Dearth of pilots drives demand for training

Updated: 2012-12-28 14:22

By Meng Jing (China Daily)

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 Dearth of pilots drives demand for training

Visitors at the Asian Business Aviation Conference and Exhibition held in Shanghai earlier this year. China is expected to have 2,000 general aviation aircraft by 2015 and the number may rise to 10,000 by 2020. Yong Kai / for China Daily

China is forecast to have 10,000 general aviation aircraft by 2020, but who will fly them?

You have just taken delivery of your $60 million private aircraft, but then comes the expensive bit: You need to find someone to fly the thing.

That is what confronted the Chinese business jet operator Nanshan Jet recently, having paid the equivalent of 45.6 million euros for the world's fastest executive jet, the Gulfstream G650.

"Salaries for a four-member cabin crew including pilots cost us about 5 million yuan ($800,000; 610,000 euros) a year," says Yang Min, marketing director of Nanshan Jet, in East China's Shandong province.

"Not only are they expensive, but they are in high demand and hard to find."

Finding pilots and having to pay more for them than for a small aircraft is not new in China, but increasing demand for pilots in the country's general aviation sector, from the likes of Nanshan Jet, is placing huge pressures on the industry and driving growth in the pilot-training market.

The Chinese general aviation market is still relatively small, with 1,154 aircraft last year. That covers all aircraft used in civil aviation outside commercial passenger aircraft, and takes in aircraft used in private flights and air charter services. But watching that figure grow is akin to watching a light aircraft morph into a jumbo jet. China's skies are beginning to open up as the result of aviation regulations that are gradually being relaxed and as the government gives its full backing to aviation becoming a strategic industry.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China forecasts that the country will have 2,000 general aviation aircraft by 2015 and that just five years later there will be 10,000. Not all demand four crew members like fancy private jets, but the demand for pilots is still more than China can handle, experts say.

"There are about 4,900 certified pilots in China for general aviation, and about half of them are instructors in flight training schools," says Gao Yuanyang, director of the general aviation industry research center at the School of Economics and Management with Beihang University in Beijing.

"But there is a demand for more than 10,000 pilots in the sector. Where to find those pilots is a challenge as well as an opportunity for investors. Many companies in general aviation tend to poach pilots from commercial airlines, which are also suffering from the pilot shortage."

In 2010 there were 24,000 pilots in China. The CAAC hopes there will be 40,000 by 2015. That means an average of 3,200 new pilots are needed a year, but at the moment, existing flight training schools are producing just 2,000 a year.

"With the increasing demand for pilots in general aviation, more effort is needed at the supply end," Gao says.

The CAAC is preparing to offer 120,000 yuan in grants to train each pilot in general aviation, Gao says. Those grants are part of a regulation the CAAC drafted aimed at supporting the growth of the general aviation industry, he says.

Although the policy has yet to be made official, many investors have spotted the golden opportunity, among them AVIC International Aero-Development Corp.

The Beijing company, a subsidiary of Aviation Industry Corp of China, an aircraft maker, has opened two flight schools this year, one in China, and the other in South Africa.

Fu Yuming, vice-president of the company, says it has enrolled 100 students this year, 80 in South Africa and the rest in China.

"We'll keep increasing our training capacity. Our target is to train 400 students a year in 2015."

The flight schools have not turned a profit yet, but given the shortage of supply, such schools will eventually generate high returns, he says.

"One of the main reasons for China's pilot shortage is the cost of training a pilot, as high as 2 million yuan."

Another reason is the country's closed skies, he says.

"About 70 percent of China's airspace is controlled by the military, and lower-altitude airspace is still not fully opened."

More open airspace means lower training costs, which explains why the company has a school in South Africa, he says.

The dearth of pilots and the high cost of training them have attracted the US company Zulu Flight Training, a distributor of the flight simulator Redbird, to China.

Gloria Liu, general manager of Zulu Fight Training, says it brought two flight simulators to the Zhuhai Air Show last month for demonstration and sold one in the first three days of the show. It was to be delivered to a pilot training school in Xi'an immediately after the show.

A simulator can significantly reduce flight training costs, she says.

"It is very cost effective. Right now there are still a lot of limitations in China from the airspace to airports. A simulator is so much cheaper compared with an aircraft, so it is a great first step for Chinese schools to set up their operation."

Redbird, the simulator maker, has sold 300 of them worldwide since 2008, but Liu, as a distributor, is thinking of opening up an office in Beijing to further develop the Chinese market.

"Markets in Western countries are quite well developed, but the market in China is just picking up with endless opportunities."

mengjing@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 12/28/2012 page5)