Indian carriers need more pilots to fly wide body aircrafts, says aviation secretary

Leaders from the aviation industry have gathered in Delhi for the three-day CAPA India Aviation Summit. The event showcases the industry's growing optimism about the future, with many airlines announcing expansion plans.

Aviation secretary Rajiv Bansal said Indian carriers need more pilots to fly the 777 or the wide body aircrafts. He added that the budget carriers in India need to add more wide body aircrafts in their fleet for India to become an international aviation hub.

“International hubs will require wide body aircrafts and as of now Air India and Vistara are the only two airlines which have wide body aircrafts. So we are encouraging the other carriers to go in for wide body. All the Middle East carriers have been asking for additional seats over the last several years but we have not been giving any additional seats to any Middle East carrier,” Bansal said.

Sir Tim Clark, President of Emirates and Bilal Eksi, CEO of Turkish Airlines said that India needs to revisit the bilateral air service agreement with their countries and needs to allow more seats to these carriers.

“Indian remains reluctant to give more seats, it is not just for Emirates, it is for the Indian carriers as well because they are operating at very high seat factors on the Dubai-India market. So as long as you don’t give them extra seats, then it deprives them of upto a billion dollars a year of added income. However it is for the Indian government to decide, not us,” Clark said.

Eksi said, “It is time to get more destinations and more frequency. Every airline mentioned that their air service agreement is 5-6 years old. In fact, our air service agreement was last amended in 2009."

Tata owned Air India is about to get its second home in London as from the end of this month, four Indian cities will now be directly connected to the London Gatwick Airport.

Jonathan Pollard, CCO of Gatwick Airport said, “There are four routes that we will be operating - Cochin, Amritsar, Ahmedabad and Goa. We think they will be phenomenally popular and we have been really pleased to work with the Air India team.”