After being thrust into crisis by COVID-19, the aviation industry faces yet more trouble as the world emerges from the worst of the pandemic to find there is likely to be a shortage of pilots after thousands were laid off or decided to retire.
Government policies such as mandatory vaccinations for trainee pilots and travel curbs have also kept a new batch of potential aviators away, said Bhanu Choudhrie, chief executive officer of Alpha Aviation Group, which runs flying schools in the United Arab Emirates and the biggest in Southeast Asia’s training hub, the Philippines.
Alpha Aviation has trained more than 2,500 pilots for carriers including Philippine Airlines, AirAsia Group, Cebu Pacific Air Inc and Air Arabia.
Modern, longer-distance narrow-body aircraft such as Airbus SE’s A321 XLR jets — due to be delivered from 2023 — are to require more pilots than earlier models, compounding the shortage, Choudhrie said from London.
“Airlines are going to continue to buy, modernize their fleets, and as they do that, they are going to require pilots,” he said. “The market is getting interesting again, and we’re starting to see that upward trend, we’re starting to see airlines come to us and say: ‘Look this is my delivery schedule, can you have pilots ready for me in two years time?’”
Many airlines are aggressively trying to rehire pilots, as well as cabin crew and ground staff, but that has not been a simple process, and some jobs are left unfilled. Careers in the industry no longer look as secure as before.
It takes 18 to 24 months to train a pilot, Choudhrie said
This means carriers must work on getting them ready way ahead of the delivery of new aircraft, including narrow-body jets, such as the A321 XLR, which can fly longer.
Airlines typically order aircraft years in advance given the limited production capacity of plane manufacturers.
ELECTRONICS BOOST: A predicted surge in exports would likely be driven by ICT products, exports of which have soared 84.7 percent from a year earlier, DBS said DBS Bank Ltd (星展銀行) yesterday raised its GDP growth forecast for Taiwan this year to 4 percent from 3 percent, citing robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI)-related exports and accelerated shipment activity, which are expected to offset potential headwinds from US tariffs. “Our GDP growth forecast for 2025 is revised up to 4 percent from 3 percent to reflect front-loaded exports and strong AI demand,” Singapore-based DBS senior economist Ma Tieying (馬鐵英) said in an online briefing. Taiwan’s second-quarter performance beat expectations, with GDP growth likely surpassing 5 percent, driven by a 34.1 percent year-on-year increase in exports, Ma said, citing government
UNIFYING OPPOSITION: Numerous companies have registered complaints over the potential levies, bringing together rival automakers in voicing their reservations US President Donald Trump is readying plans for industry-specific tariffs to kick in alongside his country-by-country duties in two weeks, ramping up his push to reshape the US’ standing in the global trading system by penalizing purchases from abroad. Administration officials could release details of Trump’s planned 50 percent duty on copper in the days before they are set to take effect on Friday next week, a person familiar with the matter said. That is the same date Trump’s “reciprocal” levies on products from more than 100 nations are slated to begin. Trump on Tuesday said that he is likely to impose tariffs
HELPING HAND: Approving the sale of H20s could give China the edge it needs to capture market share and become the global standard, a US representative said The US President Donald Trump administration’s decision allowing Nvidia Corp to resume shipments of its H20 artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China risks bolstering Beijing’s military capabilities and expanding its capacity to compete with the US, the head of the US House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party said. “The H20, which is a cost-effective and powerful AI inference chip, far surpasses China’s indigenous capability and would therefore provide a substantial increase to China’s AI development,” committee chairman John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican, said on Friday in a letter to US Secretary of
‘REMARKABLE SHOWING’: The economy likely grew 5 percent in the first half of the year, although it would likely taper off significantly, TIER economist Gordon Sun said The Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) yesterday raised Taiwan’s GDP growth forecast for this year to 3.02 percent, citing robust export-driven expansion in the first half that is likely to give way to a notable slowdown later in the year as the front-loading of global shipments fades. The revised projection marks an upward adjustment of 0.11 percentage points from April’s estimate, driven by a surge in exports and corporate inventory buildup ahead of possible US tariff hikes, TIER economist Gordon Sun (孫明德) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy likely grew more than 5 percent in the first six months