By Chaitali Bag
During Wings India 2024, Rémi Maillard, President and Managing Director of Airbus India and South Asia, stated that the country will require 2,840 new planes, 41,000 pilots, and 47,000 technical workers during the next two decades.
According to aviation consultancy firm CAPA India, a scarcity of qualified technical workers, particularly pilots, would pose the biggest strategic threat to India’s aviation industry as it gears up for rapid expansion beginning in 2024.
Within the next ten years, the Indian market is projected to receive a minimum of 1,100 new aircraft.
A group of prominent figures in the aviation sector will gather at the Aviation INDIA Summit to talk about “How the Indian pilot training infrastructure is adjusting to support the growth of airlines.”
There is a partnership between AFM Aero and the training component. With its headquarters in Dubai, AFM has rapidly expanded to become the preeminent worldwide platform for pilot training industry news, research, and consulting services.
The influence of AFM on the worldwide aviation and pilot training business is demonstrated by the over 16,000 industry stakeholders who get the Weekly Pilot Training business Updates Newsletter and the over 200,000 platform visits that occur annually.
At the Summit, the training talks will be spearheaded by Maximilian Buerger, the managing director of the firm.
“Over the last fifteen months, Indian airlines have placed orders for more than 1,600 new aircraft,” stated Maximilian Buerger. Issuing a record-breaking number of commercial pilot licences (over 1,600) and type ratings (over 4,000) in 2023, the Indian DGCA met the increased demand for pilots caused by the rapid expansion of airlines’ fleets. In response to the growing need for pilots, pilot training facilities throughout the world are focusing on India. What’s more, the pilot training ecosystem in India has pledged substantial funding to improve the country’s pilot training facilities.
With a population of over 1.4 billion, this nation is now home to just 36 flight training firms, all of which run a combined fleet of training aircraft that is smaller than a handful of individual pilot training organizations in the US. “At the same time, hundreds of Indian pilots go abroad every year for advanced pilot training, and the home flight simulator training infrastructure is just now catching up,” he added.
That said, there are other issues that are causing worry than the pilot shortage. According to Ashwani Acharya, a representative from CAE Simulation Training Private Ltd (CSTPL), the biggest aviation training organization in India, which offers pilot training at three campuses in Greater Noida, Gurgaon, and BLR, “the aviation skill gap in India is widening and unless a “Training in India” drive is effected immediately for all verticals of aviation industry it would be a lost opportunity and maybe a disruption due to the shortage of engineers, pilots, technicians, airport and ground staff, etc.
“Our goal is to construct facilities and teams that not only satisfy but also exceed the expectations of airlines in India and throughout the world. We firmly think that India must take the lead in developing the pilots that Indian airlines demand. Given the current disparity between the need for and supply of pilots in India, the demand for pilots is only going to grow in the years to come, and the supply has to progress at an even faster rate. The CEO of Chimes Aviation Academy, YN “Bobby” Sharma, expressed his belief that there is ample room for all players in the Indian flying training industry to thrive without infringing on each other’s business. He pointed out that the current shortage is enormous and is expected to grow even more due to the large orders placed by major carriers in India.
International interest in training pilots from India is already on the rise. A notable institution that trains a significant number of pilots from the subcontinent is Alt Academy in South Africa. Ryan Van Wijk, the CEO, will be travelling to participate in the discussion.
Buerger invited people to a panel discussion where they could hear the CEOs of India’s top pilot training companies address the country’s pilot shortage, the progress of its pilot training infrastructure, and the possibilities, threats, and problems they perceive.
With inputs from Aviation India 2024 organizers.