Shanghai Airlines has hired 8 foreigners from the US, Norway, Venezuela and the Philippines to serve on its freight planes since the second half of 2005. It has more than 300 pilots nowadays.
Introduction of foreign aids highlights the current situation of pilot shortage in China's aviation market. In recent years, the scale of Shanghai Airlines fleet keeps expanding at a rate of 30% every year. The company added 9 new planes in 2004 and 7 last year, and its fleet is now composed of 42 planes. Such fast-growing transportation force forms a sharp contrast with the periodic lag of pilot nurture. According to a director of Shanghai Airlines, it will take at least 8 to 10 years and several million yuan to train a green hand to a qualified plane commander. These 8 to 10 years is precisely the golden season of rapid growth for domestic airline companies, hence introducing foreign pilots becomes a natural choice.
Shanghai Airlines will not be alone in hiring foreign pilots. According to statistics from the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China (CAAC), the total number of pilots serving in domestic airlines is about 11,000, which is well proportioned to satisfy the demand of 800-odd planes at present. Not long ago, a senior official of CAAC indicated that China's civil aviation industry will purchase more than 100 planes every year during the Eleventh Five-Year Plan period and by 2010, China's civil aviation industry will have formed a fleet of 1,250 planes. At such a growth rate, the shortage of pilots in China will exceed 6,000 in the next 5 to 6 years.
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Producer: Li Yongjing