Jet Airways in U-Turn on Expat Pilot Hiring

Expat Globe

Jet Airways is one of the mainstays of the airline industry and is one of the biggest players in the Indian market with the second highest number of passengers. After earlier committing to a regulator ruling setting out plans to end the use of expat pilots in the India airline industry.

In an attempt to boost the Indian market for highly skilled jobs the DGCA had ruled that Indian airlines would have to only employ locally trained pilots.

According to reports Jet Airways which currently operates over 400 flights per day to 76 destinations worldwide is due to hire 100 new expat pilots to fly its fleet of wide body Boeing 777 airplanes. The company has even employed a recruitment agency to oversee the hirings.

"By March 2013, we will reduce (the number of expat pilots) to 59 from 107. As of March end 2012, we had 207 expat pilots," Jet senior vice-president for commercial finance investor relations KG Vishwanath said.

"The airline has approached foreign pilot firms to supply these pilots. However, as part of the contract obligations, it wants to pay only one-time agency commission and not per pilot per month as per the norms,"