Boom in aviation job market for non-technicals

India is the second most vibrant aviation market after China. As the Indian aviation industry going through a growth rate of 25 per cent per annum, job opportunities have multiplied in the field in recent times. As privatisation has resulted not only in a number of private airlines operating in the sector, but new international airlines have also started operations in India. The aviation sector, which is dominated by Air India and Indian Airlines, has seen some remarkable changes in recent years. Private airlines have entered the sector in a big way.

At present, almost 60 airlines which includes domestic as well as international operate from India. India having 250 aircraft flying on the sky, 300 more aircraft are due to be delivered in coming years. Besides the existing Air Deccan, newly launched Spicejet, Go Air and value airline Kingfisher Airlines, there are Indus Airways, Air One, East West Airlines, Magic Air and Crystal Air are getting ready to fly Indian sky soon. Increasing number of airlines and the booming hospitality industry have created wide employment opportunities.

This has resulted into a huge demand for technical as well as non-technical manpower. The demand for technical staffs can be fulfilled over the period of time as India keep on producing more number of pilots, engineer and technical staffs. But as far as non-technical staffs are concerned, India is having a huge pool of English speaking graduates who can easily fulfill that demand. There is a huge demand for non-technical staffs to work in the departments like Finance, Customer Service, Operations, Marketing, Commercial, HRD, Hospitability, Ticketing, Cargo and others. India is very well placed in terms of providing human resource for these departments.

Sanjay Salunkhe, Managing Director of Staff Service Net (Indian wing of Japan based HR firm Staff Service), says that there is a new trend among the job aspirants. Now candidates are very much luring towards new avenues like aviation which is a shift from traditional preferences for jobs in marketing, medical or engineering fields. This industry has now serious aspirants, who want to make it big. The HR and Recruiting firm has also seen increased demand for non-technical staffs from its clients from aviation industry. The HR firm has developed a separate section to cater aviation industry with manpower.

Indian Airlines' retired Managing Director Capt. S T Deo reemphasizes on the current demand for manpower in the Indian aviation industry. Whereas, India's largest private airlines, Jet Airways also agrees that the need for non-technical staffs has increased a lot as Indian aviation industry going through boom period. Jet Airways CEO Wolfgang Prock-Schauer agrees that Indian is self equipped to fulfill this demand as it has huge number of educated population. Garry Kingshott, Chief Commercial Officer, Jet Airways, describes how this aviation boom resulted into creation of lots of demand for manpower in the supporting industries like hospitality, catering, cargo and so many others.

The industry is going to face shortage of manpower in terms of senior pilots, engineers and Air Traffic Controllers (ATCs). At present there are about 1,000 ATCs in India. The ATC staff shortfall is pegged at 40 per cent in New Delhi and 50 per cent in Bombay. India requires 1000 pilots every year and by the start of 2010 India will need 4500 pilots to compete with this growth in the number of aircraft.

India will need some more time to full fill this shot fall of pilots and technical staffs but for non-technical departments India is very well placed.