Blue skies ahead for China's pilots

By Xin Dingding (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-12-06 09:27

As the specter of redundancy looms over workers around the world, China's pilots are flying high in the knowledge that their skills are still very much in demand.

Hu Tao, spokesman for China Southern, the nation's largest airline by fleet size, told China Daily on Friday that the company plans to recruit 400 trainee pilots next year.

"The market turbulence will not interfere with our recruitment plan," he said.

The number of trainee pilots we recruit each year correlates with the number of new aircraft we have delivered, he said.

As the airline does not plan to postpone the delivery of any aircraft next year, the recruitment program will continue as planned, Lu Kai, another China Southern official, said.

Since 2005, the airline has recruited at least 400 high school graduates as trainee pilots every year, he said.

Sichuan Airlines, one of the country's smaller carriers, has said it too will be looking to recruit more pilots next year, but mostly foreigners.

Speaking in Beijing on Thursday, on the sidelines of a forum on pilot training, Guo Zhihong, director of the airline's flight standards and training department, said: "We will take delivery of five Airbus A320 aircraft next year, and will need more foreign captains to fly them. We need to hire about 20 to 30 pilots this year and next."

Smaller carriers, like Sichuan, cannot afford to wait the four years it takes for trainees to gain their pilot licenses, he said.

"We have hired seven captains from the United States this year, but we wanted 10.

"We hope to attract more next year, as many foreign airlines are suffering in the sluggish market and there should be more pilots available," he said.

But competition for foreign pilots among Chinese carriers is fierce, Guo said.

"In recent years, lots of domestic airlines have been trying to recruit foreign captains," he said.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) forecast earlier that China will need 11,000 pilots between 2006 and 2010, 9,000 of which will come from flight schools, with the remainder being met by foreign fliers.

By the end of last year, the CAAC had awarded licenses to 485 foreign pilots.

Peng Zhenwu, manager of the pilot recruitment office with cargo airline Yangtze River Express, said that one of the difficulties in attracting pilots from overseas is that Chinese firms often cannot afford to pay the same salaries as their foreign counterparts.

"Domestic airlines simply can't match the wages paid in more developed countries," he said.

Even if airlines do manage to recruit foreign pilots, there are still cultural difficulties to overcome, he said.