New rules expected by June may leave airlines short of pilots

New Delhi: Indian airlines may need to hire 15-20% more pilots than they currently have on their rolls should the government go ahead with new rules regarding their duty hours on which it has currently sought feedback from airlines and which could be implemented as early as June, say government and airline officials.
If implemented, the new rules could hurt airlines because of a shortage of pilots. The government is currently investigating a racket that helped people acquire fake commercial pilot licences. Since January, at least seven such instances have been uncovered.
Meanwhile, many expat pilots are failing India’s stringent new medical norms for pilots that were introduced last year, according to Mohan Ranganathan, a Chennai-based airline safety expert and member of the Civil Aviation Safety Advisory Council, a committee appointed by the government after the Mangalore crash.
Indian carriers have a total of about 400 aircraft and 3,000 pilots. This year, they will add some 40 aircraft.
Aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation has framed the rules, known as Civil Aviation Requirements (CAR) and which deal with work and duty timings for airline pilots. This followed a year-long exercise that was fast-tracked after an Air India ExpressBoeing 737 crashed in Mangalore on 22 May, killing 158 people, the most in an air crash in the past decade.
04/04/11 Tarun Shukla/Live Mint

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Apr 2011