BEFORE now, unemployed pilots were virtually unheard of. Being a pilot was glamorous, exciting, and highly rewarding. With their fascinating uniforms, crisply white or black, featuring single-breasted blazers with gold or silver braiding and decorated with insignia akin to naval uniforms, representing his or her duties on board an aircraft, almost every youth coveted becoming a pilot.
Today, things have changed. As at the last count, Nigeria is said to have between 400 and 600 trained but unemployed pilots. Currently grouped under the aegis of Nigerian Professional Pilots (NPP), they are trained and Nigeria licensed.
Kano State is said to be currently training about 100 pilots in Jordan, while the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) is training about 74 in South Africa. The NCAT, Zaria, is set to graduate about 125 in December, while several others are being trained in Ilorin. This means that Nigeria could be having about 500 pilots joining the already swamped market of unemployed pilots in about another year with nowhere to work.
Speaking on the scary scenario, Captain Nogie Meggison, JEdAIr CEO, and Chairman, Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) told The Nation on Sunday, “the situation is this bleak because it is unlike many years ago when the aviation sector was booming, when the profession created a huge demand for commercial pilots, foreign and domestic, landing airline jobs immediately after graduating from flying schools. Then, it was more like something on the tip of a finger. But now, things are no longer so. Today, hundreds of trained pilots, both in Nigeria and in other countries of the world, now roam the streets in search of very scarce aviation jobs. As I speak to you, we have about 180 of them in the NPP list, all with Nigerian licenses. We have some Nigerians getting trained in the USA and other places and if you add all of them, we are talking of about 500-600 Nigerian youths getting trained as pilots waiting to further bloat the ranks of the unemployed in Nigeria. So, what bleeds my heart is that in another year, pilots, who are like fresh breath could become stale, no one would be willing to take the stale breath over the fresh ones. A pilot that does not get into the cockpit after six months is mandated to go for re-training. By the time they are two years out of work, they are no longer considered pilots. They must go for recertification. And we are talking of pilots who have been on ground for two, three, four five years and more.”
Lamenting the state of unemployment in the industry, he said “Today, we have a rough figure of about 150 private jets in this country. And out of these, foreign pilots spend at least 60percent of their time in our country flying these jets. That automatically makes them residents in this country. And to every plane, there are two pilots. What we are saying is, take one foreign pilot and pair him or her with one home-based pilot, and this number will start reducing fast, and let the pair do a rotation one month on and one month off so that the routine will cover every professional pilot. Multiply 150 by four, that gives you 600. Today as we count, those private jets have roughly about 600 pilots flying our air space. But here, we have Nigeria’s younger blood willing to work but not being provided the platform.”
Economic meltdown
Reports show that this problem started with the economic recession of the 1980s and 1990s causing not only stagnation of aviation market, but also huge downsizing, according to an aviation operator at the international wing of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Ikeja, Lagos.
He said “As usual, we all thought that the tough times for a record number of unemployed pilots, would not be something that would become a dilemma. But seeing our future generation of Nigerians still awaiting landing a job with major airlines immediately after graduation is heart-rendering. Truth is, I see the golden-era for piloting job being gone, unless something drastic, as making a law forcing all airline operators to ensure that they employ one foreigner and a Nigerian as the co-pilot. If that is not done, our own younger pilots, being churned out of the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), Zaria, every year, may have a very long time of waiting for elusive jobs as a pilot. In other words, they may have their dreams easily shattered.”
In India, it is reported that the current situation in aviation job market is equally demoralising, with the mood of job seeking pilots, being largely depression.
On a Facebook wall of non-working pilot, it was said that India reports around 6,000 unemployed pilots.
In Europe, online information reports around 8000 jobless pilots being predicted to be residing in that region. And according to what is described as ‘sad statistics results’ on the situation in Europe, it is said that this shows in negative comments in news portals and aviation forums reflecting expectations heavily down in ever getting return on investment in acquiring commercial pilots’ certification.
And according to the Head, Lithuanian Pilot Training Academy, Baltic Aviation Academy, Indre Sveistryte, “life has been tough for the young cadets at the moment and talks have been on the current situation, reasons and solutions.”
He noted that there is a new term “frozen ATPL”, which has become common in the industry as slang for the young cadets with a Commercial Pilot’s license meeting the requirements for issuing of a full ATPL licence to pilot a commercial aircraft, but lacking 1500 hours of flight time to land their dream job offers at commercial airlines.
Sveistryte said when the new wave of students graduated from the flight schools, a downturn was already on with the airline jobs interview doors’ closed. As a result, commercial aviation market at the moment is facing complex challenges- that is, a global surplus of fresh cadet pilots lacking flying hours and a shortage of experienced captains in certain developing markets. He added however, that not all cockpits are closed. There still are some jobs in the market for young cadets, though offering not the best view a young dreamer wants to see from the cockpit window, as it might be not even piloting Airbus or Boeing.
He added that more than 2000 aviation professionals study annually at the Baltic Aviation Academy (BAA) and each of them spends up to 12.000 hours in flight simulators. As an academy, BAA is an institution that specialises in aircraft crew training, aircraft crew formation, consultation services as well as the initial flight courses for the private pilot license which are held at the pilot and flight steward training centre in Vilnius or through a range of European flight simulation centres network.
He said that according to Boeing Current Market Outlook of 2010, the need to support fleet growth and retirements, an additional 466,650 pilots will be required over the next 20 years by the commercial aviation industry, which represents a need of around 23,300 per year. He adds that, Asia Pacific has been the most demanding region over a 20-year period, yet, it requires 180,600 pilots. Similarly, China alone accounts for 70,600 Europe forecast a need for 94,800, North America 97,350, Latin America 37,000, the Middle East 32,700, Africa 13,200 and the CIS 11,000.
But here in Nigeria, it is said that the problems of unemployed aviation graduates are not just compounded by decline in the economy, it is more so because domestic airline operators shun Nigerian pilots as many of them rather prefer to pay extravagantly to hire foreign pilots. This development, aviation expert say, is the major cause of the exceptional increase in the number of unemployed pilots in the country.
Another official told The Nation that there can be little hope for domestic pilots as Nigeria’s chartered and local airline operators prefer foreign pilots. “In fact, even billionaire jet-owners are guilty of same. Yet, most of the job-searching pilots don’t even mind being employed as co-pilots. Can you believe that most of our airline operators do not want to train our local pilots because the money they would spend on them. Up till today, most aviation graduates from Nigeria and overseas flying schools complete their courses with about 250 and 500 flight-hours whereas many airlines are asking for pilots that have between 1,000 and 1,500 flight-hours to employ. So, you see that we have a dilemma on our hands. That is why you are seeing our pilots trained in NCAT, many from South Africa, United States of America (USA), and others from aviation schools in Europe, as well as a few others, being made redundant by Nigerian airline employers.”
Expressing her concern over the development, NCAT Chief Executive Officer, (CEO), Captain Chinyere Kalu, said things were not like this in the past. “Few years ago, airlines used to employ pilots and train them on the job. It is thus a big blow why the tradition was unexpectedly stopped by domestic airline operators. She said it seems what the airline operators may be dodging is training of home-based pilots to get the type-rating.” According to her, it often costs airliners a fortune to send pilots for type-rating on Boeing 737 for instance. Another aspect the airliners are wary of is that some of the locally trained pilots could leave their services for higher paying jobs after they might have spent huge sums of money in training them.
On an optimistic note a new government policy on pilot employment is already in the offing to address the problem. If implemented, the policy will spell out to she says airline operators that after training the students, they have to work for their employers for a minimum number of years before they can leave.
Hope on the horizon
Kalu, expresses the hope that as regional airlines are being set up will provide a soft landing for freshly graduated pilots from NCAT and other colleges where they could work and build up the required number of hours to acquire, at least, jet engine rating to be like a stepping stone for them to get to the next level. That is being highly hoped for. Sadly, many of the regional jets are also being manned mostly by foreigners. “But I believe that with a policy in effect, Nigeria will insist that our own trained citizens must be the ones flying the aircraft as that is what obtains in the USA and most countries of the world.”
Meggison adds: “My heart bleeds at the plight of these brilliant set of Nigerians. And you can’t tell me they are the future of Nigeria when as a matter of fact, you, the government, makes no provisions for their future, which already, is wasting away today.
“As we speak, there are over 600 of them though they don’t want to show their faces and names lest they are dubbed rebels. But I weep seeing how their future ebbs by the day and their hopes for career as pilots dim. So, you want to ask, why do we have many foreign pilots in the country and allow our own trained to remain unemployed? Have you tried to see the brilliant resumes of some of these young pride of ours in the country? You need to see them and then you will agree with me that we must address this issue as a matter of urgency.
“I had expected that the newly introduced government policy on private jet would address the problem. But alas, we are still on it. You have governors, the Nigerian Police and many private owners purchasing private jets and still employing the services of expatriates. Why don’t they give these ones a chance, watch them grow as experts and then, Nigeria’s future is richly ensured? But no, they won’t do that. Unless we get foreigners, we are not sure of our own. For me as a person, I am seriously displeased that foreigners have taken over pilot jobs from our young pilots. And unless this is stopped, their numbers will rise.
“We have some that had been out of jobs as pilots for upward of 10 to 12 years. They don’t just want to show their faces. Some of them have taken up other menial jobs for survival. Many of them had first degrees before delving into training as pilots. So, we are not talking about failures or layabouts. We are talking of brilliant, promising Nigerians. ”
A female aviation official said the high number of foreign pilots is as a result of the fact that the bulk of the planes are foreign-registered and are on “wet-lease”. This means that the aircraft can only be flown by foreign pilots.
She added, “Expatriate pilots must not continue to dominate our aviation market to the detriment of our local pilots. We have an estimated minimum of 800 expatriate pilots flying in Nigeria whereas we have just about 200 Nigerian pilots out of job. So, all we need is for our government to make it a 50-50 case by saying every one foreign pilot must have a Nigerian co-pilot in the cockpit. We need to have deliberate transfer of technology and skills to the younger generation. That is the only way our Nigerian pilots can have a fair share of the jobs in the Nigerian aviation industry. ”
However, many experts spoken to say that the reasons for not employing many of these young Nigerian pilots could be that they are not type-rated to work on certain aircrafts. They then suggested that the situation can only be resolved when our government shows commitment to the plight of this young Nigerians, formulate policy and above all, invest in standard aviation facilities particularly in the areas of training and simulation capabilities.
