Reviving Assam Flying Club : A welcome move

Dwina Barbaruah

(dwinakashyap@gmail.com)

In a bid to boost the aviation industry in the north- eastern region, the Assam Cabinet on Wednesday took the right decision to revive the Assam Flying Club (AFC) which has remained dysfunctional since long. It decided to constitute a society with Chief Minister, Dr.Himanta Biswa Sarma as Chairman, Minister of Sports and Youth Affairs as Vice Chairman, Director of Sports and Youth Welfare as Member Secretary together with induction of other members for revival of AFC in right earnest.

Set up in 1958 by none other than the multifaceted personality, Radha Govinda Baruah, the AFC has been non-operational for many years together despite several attempts for its revival by the erstwhile Congress regime. There was a time when AFC was counted among the few reputed flying clubs in the country, with several of its proud products working in the US, UK and other countries. The AFC that enjoyed the unique distinction of being the lone flying club of the North East Region to issue private and commercial license to pilots, started facing hurdles in the early 90s.

The club boasts of a Cessna 152 and Pushpak MK-I aircrafts at LGBI Airport, which are lying unused for over 20 years now. Pushpak MK-I is permanently grounded and de-registered, while the Cessna 152 is temporarily grounded. Aero Club of India which allotted the Cessna 152 to AFC has re-allotted the aircraft to Bombay Flying Club.

At present, the space where the club once existed is used by Pawan Hans Helicopters Ltd and by Airports Authority of India (AAI).

It is learnt that AFC owes lease amount to AAI. The newly formed society has to clear the lease amount to AAI and initiate the process of recovering the hangar of the Flying Club. The AFC also owes outstanding electricity and water bills to the LGBI Airport authorities.

Revival of AFC is a must to provide a platform to the flying aspirants who want to take up aviation as a career option, and also for boosting the aviation industry in the North East.

The newly constituted society has to explore the feasibility to resume a training programme at the LGBI Airport due to increased air traffic. However, the flying club has the option to use a dozen airstrips located across the state. The decision to revive the defunct Flying Club has come at a time when pilot shortage is hindering airline operations in India, with the industry expecting the need of at least 1,000 to 1,500 trained pilots every year.

It has to be acknowledged that India’s Regional Connectivity Scheme is finally witnessing some traction. However, the fact remains that the country just doesn’t have enough infrastructure to help train manpower for the airline sector. For example, the number of flying schools (Flying Training Organisations (FTOs)) in India is too less, thereby forcing students to go abroad to get training.

Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation VK Singh told Rajya Sabha that out of the total commercial pilot licenses issued by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the share of foreign-trained cadets is about 40 per cent.

The government’s ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat Policy’ is a welcome move and in September 2020, the Centre came up with a liberalised Flying Training Organisation (FTO) policy wherein the concept of airport royalty (revenue share payment by FTOs to AAI was abolished and land rentals significantly rationalised, as an incentive to increase the number of locally-trained pilots.

As a follow-up, the AAI issued letters on May 31, 2021, and October 29, 2021, for setting up of nine FTOs at five airports at Belagavi and Kalaburgi (both Karnataka), Jalgaon (Maharashtra), Khajuraho (Madhya Pradesh) and Lilabari (Assam). Asia Pacific Flight Training Academy, Jet Serve Aviation, Red Bird Aviation, Samvardhane Technologies, and Skynex Aero have won the rights to establish the academies under the government’s Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative.

At present, there are 32 FTOs approved by the DGCA in the country, which has the capacity to train around 350 pilots every year.

Following the closure of a number of flying schools in Tamil Nadu, the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO) swung into action and two MOUs were signed to set up FTOs in the State - the Hyderabad-based start-up Hercules Aviation Training School (HATS), founded by Indian Air Force veterans at Salem and the Chennai-based Orient Flying Schools in Ulundurpet. By 2030, Indian commercial aviation would have about 2,000 aeroplanes (excluding private jets) from the current 600. Therefore, the country needs a large pool of trained pilots who can be onboarded as and when more aircraft are inducted by airlines.

Several international studies, including one from Boeing, has highlighted that there is a huge shortage of trained pilots in India. It is important to increase the capacity of aviation training infrastructure and continuously work towards improving the quality of training as well.

A trainee-pilot pays thousands of dollars abroad to complete their flying training. One can easily save foreign exchange if more training facilities are based out of the country.

Unfortunately, some of the Indian flying clubs are very old and have not been able to keep pace with the times. This forced students to go abroad for training. New FTOs will certainly be a boon to the aspiring generation because of substantial reduction in training cost and training cycle.

Even though the current eligibility to become a pilot is 12 years of schooling, the emerging opportunity provided by the FTOs will certainly attract graduate engineers to become pilots. Following the Government of Tamil Nadu, other State Governments are expected to take similar steps, thus contributing to Atmanirbhar Bharat, making India self-reliant on the critical requirement of home-grown professional pilots.

Currently, India’s aviation regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, issues about 800 commercial pilot licences every year. Of these, around 30 per cent are given to pilots who have undergone flying training at a school abroad.

The decision to open the academies was taken on the recommendations of a committee of experts headed by the former Chief of the Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Fali H. Major. The flying training operations at the airports will help to increase the number of commercial pilots produced every year within India.

The AAI had invited bids for establishing flying training schools in November 2020. To make the setting up of schools attractive for the bidders, the AAI significantly reduced the minimum annual rental to Rs.15 lakh. It also scrapped the concept of airport royalty.

Currently, India’s scheduled airlines employ over 9,000 pilots. As per Civil Aviation Ministry projections, over the next five years India will require 9,488 more pilots.

The Indian civil aviation market is the fastest growing in the world and India’s airport capacity is expected to handle around 1 billion trips by the end of next year. This fast-paced growth of the civil aviation sector, however, faces a bump, with the increasing shortage of trained commercial pilots.

Airline industry insiders say that the shortage of pilots is forcing some airlines not to take up new routes as there aren’t many pilots available to fly.

According to the Ministry of Civil Aviation, the aviation watchdog, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has issued around 3,300 commercial pilot licences in India in the last five years. These include licences issued for cadets who have passed both from Indian Flying Training Organisations and Foreign Flying Training Organisations. In the last five years, a little over 2,000 commercial pilot licences have been issued to cadets who have passed out from Indian Flying Training Organisations. Taking the last three years’ figures, there has been a slight increase in the number of commercial pilot licences issued in India. As against 430 commercial pilot licences issued to cadets from Indian Flying Training Organisations in 2019, the number of such licences given out in 2021 increased to 504.

However, industry sources say that the figure is still very low as the launch of Akasa air and re-launch of Jet Airways—would further pump up the demand for commercial pilot licences in India. Industry insiders say that with these two airlines, India would require at least 1,200 commercial pilots every year.

Airlines in India currently are dealing with the shortage of pilots by hiring commercial pilots from abroad, but foreign pilots are not given long term licences by the DGCA and need to get their licences renewed every year from the DGCA. This had been done by the DGCA to encourage Indian carriers to hire more Indian pilots. Sources from the pilot fraternity say that one of the reasons for the shortage of pilots in India is the high cost of pilot training and the lack of quality pilot training institutes in India.

According to rough estimates, a commercial pilot training cost in India is about Rs 60-75 lakh, depending upon the number of hours a pilot is being trained and the type of aircraft used for training. It is also estimated that a pilot needs to submit somewhere between Rs 15-20 lakh for training with the airlines before he or she is commissioned into flying passenger aircraft. The licencing procedure for pilots is also kept strict to ensure that “bad” pilots are not entering the market.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation is working towards setting up more flying schools in the country (from around 34 numbers at present) to train a greater number of commercial pilots.

Apart from the nine flying schools approved by the AAI, 15 more flying schools are to be opened in the second phase at 10 airports, namely Cooch Behar, Tezu, Jharsuguda, Deoghar, Meerut, Kishangarh, Hubli, Kadapa, Bhavnagar.

All this augurs well for the aviation industry as the sky has no limit for those looking for a career as commercial pilot.