Lend a wing to flying dreams

CIVIL AVIATION: Aspiring pilots, airlines ... everyone stands to gain from the alliances that Indian pilot training schools are forging with institutes abroad.

The country's rapidly expanding civil aviation sector faces an acute shortage of pilots. So much so that domestic airlines are finding it more convenient to shop for pilots abroad.

Leading airlines like Jet Airways and Kingfisher have around 30-40 per cent expat pilots in their crew. Salaries, of course, have shot through the roof. An Indian pilot can hope to earn around Rs 240,000 a month, while an expat pilot gets paid up to Rs 500,000.

Currently there are around 26 local pilot academies in operation which take around two years to churn out a pilot. There are a further 37 institutes or so that are awaiting approval from the DGCA to start operations. But given infrastructure constraints, industry experts say that even these will take a long time to start producing pilots in bulk.

But now a few Indian academies have started tying up with foreign flying schools so that they can cut down sharply on training time and churn out pilots for domestic carriers with greater frequency. In countries like the United States, Australia and Philippines, a commercial pilot's licence can be obtained in just six months.

On last count, there are about a dozen or so academies all over the country which have forged such foreign tie-ups.

Delhi-based High Flyers is one of them. In the last two years, it has recruited more than 300 aspiring pilots a year and sent them for training to the Pan Am Academy in the US, one of the leading flight training institutes in the world.

Pan Am Academy has its roots in Pan American World Airways, which was the US's leading international airline before it shut down in 1991. The institute's massive recruitment of Indian students started in June 2005 when it tied up with High Flyers.

"We understood that there was an aviation boom in the offing and that given the conditions of Indian training academies, there would be a large number of Indian students wanting to go abroad to train as pilots," says U C Gupta, president, High Flyers.

There are other institutes in Delhi like the Fortune Institute of Aviation, which recruits people for institutes in the Philippines and Canada, and Griffin Aviation, which recruits students for training in the Philippines.

"There is obviously a huge demand among students to fly abroad because of the condition of flying schools in India. Last year, we sent about 200 such candidates to the Philippines for training," says A Prasad, director, Griffin Aviation.

"There is a clear rise in demand of people wanting to go abroad and it will remain strong at least for the next few years, until the Indian institutes catch up in terms of standards," adds an instructor at the Kerala-based Ave Flying Academy. Last year, this academy sent around 30 aspirants abroad.

At the overseas institutes, the aspirants can get the commercial pilot licence (CPL) licence in 6-10 months. The fee ranges between Rs 16,000 and Rs 21,000. In some cases, this works out cheaper than getting a licence in India.

Also, aspirants get to hone their skills on better machines and infrastructure. The Pan Am Academy, for instance, has three dedicated runways which even the larger Indian airports like Delhi and Mumbai do not have.

"The institutes have a dedicated airspace where we create an environment so that a pilot learns to fly along with other aircraft operating at the same time," says Kapil Gupta, chief advisor, High Flyers.

Pan Am also gives simulator training for aircraft like the A320 and Boeing 747. Indian institutes do not have simulator training for these aircraft.

By tying up with institutes abroad, these academies cut short a lot of hard work and time for the aspirants.

"Going to such an international academy on your own is a long-winded process. The tests take a lot of time, getting a visa is difficult. On top of that some institutes actually charge a lot more when we actually land up there," says a flying school student.

Pilot schools like High Flyers, on the other hand, conduct the tests on their own and also help students in obtaining the visa.