Despite rising costs, Indian airlines are still hiring expat pilots

Airline executives say they are forced to look at expats due to a lack of commanders

Arav Joshi, 26, completed his flying course from a New Zealand-based training academy in 2012. After that did not translate into a job, he topped it with a type-rating course from a Pune-based facility in 2014. The total expenditure came to around Rs 50 lakh. He is still without a job. 

He is part of the 7,000-odd who have a commercial pilot licence (CPL) but await a job. They grouse that airlines in India don’t have a system to develop home-grown talent and have to depend on expatriate pilots.

An incident of misbehaviour by an expat pilot of Jet Airways