THE future captains of India's
burgeoning airline industry
take a breather while waiting
for their turn to take the
licensing examination at the
Philippine Air Transportation
Office.



Indians flocking to RP flying

schools on 'boom' forecast

By Recto Mercene
Reporter


INDIA, the seco
more

THE future captains of India's
burgeoning airline industry
take a breather while waiting
for their turn to take the
licensing examination at the
Philippine Air Transportation
Office.



Indians flocking to RP flying

schools on 'boom' forecast

By Recto Mercene
Reporter


INDIA, the second economic
powerhouse in Asia after
China, is preparing itself for
a forecast boom in its airline
industry by sending 21,000
would-be pilots to learn from
other countries, and in the
Philippines about 1,000 of
them are already learning how
to fly.

This was gathered by
BusinessMirror from an
interview with Ronie Briones,
a senior aviation-safety
officer of the Air
Transportation Office, which
issues certificates to
qualified pilots, air
carriers, airline operators
and chartered airline
companies.

He said there are also other
foreigners learning to fly
here but most of them are from
India; the rest are from
Nepal, Pakistan, Sudan, Saudi
Arabia, Malaysia, Korea, Japan
and China.

The Indians are enrolled in 39
flying schools, 19 of them in
the National Capital Region.
The rest are scattered in
Cebu, Clark, Dumaguete and
Zamboanga, where the student-
pilot starts by flying the
single-seater Cessna 150,
Piper Tomahawk or the
four-seater Cessna 172.

Aeroflight, one of the flying
schools near Villamor Air
Base, has about 300 Indian
students enrolled and one of
them, Manish Pratap Singh, a
20-year-old from Uttar
Pradesh, said of the 1,000
Indian students in the
Philippines, about 50 to 60
are women.

He said 21,000 fellow Indians
are learning how to fly in
such places as the United
States, Canada, Australia, and
New Zealand besides the
Philippines.

'This is a very competitive
profession. There is a
potential need of about 3,000
to 4,000 pilots in the near
future but five times of that
are enrolled in flying schools
all over the world,' said
Singh.

Abhimanyu Talwar, another
20-year-old trainee from New
Delhi, is enrolled at the
Flight and Simulator Training
School with a dozen other
fellow Indians. He chose to
come to the Philippines rather
than the US or Australia
because it takes less time to
graduate here.

'The flying hours required [in
the US or Australia] are the
same to be a licensed private
pilot but I can finish the
course here in six months,
while it would take me more
than a year if I take the same
lessons in Australia or New
Zealand,' he says.

He pays about P7,000 per hour
of flying and would have spent
about P2.3 million by the time
he has logged about 40 hours
to get his private pilot
license.

In India, he says that the
government requires he should
have accumulated 1,500 flying
hours before he gets accepted
by the airline companies.

According to Briones, many
foreigners choose the
Philippines over other
countries because they can
easily get student visas or
special student permits.

Nikhil Mittal, 19, from New
Delhi, said he finds it easy
to study in the Philippines
because of the proficiency of
the Filipinos in English. He
also said it would take him
two years to get his license
in India because of the lack
of training planes and flight
instructors.

He is confident of making it
as a commercial airline pilot,
saying there are 10 or 12
airline companies in his
country, Air India being the
biggest.

Mittal, whose father is in the
pharmaceutical business, said
many fellow Indians are taking
to the air, lured by a high
salary that averages at about
$12,500 (P512,500) a month.

Most of the students
interviewed by the
BusinessMirror agree
Philippine flying schools have
high standards with very
proficient instructors. Mittal
said 'the quality is better
than India.'

On studying in neighboring
Asean countries, Singh said it
is difficult to enroll in
Bangkok because a would-be
pilot needs to be a Thai
citizen, while Malaysia
enforces a different law when
it comes to foreign students
wanting to fly there.

Maynard Halili, owner of
flying school Airwork, said
these Indian students mostly
come from well-to-do families,
or are sponsored by an Indian
company.

Ironically, his school has no
Indian student because they
accept only corporate or
helicopter pilots for advanced
training, one of the few
schools catering to the
'high-class' status.

Briones said he found the
Indian student first rate in
passing a grueling examination
that encompass rules of the
air, navigation,
weight-and-balance,
meteorology, civil air rules,
and search and rescue.

There is a separate test on
powerplants, which is about
aircraft engines.

Category Sports

Tags india, pilot, philippines, train, high, quality, haryana, ato, Air, transportation, office, asia, plane