Visit our Pilots Forum www.scudrunners.com
Bangalore India, The fallout of the Covid 19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc with the aviation industry. Pilots the world over have been furloughed and laid off with an uncertain future. Pre Pandemic many experienced pilots had turned there attention overseas to emerging market countries. Airlines where growing at such a rate many had trouble keeping their flight decks staffed.
“India was one of those markets that seemed to have an endless growth potential for air travel” Said K.P. Smith of Smith Aviation Consulting based out of Hong Kong. “This pandemic has given an opportunity for airlines to catch up on hiring and has slowed expansion plans to a manageable level” he adds.
Prakash Ganipoli a 19 year old “pilot” may have the worst timing to start a career. “I logged over 200 hours on Microsoft Flight Sim and countless more dog fighting on the Battlefield video game series, preparing for my career”. “Now I think all that time and the 230 Rupees I spent on my Licence at the market has all been for not”
Prakash saved up the 230 Rupees doing odd jobs on Fiverr and like many of India’s pilots he had high hopes to get out the tech sector and into the cockpit of a high flying airliner. Prakash had two interviews and a start date at a national airline, however he received the devastating news on April 2 his ground school being cancelled.
” I did what I was told to do, I followed all the rules needed to become a pilot here, I even offered to pay the recruiter to let me fly, but that didn’t help” Prakash said sounding depressed. He added ” I really don’t want to go back to designing T-Shirts for stupid Aviation Forums”.
Visit www.Scudrunners.com coming soon, our new aviation T shirt Store!
