India may need 31000 pilots in next 20 years

India may require 31,000 pilots and some 26,000 mechanics over the next 20 years amid the growing order book of the aircraft original equipment manufacturers, said US aircraft maker Boeing on the sidelines of a CII event.

Boeing India President Salil Gupte also said the South Asian region is expected to remain the fastest-growing market globally over the next several years, according to the news agency. 

He said that the government's courage to go forward and privatize Air India and Tata Group to take up the airlines will transform the Indian aerospace industry. “This is as important a part of the Indian growth story as the aircraft (orders)."

Considering India's air traffic growth, he said that a lot of focus has to be on making infrastructure robust, both hard infrastructure which includes airports as well as critical infrastructure, which includes pilots, among others.

Last month, Tata Group-owned Air India announced placing orders for a total of 470 planes with both Boeing and European aviation major Airbus, PTI reported. 

Boeing had earlier projected India's air traffic growth at around 7 percent through 2040. He also said that after coming out of the pandemic, the recovery in air travel demand has stunned the world and Boeing does not see any impact of the financial crisis on air travel growth.

It is "too early to know what the consequences of the bank situation of the US and Europe and others are going to be. At this stage, we really see no slowdown in the demand for aviation," Gupte added. There is a huge market for narrow-body aircraft for Boeing in India, he said. 

"As much as 90 per cent of the market over the next 20 years is going to be a narrow body market and we expect we will be successful in competing for those every single campaign (aircraft order)." Gupte added. 

He further emphasized that Boeing has a leadership position in the wide- body (twin aisle) aircraft segment globally and it will remain so in all the markets, including India.

India will become more than a hub for aviation on account of its sheer size and scale as the country's economy grows, he stated. “India is the gateway like China and once it will grow to be (in) the top four economies of the world, it will be more than a hub."

-B