Foreign Pilots

A total of 404 foreign pilots were working in India as on June 10, 2019, according to government data

the Centre has taken certain steps to achieve increasing the number of Indian-trained pilots

Arav Joshi, 26, completed his flying course from a New Zealand-based training academy in 2012. After that did not translate into a job, he topped it with a type-rating course from a Pune-based facility in 2014. The total expenditure came to around Rs 50 lakh. He is still without a job. He is part of the 7,000-odd who have a commercial pilot licence (CPL) but await a job. They grouse that airlines in India don't have a system to develop home-grown talent and have to depend on expatriate pilots. An incident of misbehaviour by an expat pilot of Jet Airways with an Indian passenger has again highlighted the contentious issue. National Aviators Guild (NAG), the Jet pilots' union, has directed its members not to fly with expat pilots from May 1. With Indian aviation growing at 20 per cent annually, airlines have expanded at a fast rate. Indian airlines in total have more than 800 aircraft on order. This has also led to a serious personnel shortage, mainly of pilots. Airlines have ...