The pilot training system is not keeping pace with the growth of the air transport market. As a result, whereas before even on a beat-up Tupolev passengers could rely on an experienced captain from the Soviet era, now even a new aircraft does not guarantee safety. Fierce competition for flight personnel has led to an increase in the number of crashes in 2011. Meanwhile, the authorities are trying to solve the problem in their usual way – by hiring migrant workers. Wonders of Lobbying
The reason for the pilot shortage in Russia is, at first glance, simple. If in 1991 about 100 million people were transported by air, then in 1997 only 20 million. More than 60,000 flight personnel were no longer needed, and many swapped the yoke for a taxi wheel, retired, or went abroad to build careers. Since 2000, air traffic began to grow, but personnel continued to flow out due to wage differences.
The Ministry of Transport estimates the overall personnel shortage at 1,200 people. Airlines estimate it at 2,000–2,500. Meanwhile, domestic educational institutions graduate about 700 pilots annually. However, there is a shortage specifically of aircraft commanders – experienced pilots with many flight hours, and this contingent is physically aging. So HR managers turned their gaze beyond the borders of our homeland: there is no time left to wait for graduates to gain experience.
The fact that a crisis in the aviation labor market would occur was known back in 2005–2006. It was then that the growing economies of China and even Vietnam opened their skies to foreigners, inviting not only our pilots but also Western ones to work. Russians in Vietnam were paid $7,500 per month, while the average salary at home was about 4,000. Their colleagues from Lufthansa or Air France were then earning 11,000–15,000.
Since then, Russian airlines have become more active in competing for personnel. Salaries grew at a rate of 33% per year, reaching 420,000 rubles ($14,000) per month by this year, according to Aeroflot CEO Vitaly Saveliev. But pilots still retired, and flight schools did not produce enough fresh recruits. Aeroflot itself successfully poached the best personnel from other companies. But by 2009, the pressure had reached it too.
After a change in management, the new head of Aeroflot, Saveliev, began an active offensive on the Ministry of Transport, where he already had an ally in the person of his predecessor Valery Okulov, now Deputy Minister. They began promoting the idea of hiring foreigners. In early 2011, then-Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov reported this initiative to the top, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin responded with a firm “no.” Better invite foreign instructors, otherwise the country will lose its positions where it is competitive – came the reply. Officials heeded the instruction.
Back in March 2012, Okulov said that the personnel shortage could be covered by a state program to increase student enrollment in our flight schools. However, new aviation disasters worsened the situation. As a result, with the arrival of the new Minister of Transport Maxim Sokolov in May 2012, the idea of migrant pilots was rehabilitated. Already in October, the Ministry of Transport prepared a draft law that the Duma was supposed to adopt before the New Year. Aeroflot “packaged” the issue of inviting migrant workers with the creation of a national low-cost carrier based on one of its subsidiaries (presumably Donavia). They argued that the argument that soon there would be no one to fly had not worked, so the idea of lowering ticket prices would work.
Meanwhile, the draft law on allowing foreign pilots on Russian airlines is in the approval stage. According to an Itogi source in the Ministry of Transport, it was sent back for revision at the request of the FSB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. But at the highest level, the decision has actually already been made – migrant workers will be in the air. It remains to find out exactly which foreign pilots we will entrust with the safety of our passengers.
Yor Captain Speaking
According to Itogi, today the main bureaucratic struggle is over the requirements that will be imposed on foreign pilots. Do they need a residence permit, knowledge of Russian, citizenship of certain (preferably developed) countries, how many flight hours must they have, and so on... According to Deputy Minister Okulov, these issues can be resolved within six months, and by summer foreigners should take the controls of Russian aircraft.
“Where the pilots come from will depend on the requirements the state sets,” Scaiste Knyzaite, CEO of Lithuanian company AviationCV.com, which searches for crews for airlines, told Itogi. “If, for instance, a PIC (pilot in command) needs a total of 2,000 flight hours and 500 hours as a captain, then such pilots can be found in Ukraine or Poland. If the requirements turn out to be stricter, it will be more difficult.”
According to AviationCV.com, Russian airlines will receive 500 new aircraft in the next 5 years. And that's not counting leasing in the second-hand market. Each aircraft will require 16 pilots. This means that the real need will significantly exceed the 2,000 mark. At first glance, filling these vacancies with foreigners should not be difficult. According to experts, today 5% of experienced pilots worldwide are unemployed – that's about 12,000 people, due to a series of airline bankruptcies caused by the crisis.
However, this is most likely a temporary phenomenon, and with economic recovery, they will quickly find work at home. This is especially true for Western countries. “There is no surplus of PICs anywhere,” says Scaiste Knyzaite. “On the contrary, many countries are now experiencing a shortage of experienced personnel.” For example, according to a study by Boeing, by 2031 all airlines worldwide will need 460,000 pilots. Demand will be highest in the growing economies of Asia (186,000), Europe (100,000), North America (69,000), Latin America (42,000), and Africa (15,000). In Russia and the CIS, Boeing believes, fewer pilots will be needed than on the Black continent – only 12,000.
With this level of demand, our market is unlikely to be attractive to Americans and Europeans. American migrant pilots are generally rare on the external market, since the domestic US air transportation market is huge.
Temporarily unemployed Europeans prefer to go to Asia, where conditions and salaries are better. On the eve of the Beijing Olympics, for example, all Chinese pilots were required to switch to English in radio communication, because Europeans flying on local airlines complained about misunderstandings. Last year, Air France sent as many as 450 of its pilots to Indonesia on seasonal contracts.
In short, there are no extra aircraft commanders on the Western market. Russian airlines, like our economy as a whole, can only count on specialists from neighboring countries. Many pilots from the CIS fly both in the post-Soviet airspace and in the skies of third world countries. Today, their services are beginning to be refused in some places. For example, in India, which promised to completely replace all foreign pilots with its own by December 2013.
As a result, a substantial contingent of fairly experienced aircraft commanders is being freed up, who also do not have such a problem as a language barrier. These are primarily ethnic Russians who remained abroad (mainly in Ukraine) at the dawn of the 1990s or left to work in exotic countries.
If you recall any report of an aviation accident somewhere in Africa, the pilots usually turn out to be Russian or Ukrainian. Former Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Air Force Pyotr Deinekin said in an interview with Itogi: 'We will get losers who were unable to find a place in Western airlines.' Why, it is asked, can migrants work as minibus drivers but not sit at the controls of Russian planes?
Only a radical restructuring of the pilot training system in Russia itself could help avoid such a development.
Kids learn to fly
The problem of a shortage of flight personnel is relevant for many countries. For example, in the Kazakh airline Air Astana, Kazakhs only occupy the seats of co-pilots, while Americans and Canadians serve as commanders. Only in 2011, the airline sent 35 of its pilots to study in the USA, who are to become aircraft commanders. That is, hiring migrant workers may be a temporary measure designed to give their own pilots a head start for retraining to fly modern aircraft. True, for Russia such a task looks much more ambitious than for any other post-Soviet country.
Today we have 16 aviation educational institutions. Only 5 of them graduate pilots. The rest train technical personnel. In 2011, 902 people were admitted to flight schools for full-time study. Five years ago, such a large intake was only a dream. However, the authorities are wary of excessive optimism. 'Even if we reach 1,000 graduates, it will not give anything if we do not rebuild the schools,' an official close to the preparation of the bill on foreign pilots tells Itogi. 'This means purchasing new equipment and simulators. After all, several hundred students need to be distributed among training aircraft. The norm per machine is 5-7 people.'
For example, at the Ulyanovsk Higher Aviation School of Civil Aviation (UVAU GA), in 2011 there were only four aircraft for 230 students. There is another problem: who will teach the cadets? Officially, the average salary at the same school is 17 thousand rubles. 'Many cannot stand it and leave to become pilots at airlines,' says Vladimir Pyrkov, commander of the first flight detachment of UVAU GA.
In Russia, people learn to fly at state expense. From Russian free schools, pilots emerge 'raw' after 5 years of study, and airlines spend another 1.5-2 years training them at their own expense. It often happens that after that they go abroad. 'The country uses budget money to cover the shortage of pilots abroad,' comments Roman Gusarov, editor-in-chief of the Avia.ru portal. 'After all, our pilots can easily leave the country.'
For comparison: in Europe and the USA there is a three-stage training system, which is paid for by the students themselves, usually taking out a loan that is more than repaid during work. First you get a private pilot license (PPL), which will cost $4-6 thousand, then a commercial pilot license (CPL, $40 thousand), and finally an airline transport pilot license (ATPL, $60 thousand). After that, you can safely get a job.
The Ministry of Transport said that 'abandoning state flight education would be criminal, since there is no alternative.' At the same time, in the West, business somehow manages to solve the problem of pilot shortage. According to Lufthansa representative in Europe Martin Ricken, the German airline recruits 240-300 newcomers annually. Every single one is trained in its main schools in Germany and the USA. 'We do not take pilots from outside. They all undergo training from scratch. This is part of our safety philosophy: all pilots must have the same background.'
Of course, Lufthansa has much more money than, say, Aeroflot. Revenue in 2011 was 28 billion euros versus 3 billion. But Russia will sooner or later have to switch to a private principle of pilot training. Simply because the state cannot handle this task with budget money under any circumstances. Otherwise, all that remains is to replace the fleet of domestic airliners with foreign ones and also put them under the control of foreign pilots.