India’s Aviation sector is witnessing a high growth trajectory and is currently one of the fastest growing aviation markets in the world. The rapid growth has however been hamstrung by shortage of appropriate skills comprising not only trained pilots but also aircraft engineers, technicians, cabin crew, ground handling staff, cargo handling and airport management staff. The boom in aviation sector in the country has led to the challenge of bridging critical skill gaps in almost all sub-sectors of aviation.
While number of measures have been initiated by the Union Government under National Civil Aviation Policy 2016, it is time that the policies are translated into key strategic interventions to meet the current and future requirement of quality skilled workforce for aviation sector namely skill gap analysis; future projections of skilled manpower; institutional strengthening; augmenting infrastructure and capacity building; re-engineering of training process; augmenting funding mechanisms; and placing a robust mechanism for monitoring, evaluation and certification.
Ministry of Civil Aviation, Aviation Industry and all stakeholders, need to integrate and coordinate their efforts to bridge the skill gap in a time bound manner, if India has to become the third largest air passenger market in the world by 2024.
Chaired and Moderated the panel discussion at 5th PHD Aviation Summit 2019 on ‘Skilled and Safe Skies for Tomorrow’ at New Delhi.
