It was reported in the media yesterday (9 Feb) that Indian pilots from Vistara would be flying for SIA and Scoot. The report said that Vistara is working with SIA and Scoot to provide around 20 of its pilots to help fly SIA and Scoot’s planes.

Up to 12 qualified Vistara pilots have been training with SIA since last month, SIA revealed.

“These pilots, who have already been flying with Vistara for a number of years, had to undergo our vigorous selection process and meet all Singapore regulatory licensing requirements,” said the SIA spokesperson. “They will be with SIA for about 12 months before returning to Vistara to pioneer the 787 operations.”

Scoot also said that it was working with the Indian airline to “provide opportunities for up to 12 of Vistara’s flight crew to gain operational experience on Scoot’s Boeing 787 fleet”.

Vistara’s pilots are expected to start flying with Scoot progressively in 2019, supplementing Scoot’s needs as its fleet expands and “reduce numbers needed from external recruitment in the near term”.

“They are expected to be with Scoot for a period of not more than 12 months before returning to Vistara,” Scoot said.

Vistara is a joint venture between Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines which started in 2015, while Scoot is the low-cost air carrier under SIA.

Heavy investment to become a pilot in Singapore

According to Captain Ong, a former RSAF fighter pilot and commercial flight pilot who wrote in his blog, a person who have to spend more than S$150,000 to get his or her Commercial Pilot Licence with training ranging from one to one and a half year long.

Ong writes,

For every Pilot you see strolling their way through immigration and into your aircraft, many others are still jobless. Spending SGD $150,000 for your licence doesn’t buy you a job, the same way that your engineering degree doesn’t come with a job. As a new licence holder, the young pilot has zero experience in operating a large commercial aircraft. Almost 99% of all looking for pilot job listings are airlines who are only looking for experienced pilots. Nobody wants to take in a 200 hour fresh CPL graduate.

There are only 4 airlines in Singapore, and the only airline that is taking in new commercial pilots aggressively is Scoot. So that leaves all new pilots with just one realistic and potential employer. To make matters worse, getting a job in Scoot is not guaranteed. It is competitive as hell. Many other similar licence holders are fighting for limited slots. Be ready for the fight of your life.

We can only imagine the amount of stress the young pilots are going through in the interview. With just one shot for a job after the SGD $150,000 investment, it would not fun to drop out from the selection process.

He also notes that even after one is being successful in one’s applicant, one would also have to pay another $48,000 for his or her Aircraft Training and lists out many other issues that pilots face in their employment.

Indian pilots with fake licence exposed in 2011

While over in India, some pilots went in the easy way. In 2011, a major scandal erupted in the Indian airline industry with multiple pilots caught using fake pilot licence. The scandal began unraveling when a female captain landed her packed airliner on the nose instead of the rear wheels as she touched down in Goa. The pilot was later found to have possessed falsified qualifications.

Further investigations led to more arrests of a number of pilots flying with fake licence. It cast a spotlight on a familiar problem in India, where corruption is widely seen as on the rise. An Indian politician, Baijayant Panda, agreed, “It’s not limited to aviation in India. In many fields, you have a lot of fakery going on.”

To get a pilot licence in India, a trainee needs to complete a minimum 200 hours of flying. Some of the trainees would go on to bribe the instructors so as to get by with just 50 to 60 hours of flying time. And some of these schools even openly “sell” flying hours for a fee.

An investigator said, “A majority of flying schools in India are backed by big politicians.”

The airlines, in turn, blamed India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), which regulates the flight schools and issues pilot licence in India. During the 2011 investigations, several DGCA officials as well as representatives from the flying schools were put behind bars. The DGCA officials were found to be part of a racket to clear unqualified pilots.

Mr Panda blamed India’s huge bureaucracy for incentivizing people to bribe as well as civil servants to collect bribes. “The DGCA has become a humongous bureaucracy and the red tape involved is phenomenal,” he said. “Even genuine pilots, it takes them months and sometimes years to clear the process. This incentives people to go to touts who say ‘why go through the genuine process? I’ll fix it for you’.”

It is a pattern repeated across India, where bribes are frequently paid for driving licences, passports, ration cards for subsidised food, university degrees or even doctor’s certificates.

It’s not known if pilots in India would still fly with fake license these days but SIA would be wise to take heed of the major fake pilot licence scandal erupting in India in 2011 as well as Mr Panda’s words, or re-consider looking for those who got their license here in Singapore for pilots in its companies and joint company.

Subscribe
Notify of
1 Comment
Newest
Oldest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
You May Also Like

MOE to replace streaming with subject-based banding, but the persisting social divide still needs to be addressed

The Ministry of Education (MOE) announced that it will be completely doing…

调查显示:八成年轻人认为未来面临养父母、子女巨大压力

保险公司职总英康(NTUC Company)调查显示,约94巴仙的35至55岁的“三明治一代”(Sandwich Generation)正面临养育孩子和照顾父母的经济压力,并相信未来自己的小孩与孙子亦会困在同样的循环中,成为新的“三明治一代” 三明治一代通常指上要照顾老人,下需抚养子女负担沉重的中年人。他们通常是30-45岁之间的亚洲中年人,“上有老,下有小”的这批人,因被夹在中间的困境,所以被誉为三明治一代。 此外,八成的年轻人(约21-29岁)亦认为自己将会迈入成为“三明治一代“,其主要原因源于平均寿命延长、自己对退休父母的养育责任以及养老金不足的现况。事实上,他们的父母也和他们有如出一撤的想法,有34巴仙的受试者父母认为孩子能够在年老时经济上支援他们,也承认他们很有可能踏上同样的脚步,成为新一代的三明治年龄层。 而大部分的年轻人则认同父母应该及早为自己的退休生活做准备,还有一半的年轻人则担心父母在退休需要依靠他们生活,因此他们认为至少在退休阶段能够维持与孩子的独立经济。 报告亦指出,每5位父母中,已有3位已为自己的退休生活做准备,尽管如此,在这些父母中,近六成的父母却没有为自己的退休生活准备至82岁。目前新加坡的平均寿命已达82岁。 但有趣的是,尽管年轻一代认为自己会陷入三明治的困境中,但觉得自己是可以避免陷入其中,45巴仙的年轻人仍愿意和父母讨论退休事宜,但只有16巴仙的人是真正和父母沟通退休后的生活。 孩子宁付出巨大的牺牲,避免自己成为三明治的后代 另一项比较极端的结果则是,由于三明治一代的影响,新加坡年轻人除了选择作更多财务投资以外,也会选择如不婚或不生小孩,避免自己成为三明治的后代。 职总英康市场总监Marcus Chew透露,“调查结果显示,孩子愿意付出巨大的牺牲来成全年迈父母的老年退休生活,这也反映出当今社会已将孝道的根植于每个人心中,同时也看见目前的经济投资规划是如何带给下一代深刻的影响,因此退休计划并非只是给自己,更是关系到你的后代,如果我们能够及时作出改变,我们的孩子或许就能冲破“三明治一代”的困境。”

PAP’s Aljunied TC failed to provide financial records to new TC

By Terry Xu In the Worker’s Party’s press statement on the Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol-East…

ICA says they have it all under control but do they?

On 28 Dec 2018 , Straits Times published a couple of letters…