Daijiworld Media Network - Mumbai (MS)

Mumbai, Feb 14: Country's biggest airline in terms of market share, IndiGo, is facing acute shortage of pilots. Because of the same, it has decided to cancel 30 flights everyday till the end of February.

On Wednesday, February 13, the airline cancelled as many as 49 schedules as per the statement issued by InterGlobe Aviation Ltd, the company which runs IndiGo. The total number of flights cancelled so far has shot up to 100 since Friday, February 8.

"The manpower situation of the pilots in our airline is really short but is being handled," said a senior officer of the airline, who wanted remain anonymous. However, the airline cited Wednesday's flight cancellation on various factors like weather forecast for February 14 and NOTAMS (Notices to Airmen) at various airports. The airline says that these issues resulted in extended duty hours, which forced the airline to revise the roster of its crew in order to optimize the operations.

According to the authorities of the airline, these cancellations are made to minimize the effect on the passengers as alternative travel options are offered well in advance.

The present cancellation of 30 flights per day is about 2% of the total 1300 flights that the airline operates every day.

The normal operations are expected to be back on track from March 31.

On the condition of anonymity one more airline industry official said that the present shortage of pilots and the

Subsequent cancellation of flights faced by the airline, is to hire foreign pilots, while seeking relaxations from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to bypass some of the stringent conditions required by overseas pilots to get a Foreign Aircrew Temporary Authorization (FATA) licence.

The anonymous official further said that the whole airline industry itself is putting up with the shortage of pilots, especially the commanders. The situation needs to be looked into at the earliest as the capacity of the carriers is increasing and there are no sufficient pilots to fly the aircrafts.

As per the estimate of Capa India, aviation advisory firm, 17,000 more commercial pilots are required by the country's airlines in the next 10 years. From financial year of 2018 to 2028, 17,000 pilots are needed, out of which, 9,000 first officers are in all probability expected to be promoted to commander level positions.

According to the details available, there were 7,963 commercial pilots in the country as on March 31, 2018.

Indian aviation industry is one of the fastest growing in the world and the country's domestic airlines have placed huge aircraft orders to cater the demand. Every week one new aircraft is being delivered to one or the other of the domestic airlines of India. However, the pilots are not available in the same numbers as the supply of the aircraft, which is forcing the domestic carriers to cancel many flights in the recent past.