Airlines get more time to phase out expat pilots

New Delhi: The civil aviation ministry has granted much-needed relief to domestic airlines, allowing them to employ expat commanders and keep them on their rolls until 2013, as the industry prepares to induct 240 more planes in three years to meet increasing travel demand.
The blanket three-year extension is also a shift from the government’s policy of granting yearly extensions, and is likely to help India’s airlines compete better with carriers in China and South-East Asia in hiring experienced expat pilots.
Foreigners now make up 15% of the total number of pilots in India.
"The deadline (to phase out expat pilots) was to lapse this year. We have now allowed it till 2013,” said a civil aviation ministry official who did not want to be named.
In 2009, the government had asked the airlines to phase out expat pilots on their rolls by July 2011 so that Indian co-pilots could be promoted.
Domestic airlines, under the umbrella of lobbying group Federation of Indian Airlines (FIA), requested the regulator, Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), and aviation minister Praful Patel for a five-year window to hire foreign pilots and keep the current ones on their rolls, Mint reported on 28 September.
09/01/11 Tarun Shukla /Live Mint