more than their existing salaries.

The airlines have started picking up pilots from training schools as there are not enough pilots in the country to cope with the unprecedented "boom" in aviation.

Also, many Asian airlines have poached heavily from Indian carriers in the last couple of years. As a result, there are 1,200 trained commercial pilots in the country, while the demand is for more than 1,600.

Air-India, for example, has for the first time, hired a dozen foreign pilots. The government has raised the retirement age of pilots by a year to 61 to cope with the situation.

The flight of instructors comes at a time when there is a need for increasing the output of the training schools.

"This is happening when we are witnessing a 300 per cent rise in the number of aspirants applying to become licensed pilots. We are a bit hesitant to admit all of them because of the shortage of instructors," said CC Shah, secretary of the Gujarat Flying Club.

The civil aviation ministry plans to raise the number of pilots trained in the country from 100 to 150 every year. But with the number of instructors dwindling by the day, the plan is unlikely to take off.