Tackling aircraft engineers , pilots unemployment

Tackling   aircraft engineers , pilots    unemployment 

High attrition rate of domestic carriers is swelling the unemployment ranks for aircraft pilots and engineers . With an estimated 600 licensed pilots and engineers out of the cockpit, experts say the coming of a new national carrier and other interventions will resolve the challenge, KELVIN OSA OKUNBOR, reports.

High rate of unemployment among  licensed  aircraft pilots and engineers  is posing serious headache for operators, players and regulators in the  Nigerian aviation sector.

Efforts by government to legislate a policy forcing foreign carriers to engage Nigeria pilots since 2014 has not yielded the right results.

Proclamation by government that foreign carriers flying into Nigeria must have at least a Nigerian pilot and aircraft engineers among their crew is yet to materialize.

While, Nigeria suffers a glut of pilots, other countries in Middle East and Far East are in dire need of pilots to drive the growth of their aviation sector.

This dismal picture contradicts projection by major aircraft manufacturer: Boeing, suggesting that over 248,000 new pilots would be needed to drive the growth of air transport , with China in the Asia - Pacific region  leading the pack.

In Nigeria, pilots' and aircraft engineers'  unemployment is fast becoming   a difficult nut to crack for industry regulator; Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), the National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers (NAAPE) and the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT) as well as  other interest groups in the sector.

Statistics from the NCAA reveals  that there 554 pilots with valid Nigerian licence.

 Data from the regulator, indicates there are over   913 licensed aircraft  engineers with Nigerian licence.

Besides this number lie a growing army of unemployed associate pilots.

The increasing rate of unemployment among such professionals is further worsened  by the high  attrition rate of domestic carriers.

Whenever an airline collapses, the first set of casualties are usually  pilots who hitherto command flights on their aircraft and the flight  engineers who fix such airplanes.

According to global statistics, Nigerian ranks high among  nations where both  qualified and fresh pilots  are in hot chase of non existent jobs.

As Nigerian pilots continue their search for jobs, in airlines struggling to keep afloat; China, for instance would require over 5,000  pilots per year  in the next 20 years.

The demand for more pilots in China is to  to meet the rapid expansion and growth of the local civil aviation industry.

Many Chinese  carriers are scrambling to hire experienced pilots to address the growing shortage.

Though there are two aviation colleges for pilots training in Nigeria, their output hardly secure jobs after graduation due to either insufficient flying hours, type rating and other requirements critical for job placement.  

Speaking in an interview last week in Lagos, NAAPE , President , Comrade Abednego Galadima said the body is designing a template to facilitate the engagement of such unemployed pilots.

He said put together, the number of unemployed pilots and aircraft engineers is averaging over 600.

Such development, which he said is not good for Nigeria , needs to be addressed to tackle the challenge of ageing work force in the sector.

Galadima said NAAPE plans to partner NCAT to enable the associate pilots earn enough flying hours to get employed by indigenous carriers.

Investigations reveal that many associate pilots have difficulties in securing jobs because they lack the required flying hours and aircraft type rating and currency  training to mount the cockpit.

Galadima said : " At some point we have a case where we have over 200-250 unemployed associate pilots. Pilots and engineers put together the number is increasing to around  600  professionals that are not employed and this  is not good for the industry.

This is a big  problem. You know the rate of unemployment in the country. This one is particularly a problem, because these two professions require you to be current and most of the pilots and engineers  were trained with huge sums. So the investment will just be lost if they do not retain currency, because they will not be employable again without currency."  

Galadima called on government to initiate a scheme that will provide a window for unemployed pilots to get further training to make them emplyable.

He said : " That is why we are advocating that government do something. In fact, we have put in a proposal to a number of our partners, we are still looking for more partners to fund it. Just like what the government is doing for the unemployed through the N-Power programme.

 " If that can be extended to aviation, NAAPE is willing to partner with anybody such that if NCAT is given some money, the young pilots will go and build hours flying aircraft there and also use simulator as well. It will help them build more hours to gather more experience and expertise." 

He said the proposal for assistance is not limited to pilots, but also for aircraft engineers.

Galadima said : " For the  engineers too, we are putting a scheme in place in that proposal, where these people can be deployed in various aviation entities where we have senior engineers that will take them through On The Job training and guide them properly. 

" These are the things we are doing. We have a proposal just as I have said and we are approaching the Ministry of Transportation (Aviation Sector) with Local Content Development Board. We will approach Petroleum Trust Development Fund (PTDF), Industrial Training Fund (ITF) and approach their conscience." 

He said the proposed national carrier  will also provide a window to create jobs for the unemployed pilots and aircraft engineers.

Galadima said : " We  are putting an initiative in place. We hope that it would be looked into by the relevant bodies. If  the National Carrier comes, it will be a  plus to us. While the airline will absorb some pilots and aircraft engineers,   It is our hope that some of the unemployed will find somewhere to fit in. 

" Government is  talking about  five  aircraft to start the operation. You know that it will require a minimum of 50 pilots."

Also speaking in interview in Lagos,  Rector , NCAT,  Captain Abdulsalami Mohammed said many  Nigerian pilots are unemployed because they seek to operate commercial airlines after training.

He therefore advised newly trained pilots to seek to fly private airplanes, including sortie aircraft and others under General Aviation to gain experience before applying to operate commercial airlines.

He said  a large number of Nigerian pilots who have operating licenses are unemployed because they tend to seek for jobs with commercial airlines that would rather demand for experienced pilots than to employ those without experience and needs to be type-rated.

Abdulsalami said working with General Aviation was the way it was done in other parts of the world but in Nigeria, newly trained pilots seek to be type-rated on commercial airliners that are becoming increasingly difficult because the airlines would rather not use their aircraft to for training of pilots.

 Mohammed said : “Unemployed pilots is a subject that is dear to me because every day I get a call from someone who wants his son employed or I get a question on why would I bother to come out and train as a pilot when there are no jobs. As you know, we have many  unemployed young pilots in the market and the airlines are reluctant to employ and train them because they claim that when you train some of them they run away." 

Also speaking,  Chairman , Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON), Captain Nogie Meggison,said the  rising number of unemployed pilots has become quite alarming.

He said besides the 100 pilots trained by the Kano State Government a few years ago in Jordan, about 400 other pilots are  unemployed, including ex- agitators from the Niger Delta Region trained under the Federal Government Amnesty Programme.

In his comment,  Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Medview Airlines, Alhaji Muneer Bankole said the unemployment of Nigerian pilots could be traced to the liquidation of the former national carrier: Nigeria Airways Limited in 2004.

He said the liquidation of Airways closed the window    training and type-rating for fresh pilots.

Bankole said if Airways was still in operations, many  unemployed pilots would have been gainfully absorbed to get the requisite experience.

 Meggison cautioned that unless something fast is done, the growing unemployment of pilots may cause a disincentive to the growth and development of the Nigerian aviation industry.

He said  the influx of foreign pilots and engineers in the industry. According to him, there are no fewer than 1,000 foreign pilots engaged by both local and foreign registered airlines and over 500 foreign aircraft engineers employed in the country.

To check the high unemployment rate in the sector, Meggison called for the creation of an enabling policy that would check the influx of foreign pilots and engineers in the industry, stressing that some domestic carriers have done well by engaging some of the pilots.

“The government should compel foreign carriers to set up a line station for aircraft maintenance in the country and employ local engineers to assist in turning around the growth of the sector. They should look into other avenues also. If policies are not put in place the challenge of unemployment of pilots and engineers may not be resolved as soon as possible.

“It is shameful that Nigerian licensed youth pilots are now driving kabu kabu to make ends meet. This is totally unacceptable. Not that there are no jobs, but jobs are taken over by foreigners in the country.“

Like Meggison, Captain Dele Ore, a pilot and former Commander of the country’s Presidential fleet, described the situation of the high unemployment rate in the sector as sordid.

Ore, blamed the pilots’ joblessness on the absence of a well thought-out government policy while lamenting that the development had led to a situation whereby the whole industry was being taken over by foreigners.

While insisting that government cannot force the local airlines to employ Nigerians, as some of them are facing hard times and struggling to survive, Ore advocated a ’deliberate government policy’ that would encourage airlines to ensure that a Nigerian passport holder sits on the cockpit of every aircraft flying in the country’s airspace.

 Bankole one way to solve the problem is for government to compel airline operators to embark on training and retraining of young professionals. The CEO of Medview Airlines declared that though training and type-rating of pilots would improve employment generation for the industry, most of the indigenous carriers are not interested in training of technical personnel, but rather prefer to engage in poaching from other airlines.

“However, in order to solve this problem,” he said, “Government should ask individual airlines to come together and advise It on how to improve the sector. We need commitment from individual carriers on manpower development for us to grow the sector.”

An expert who pleaded not be named said : " As at today, becoming a pilot from scratch costs nothing less than $250,000 and one would have expected that immediately after graduating from flying school either in Nigeria or overseas, they would automatically get jobs, but that is not the case. As the country’s aviation is shrinking, China, Europe and the United States are in dire need of pilots.

"The disadvantage of this is that most of these airlines based abroad are looking for pilots who already have hundreds of hours under their belt and are reluctant to retrain pilots that have been out of jobs for years or have never been employed. "

Last year August, Chinese airlines began massive demand for pilots as they needed to hire almost 100 pilots a week for the next 20 years to meet skyrocketing travel demand. Facing a shortage of candidates at home, carriers dangled lucrative pay packages at foreigners with cockpit experience.

Investigations reveal that the  near collapse of General Aviation in the country has also compounded the woes of these pilots. General Aviation (GA) is the term for all civil aviation operations other than scheduled air services and non-scheduled air transport operations for remuneration or hire.

 General aviation flights range from gliders and powered parachutes to corporate business jet flights. The majority of the world’s air traffic falls into this category, and most of the world’s airports serve general aviation exclusively.

They cover a large range of activities, both commercial and non-commercial, including flying clubs, flight training, agricultural aviation, light aircraft manufacturing and maintenance. 

Investigations also reveal that  few private jets owned by Nigeria’s wealthy elite prefer to employ foreign pilots. One argument for this is that fresh Nigerian pilots just out of aviation school have between 300 and 400 flight hours’ experience while there is a preference by employers for pilots with between 1,200 and 1,700 flight hours, for understandable safety reasons.

An expert said : " The foreign pilots deemed to have the required flight hours were given time and opportunity to do so. Why should it be different for Nigerian pilots.

"The question is, how can they accumulate such hours when they have not been given the opportunity to fly?

"Not only the exorbitant cost, in Nigeria there is another great hurdle; how do you get the required number of flight hours required for the next level after you have obtained your Commercial Pilot License? When the pilot has obtained this license, he is expected to go for type rating; that is specialising in a particular aircraft type. It is after that time that he could be employed as a flight officer.

"In Nigeria, the challenge is there is no platform for the person who has a Commercial Pilot License to type-rate on any particular aircraft. Such platform was provided by the defunct Nigerian Airways, which actually trained most Nigerian pilots that operate today in different parts of the world. But with the demise of the national carrier, there was a plunge to the valley in the area of manpower development in the aviation industry.

Investigations reveal that in many African countries, including :  South Africa Airways, Kenya Airways, Ethiopia Airlines, Air Maroc and Egypt Air are some of the major national carriers in the continent that churn out trained pilots every year and also provide them the aircraft for type rating before they start flying as flight officers.

 Countries like Ethiopia and Kenya supply the Middle East and others pilots and other aviation personnel because they have successful training academy that have lasted for years and they latch on their national airlines, which provide the platform for the trained pilots to garner flight 

Chief Executive Officer,  Aero Contractors, Captain Ado Sanusi  a few years ago said that  Nigerian airlines employ seasoned or  expatriate pilots  for many reasons.

Besides, their reliability, Sanusi said young  Nigerian pilots they don't often stay with the airline that trained them long enough to justify the resources expended on their training.

He said  airlines would be reluctant to take in a pilot who has only accumulated  250 flight hours.

He said : "In developed countries if you finish with 250 hours you don't go to airlines, you go to flying school till you get 1,500 hours before you start coming to fly for airlines. It is when you get Airline Pilot License (APL) before you even come to fly for an airline. But we take them with commercial pilot license, with very low hours, we train them or let us say they even trained themselves, they come to us with very low hours, 250 hours, 300 hours.

"Taking a trainee pilot with that number of hours will increase the airline's insurance premium because the airline is putting an inexperienced, low time co-pilot inside the airplane, increasing the airline's insurance premium and then putting a lot of stress on the aircraft because they are going to be doing training and everything. And when the pilot becomes proficient, then he now says I am paying him small remuneration and he leaves." 

He said  in some airlines in Europe, the pilot trainee pays to get that kind of experience, "When you come in with low flying hours you pay the airline to gain up to 500, 1000 hours on the type of the aircraft. But now I am bringing you in, giving you this training on the aircraft, giving you the opportunity to have this experience, without government incentive to the airline and I am a privately owned company, I am doing business purely on profit basis; I am not doing it on charity. Then after you have been trained, after I have paid my insurance premium very high, after I have suffered a lot on my landing gear because of hard landings that pilots do while training, after I have suffered all that expense in maintenance of the aircraft and other expenses you now say I am paying you little, so you want to leave me and go to another airline".

Megison said he  was worried about the growing numbers of jobless indigenous qualified pilots hence his decision to gather them under the auspices of Nigerian Professional Pilots (NPP). 

" I set up this platform for young pilots who haven’t found jobs as common pool where employers can tap from. It also provides them the opportunity to come together and get acquainted with developments in the aviation sector. 

As at the last count, he said, 170 license pilots have registered as members of the NPP and meet regularly adding that he believes there could be more unemployed pilots who haven’t registered with NPP. 

 “The awareness will also tell industry operators there is a pool of young pilots they can draw from rather than engaging expatriate pilots alone. 

“If we do not address ingenious pilots unemployment, soon we would be shocked with what’s hit us

“So we are looking at opportunities of engaging the government on how best we can reduce pilot unemployment, one of which is to create a better aviation environment for local skills.” he said. 

He said currently expatriate pilots dominate the market to the detriment of local pilots. 

Conservatively, he said, there are on the minimum 800 expatriates’ pilots flying in Nigeria; yet we have just about 200 Nigerian pilots out of job. 

Meanwhile, a pilot with  Bristow Helicopters Nigeria Limited, Captain Akin Oni, has attributed the pilots predicament inability to pass competence tests, and low quality training from overseas training institutions as part of the reasons why many indigenous pilots are unable to secure employment in the aviation sector.

Data obtained from the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority showed that the number of licensed expatriate pilots in the country had dropped from 631 in 2016 to 609 by 2017.

The  number of licensed pilots operating in the country increased from 2,226 in 2016 to 2,356 in 2017.

These pilots are engaged by  passenger and   cargo airlines, five helicopter companies and other charter airlines.

Aviation security consultant and Secretary General of the Aviation Safety Round Table Initiative, Group Capt. John Ojikutu (retd), however, stated that the drop in the number of expatriate pilots was still negligible, considering the number of Nigerian pilots who needed jobs.

“We can’t say we have achieved much until it drops by at least 30 to 50 per cent. Until it drops further, it will not make any sense,” he said.

According to him, there are still many unemployed Nigerian pilots roaming the streets in search of jobs.

Ojikutu noted, “There are quite a lot of pilots who are hanging around, but most of these airlines bring in these expatriates not because of anything, but for capital flight. That figure that shows their number is reducing may be true but is it reasonable enough? The difference is still not much.

“If in 2016 we had over 600 and in 2017, it reduced to 500, it means about 100 of them have left, that would have been better. The onus is on the airlines; if we really want to have more Nigerian pilots, they should absorb them. But to absorb them most times, the airlines ask them to go for type-rating with their money and where will many of them get between $100,000 and $200,000 for that from? These are people who are looking for jobs.”

He stated that in the days of Nigeria Airways, the government sponsored the training of many pilots, a responsibility, which he noted many domestic airlines had refused to take.

“The entire pilots, who were trained by the Nigeria Airways, were quickly employed by other airlines when it was liquidated; they are now old and there is no space for more pilots, and because of that, airlines go out to get expatriates. They bring them in, pay them in dollars rather than absorb and train Nigerian pilots,” he added.

Spokesman of NCAA, Sam  Adurogboye said  one of the ways to decrease the population of unemployed pilots is for the government to set up a system whereby before a foreign airline comes into the country, it will be mandated by law to employ a certain percentage of indigenous pilots.

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