Grounded Ambitions: Aviation Expansion Plan In India Ignores the Elephant in the Cockpit
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
View all posts by this Author
By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2026-01-09 13:42:13
About the Author
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
View all posts by this Author
Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu has been on a victory lap. New airports are coming up across the country, airlines are placing massive aircraft orders, and India, we are told, is firmly on track to become a global aviation hub. According to the minister, Indian carriers will induct around 100 aircraft every year for the next 15 years - an expansion of breathtaking scale.
What is equally breathtaking is what these announcements leave out.
Who, exactly, is going to fly these aircraft?
Speaking at the validation flight of Bhogapuram airport earlier this month, the minister proudly cited India's current fleet of over 840 aircraft and the aggressive expansion plans of airlines such as Air India, IndiGo and Akasa. Yet in speech after speech, there has been not a word about pilots - those indispensable professionals without whom airports and aircraft are little more than expensive showpieces.
This silence is not incidental. It reveals a deep and dangerous blind spot in India's aviation policy.
A Crisis Already Underway
India is not facing a hypothetical pilot shortage. The shortage exists right now. The mess after the the FDTL rules kicked in proved it in no uncvertain terms. Airlines are aggressively poaching experienced pilots from one another, driving up costs and destabilising schedules. Regional routes are being quietly abandoned because carriers cannot staff them reliably. First officers are being upgraded to command at the bare minimum experience thresholds. Aircraft are increasingly grounded not for lack of demand, but for lack of crew.
And yet, the official narrative remains stubbornly focused on concrete, steel and purchase agreements with Boeing and Airbus.
The Arithmetic the Ministry Won't Do
The scale of denial becomes obvious with some basic arithmetic. A single commercial aircraft typically requires 12-15 pilots to account for rotations, leave, training cycles and safety norms. Adding 100 aircraft a year means a demand for roughly 1,200-1,500 new pilots annually. Over 15 years, that translates to 18,000-22,500 additional pilots - over and above those needed to operate the existing fleet.
India currently produces an estimated 1,000-1,200 commercial pilot licence holders each year across all flying schools. Even if every single one joined Indian airlines - which they do not - the numbers barely keep pace on paper. Factor in retirements, attrition, medical disqualifications and emigration to better-paying overseas carriers, and the gap becomes unbridgeable. The mathematcis simply do not work.
Why the Pipeline is Choked
This shortage is not due to lack of aspiration. Thousands of young Indians want to become pilots. The failure lies squarely in policy.
First, training capacity is limited. India has fewer than 40 active flying training organisations approved by the regulator, many constrained by outdated aircraft, instructor shortages and limited simulator access. Scaling up under current conditions is slow and uncertain.
Second, the cost barrier is brutal. Pilot training in India typically costs anywhere between Rs 50 lakh and over Rs 1 crore, depending on location and aircraft type. For most middle-class families, this makes aviation an elite profession by default. There are no meaningful government-backed scholarships, no large-scale credit guarantee schemes, and no effort to treat pilot training as a strategic national skill.
Third, regulatory inertia compounds the problem. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation has shown little appetite for manpower forecasting or fast-tracking training capacity. Approvals for new flying schools, aircraft induction and instructors remain painfully slow, discouraging private investment even where demand is obvious.
Finally, there is the steady brain drain. Indian-trained pilots, having invested enormous sums in their education, often leave for airlines in the Middle East or Southeast Asia that offer better pay and clearer career progression. India, in effect, subsidises global aviation while struggling to staff its own cockpits.
Infrastructure Without People
What makes this failure especially galling is that it was entirely predictable. Fleet expansion plans have been public for years. Industry bodies and airline CEOs have repeatedly warned of an impending pilot crunch. Yet there is no publicly articulated, time-bound national strategy to address it.
Where is the plan to dramatically expand training capacity? Where are the subsidised pathways that would allow capable students from ordinary backgrounds to enter aviation?
Where is the coordination between government, regulator and airlines to build structured cadet pipelines? On these questions, the ministry is silent.
Building airports without ensuring pilots to fly from them reflects a governance mindset obsessed with visible assets and ribbon-cutting ceremonies, while ignoring the less glamorous task of human capital development. Airports without pilots are monuments to shortsightedness. Aircraft without crews are just metal parked on tarmacs.
The Price of Myopia
This policy vacuum will have consequences. Airline costs will rise and be passed on to passengers. Smaller cities will lose connectivity as scarce pilots are concentrated on profitable metro routes. Safety margins will come under pressure as operational stress increases. And India's aviation ambitions will quietly underperform their promise.
If the government is serious about making India an aviation powerhouse, it must stop mistaking infrastructure for strategy. A national pilot training mission, rapid expansion of training facilities, financial support mechanisms, regulatory reform and serious retention policies are not optional - they are foundational.
Runways are easy to build. Skilled pilots are not. Until the government acknowledges that truth, India's aviation ambitions will remain grounded - no matter how many airports it inaugurates.
