How many pilots are UNEMPLOYED in INDIA? and WHY?

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Recently, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (otherwise known as the DGCA) issued a new policy that airline captains in India must give one year of notice to their employer regarding their departure and first officers must give six months’ notice. The one year notice is an increase from the previous six month notice period for captains. According to the Indian Express, “Regulator DGCA took the decision to have one-year notice period for pilots as there is shortage of commanders”, according to union minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju who also observed that flights cannot be held to ransom due to non-availability of pilots.

In a very short period of time, the supply of pilots in India has gone from a glut to a shortage, and the policy change by the DGCA on restricting pilot movement is just one indication. Though there are still likely several thousand CPL holders unemployed in India, many of those are likely no longer current or unable to pay the additional expenditure that would be required to get current. Some FAA CPL holders who have flight time that is more than 5 years old have even started to return to the USA to refresh those hours. Many, of course, have simply moved on to other careers while they were waiting for pilot hiring to improve in India. At one time, the list of unemployed CPL holders in India was over 6,000. However, hiring exams for large airlines in India offered in the past few years have drawn fewer and fewer applicants, now typically yielding less than 2,000 applicants. Less than 20% of those are regularly deemed qualified.

A search of the websites of all of the airlines based in India and of articles published in recent months regarding pilot hiring indicates that nearly all airlines in India are hiring.

India’s airline growth in 2016 was 20%, a likely unsustainable increase over the longer term. According to published reports in late August, IATA’s chief economist is now predicting growth in 2017 closer to 10% than 20%. “You would expect it to slow because the economy has slowerd – not very much – and we are getting towards the end of big stimulus from the fall in oil prices,” according to Brian Pearce.

Both Airbus and Boeing update their worldwide forecasts of airliner purchases each year. Both do a 20 year period prediction and both are very bullish for purchases in the Asia-Pacific region and in India in particular. Airbus shows China at +12.7% and India at +12.6% leading the way in capacity growth worldwide in 2016. Fueling this growth is growth of the Low Cost Carriers (LCCs) like IndiGo which was aided by deregulation and growth in the intra-regional market.

Boeing forecasts that the share of the world fleet in the Asia-Pacific region will grow from 29% today to 37% in 20 years. Boeing states that Asia is forecast to be the biggest travel market by 2036 fueled in large part by economic growth. Boeing also forecasts that Southeast Asia will create a demand for 4,210 airplanes over the next 20 years with 2,100 of those planes needed in India. Many of the most current forecasts, however, mention some possible slow-downs in the airline market caused by several factors including the possible increasing price of fuel. The nation’s infrastructure, particularly in India, may also slow growth if it does not keep up with demand. There are already indications that the largest airports in India may have difficulty opening slots for the smaller regional planes at the nation’s largest airports.

CAE’s recently released 10 year forecast of airline pilot demand also predicts exceptional growth over that period. In Europe and the USA that growth is due primarily to pilot retirements, that is not the case in the Asia-Pacific region. CAE predicts a worldwide growth of 255,000 airline pilots required over the next 10 years with 90,000 of those required in the Asia-Pacific region. They go on to note that 50% of the pilots who will be flying in the year 2027 worldwide have not even started to train yet. 70% of the predicted increase in pilots needed in the Asia-Pacific region will be due to growth in the airline industry. They note that “India’s recent implementation of less stringent foreign ownership rules may help stimulate air travel growth.”

World-wide factors are also increasing demand for pilots from India. Hiring by air carriers in the Middle East including Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar has lured many experienced captains from India. There is also movement between carriers in India of even experienced first officers seeking a quicker route to the commander position.

Of course, CAE, Airbus, and Boeing are all beneficiaries of any growth in commercial airline purchases, so keep that in mind when evaluating their very optimistic forecasts..