New Delhi, Aug 9 : The number of Commercial Pilot Licenses (CPLs) issued have seen an increase steadily over the last few years, along with the expansion in the aviation industry in India, with 699 already issued in the first six months of this year compared to 862 in 2021. According to the Civil Aviation Ministry’s statistics there are a total of 4,612 commercial pilot licenses have been issued in the country since the year 2016.
The ministry has said there is a surplus of pilots in India.
“There is however, a slight shortage of commanders for certain kinds of aircraft, and this is being dealt with by using foreign pilots through the issue of temporary authorization for foreign aircrew (FATA).
“As the volume of air traffic increases as the air traffic increases, the need of pilots will rise.According to projections from industry experts it is possible that there will be a requirement for 1,000 pilots annually over the in the next five years.
Due to the increasing demand in the aviation industry in the country the majority of pilots who have been trained are hired,” Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia has said to the Parliament in recent times.
There were 34 Flying Training Organizations (FTO) as of March 31 2022.
Since then, four additional have been established with two in Karnataka’s Kalaburagi and one in Maharashtra’s Jalgaon and Assam’s Lilabari increasing the number to 38 as of July 31st 2022.There are currently six type rating-approved training institutions in India that provide training in the field of aircraft type rating after the obtaining of CPL.
FTOs are operated and established mostly by private companies under the oversight of the regulatory authority of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).It issued No Objection Certificate (NOC) to two operators in order to establish FTOs in Salem and Hosur airports in Tamil Nadu.
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