China's lack of pilots slows aviation growth
By David Lague International Herald Tribune
MONDAY, JUNE 27, 2005
HONG KONG China's booming commercial aviation industry is taking off faster than the country can train pilots, a trend that threatens future growth and hard-won advances in air safety.
There are now about 11,000 pilots employed to fly more than 800 aircraft operated by major Chinese commercial airlines, according to figures from the Civil Aviation Administration of China, a number that industry experts believe is inadequate to cope with rocketing demand for passenger services.
The agency has capped the number of new aircraft to be delivered to airlines this year at 145 in a bid to ensure manageable growth in the industry, but even these new aircraft are expected to outstrip the capacity of training schools to supply new pilots.
The airlines are reluctant to comment on the shortage, but some smaller Chinese carriers have been forced to flout government policy and recruit foreign pilots as a stopgap measure to keep their aircraft flying at optimum levels.
Industry experts and reports in the official Chinese media confirm that the Chinese carriers that have employed foreign pilots include Shenzhen Airlines, Hainan Airlines, Sichuan Airlines and the country's first private operator, Okay Airlines.
Experienced pilots based in China calculate that there are now well over 100 foreign pilots flying for Chinese carriers. There are also unconfirmed reports that some airlines have been forced to cancel services because of the lack of pilots.
"China may have been caught out a little here," said John Bent, a Hong Kong-based aircrew training specialist and former senior airline pilot. "They don't really want to use foreign pilots, but they don't really have any choice in the short term."
This demand for pilots is likely to increase with the rival passenger aircraft makers, Boeing and Airbus, both predicting further dramatic expansion in the Chinese aviation industry.
Boeing estimates that China will need more than 2,400 new passenger and freight aircraft worth almost $200 billion over the next two decades.
That would make China the second-biggest aviation market in the world after the United States.
To fly these aircraft will require a huge increase in the number of trained aircrew.
"In the next 20 years, we estimate China will need 55,000 captains," said George Liu, a Beijing-based spokesman for Boeing.
Barry Grindrod, a Hong Kong-based aviation analyst and chief executive of Orient Aviation magazine, warns that the impressive safety record Chinese airlines have built in recent years could be in jeopardy if the shortage persists.
"If you don't have enough pilots, there is always a risk that corners will be cut," he said.
Grindrod said that most of the foreigners now flying in China were recruited from South America, particularly Brazil and Chile, and Eastern Europe.
India, Asia's other prospective commercial aviation giant, has also been forced to hire foreigners to fly commercial airliners.
"There are about 10 to 12 aircraft in India grounded because there are no pilots," said Kapil Kaul, an aviation consultant at the New Delhi office of the Center for Asia Pacific Aviation.
Kaul said the center estimated that India would need up to 4,000 extra pilots over the next five years and that training them would cost up to $200 million.
The government and industry have adopted measures to speed pilot training, but this needs to be done with care, he said.
"Our safety record has been very, very good," he said. "We have good technical regulators and safety regulators in the country," but "obviously, when you are talking about such a large number of people being trained, I think the government has to ensure while we have the requisite resources, it is not at the cost of safety."
While foreign pilots might be a short-term solution to China's pilot shortage, analysts believe that the authorities and the airlines will need to sharply increase the output of pilots from training schools to match industry growth.
Statistics of the Civil Aviation Administration of China show that China's major airlines carried 120 million passengers in 2004, a 38 percent increase over 2003.
Demand is expected to ease this year, but industry analysts expect passenger numbers to jump by at least 15 percent.
In the short term, airlines would come under additional pressure to recruit and train aircrew because close to 10 percent of China's active pilots are close to retirement age, according to industry analysts.
Jeff Ruffolo, a spokesman for China's biggest carrier, the New York and Hong Kong-listed China Southern Airlines, said the company was planning to expand its pilot training intake without any compromise in standards or resorting to overseas recruiting.
"We grow our own pilots," he said. "We do not take any military pilots and we do not take any foreigners."
Ruffolo said China Southern was growing in "leaps and bounds" and now operated more than 230 aircraft on more than 540 domestic and international routes. It has more than 70 new aircraft on order from Boeing and Airbus.
Unlike other Chinese airlines, China Southern operates its own introductory flight training school, the China Southern Western Australia Flying College, near the Australian city of Perth.
Graduates from this college undergo further training at another company facility in Zhuhai in Guangdong Province. More than 800 pilots who began their training at the college in Australia have gone on to fly with the airline.
China's only domestic school now training commercial airline pilots, the CAAC-run Civil Aviation Flight University of China, based in Sichuan and Henan provinces, supplies a maximum of 600 pilots a year.
Based on the delivery of new aircraft, airline pilots and industry experts estimate that China has needed between 1,200 and 1,600 new pilots each year since 2000, far more than the number trained domestically.
Much of the shortfall had been made up by sending candidate pilots overseas for training.
Analysts note that Chinese airlines are not alone in the battle to recruit and train pilots. This is a problem for all major international carriers at a time when soaring fuel prices are cutting into their profits.
Donald Greenlees contributed reporting for this article.
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