Are India's airlines putting the cart before the horse? Or, more accurately, the craft before the helmsmen? Carriers have splashed out billions of dollars on planes and engines this week at the Asian Aerospace show in Singapore, but an analyst has warned that the exponential growth of the subcontinent's aviation sector has resulted in a shortfall of pilots.
"There is a tremendous shortage of pilots in India," said Dinesh Keskar, who is none other than Boeing's senior vice president for commercial aircraft sales, adding that the country will likely require between 4,000 and 5,000 new aviators in the next five years.
The recent splurge illustrates that India's aviation sector is in robust health--something everybody knew anyway. The market has mushroomed since the liberalization of the sector long controlled by the state-run Indian Airlines and Air India and officials expect 50 million air passengers in India by 2010 from 14 million as the country's burgeoning middle class, which are already buying color TVs and cell phones, snap up air tickets.
Yet pilots are not being trained quick enough to meet the soaring need for their services, argues Keskar. Boeing, which has correctly ascertained that funding pilot instruction is a sensible step from its own business perspective, is to invest up to $75 million on training facilities to help the problem.
There's all the more reason to pool company resources in Asia. Toulouse-based Airbus, Earth's largest commercial aircraft maker, said Wednesday it expects demand from Asia to remain sturdy due to the brisk development of the airline industries in India and China, but augured international orders for Airbus and Boeing could fall by over half this year following a bumper 2005.
Even so, Airbus inked a deal to sell 43 jets to state-owned domestic carrier, Indian, for $2.5 billion, and budget airline SpiceJet signed a deal to buy ten Boeing jets worth around $700 million.
Aircraft businesses--Lockheed Martin, Dassault as well as W James McNerney Jr.'s Boeing--will be courting India's air force over the next few days as the military organisation seeks to buy 126 new fighter jets that could be worth at least $8 billion.
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