Shortage of pilots looms as global demand swells

With the increasing demand for commercial pilots in the global aviation industry, not only the country is expected to experience shortage of pilots but as well as other countries worldwide, revealed an executive from a flight school based here in Cebu.

“The improved aviation industry and the increasing worldwide demand for pilots in commercial flights would result to a shortage of pilots especially that after the 911 bombing major flight schools in the US have closed and stopped producing pilots,” said the chairman and chief executive officer of Aviatour Capt. Jessup M. Bahinting in an interview.

Aviatour, which is based in Mactan-Cebu International Airport is the first and the only full-service fixed base operator (FBO) servicing the general aviation industry in the Philippines' central and southern islands.

Bahinting revealed that the flight school is so far getting mostly foreign enrollees from India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and even as far as Afghanistan and Nigeria.

He said that currently they have 108 students and most of these came from India, which he said could be accounted for the economic boom that is happening in their country and also the fact that most of these students are provided study loans by banks in India.

“Since India is economically booming, most of them can now afford to travel through air so they need more pilots and it’s much cheaper to study in a flight school here than in their own country,” he said.

Bahinting revealed that in the international aviation industry, India is actually needing about 30, 000 pilots in the next five years whereas China would be needing 15, 000 to 30, 000 and America also needs about 30, 000 pilots. He added that the demand for pilots around the world is really enormous but the supply of pilots nowadays is very short.

In fact, the United States of America which is the number one producer of pilots worldwide cannot sustain this great number of pilots demanded by the worldwide industry.

But even if they are currently enjoying the influx of these foreign students, however, Bahinting is also eyeing to attract more Filipino students to enter flight schools and take advantage of this in-demand career opportunity.

“We as much as possible encourage local people also especially parents to enroll their sons or daughters in a flight school. We tell them to bear with the huge expenses of the program because there is a much bigger guaranteed return of investment in the future,” said Bahinting.

He added that in the country, there are a lot of potential manpower to address the increasing demand of pilots worldwide but the major hindrance is the lack of financial capability especially that flight school programs are very expensive.