India presses for global code of conduct over pilot poaching

By Allison Lampert and Aditya Kalra

MONTREAL/NEW DELHI (GWN) -India needs international locations to agree a new code of conduct on hiring each other’s airline employees after raising issues that its fast-growing aviation system is being stifled by the poaching of Indian pilots and cabin crew without sufficient discover.

India, one of the world’s fastest-growing aviation markets, is wrestling with a scarcity of skilled pilots, denting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s aspiration of developing a job-creating global aviation hub. The latest deadly crash of an Air India jetliner has sparked tighter scrutiny of the sector.

But international airways are repeatedly hiring expert employees from Indian airways, “adversely impacting India’s ability to develop its civil aviation sector in an orderly manner,” India said in an August 1 working paper submitted to the U.N.’s aviation company, the International Civil Aviation Organization.

“Airlines from other (countries) tend to recruit experienced pilots, engineers, technicians, and cabin crew from Indian carriers, preventing India’s civil aviation sector from achieving planned and orderly growth,” India wrote in the paper, without figuring out any international airline by title.

“This practice creates a vicious cycle where Indian carriers are forced to continuously recruit and train replacement personnel by diverting resources from expansion activities and operational improvements.”

The paper was launched on the ICAO web site forward of its triennial meeting. It has not beforehand been reported.

India’s Civil Aviation Ministry was not immediately out there for remark.

India’s authorities said in April the nation would need 30,000 pilots over the next 15–20 years, up from the current 6,000–7,000, as airways collectively had more than 1,700 plane on order.

India’s home aviation sector is led by IndiGo and Air India, while all major worldwide airways from Emirates to British Airways to Lufthansa operate common flights. In 2023, Air India exchanged barbs with Akasa Air over the poaching of pilots domestically.

The working paper asks for the creation of a code of conduct on the motion of expert aviation employees among ICAO’s member international locations.

It does not specify how the code of conduct would work.

“These challenges cause economic losses that affect Indian carriers’ ability to compete in international markets … and achieve its ambitious target of 300 million domestic passengers by 2030,” the paper said.

ICAO, which seeks to use consensus to set requirements on the whole lot from runways to seat belts, was created after the United States invited more than 50 allies to agree in 1944 to a common air navigation system.

(Allison Lampert in Montreal and Aditya Kalra in New Delhi. Editing by Mark Potter)