Air India’s jumbo order bares pilot pinch

Already hit by a crew shortage, airline group will need almost 7,000-8,000 pilots over the coming years to fly the new planes it has ordered

Air India group’s jumbo order of 470 aircraft has turned the spotlight on an equally big problem plaguing India’s roller-coaster aviation industry — an existing shortage of pilots that is set to drastically widen.

Amid all the jubilation over the erstwhile flag carrier’s historic order, the big question on everyone’s mind within the airline and the larger industry is, “Where will the 7,000-8,000 pilots needed to fly these aircraft come from?”, especially at a time when India’s airlines have been dogged by delays and cancellations and even forced to look for parking space for their planes due to a paucity of cockpit crew to fly them. And the flying crew shortage is already taking its toll with pilots complaining of rising levels of fatigue, a less-than-reassuring trend in an industry where the margins for safety are negligible.

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For the 470 aircraft alone, Air India and its sister airlines will require “7,000 to 8,000 pilots over the next decade, or nearly 700-800 pilots in a year,” says an industry official closely involved with the process. “This is a massive challenge. When we don’t have enough pilots to manage the present scale of operations, where will new pilots come from,” asked the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The order includes 70 wide-bodied or twin-aisle jets: 40 Airbus 350s, 20 Boeing 787s and 10 Boeing 777-9s, and 400 narrow-bodied aircraft: 210 Airbus 320/ 321Neos and 190 Boeing 737 Maxs, with the planes set to arrive “over the next decade”, according to a social media post by Air India’s Chief Commercial and Transformation Officer Nipun Aggarwal.

As many as 31 aircraft are set to arrive in the second half of 2023, with a large chunk of the remainder due to come from 2025.

Air India recently faced cancellations and delays of its highly remunerative flights to the U.S. and Canada due to paucity of crew.