Salary over 250 million/month, Vietnam still has a shortage of pilots
Vietnamese airlines all admit that although they pay pilots very high salaries, it is difficult to recruit them and takes a long time to train them.
Currently, 22 airports nationwide have about 3,500 flights taking off and landing every day. Of these, there are four civil airlines, operating a total of 220 aircraft. It is expected that in the first quarter of 2019, domestic aviation will have 20 more aircraft. Aviation experts say that the growth rate of the aviation industry is hot, accordingly, airlines are lacking pilots.
It takes three years to train a pilot.
Specifically, in the 2018 impact assessment project of Vietnam Airlines (VNA), the number of pilots in 2018 of the airline was 1,100. It is forecasted that in 2019 it will be 1,293 people, by 2020 the demand will increase to 1,340 people and by 2025 it will need 1,570 people.
The airline also admitted that there is currently no recruitment source for the A350 wide-body fleet, and the source from other fleets used for training has been exhausted. For the A321 fleet, the airline has not been able to recruit more. Meanwhile, the source of foreign pilots is limited, because this source is prioritized to choose other Asian airlines.
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| It takes at least three years to train a captain. |
A representative of the organizing and human resources department of VNA said that VNA currently has more than 1,200 pilots, and in the long term, this human resource can take over the work of foreign pilots, which currently account for about 25%. This proactive resource mobilization aims at two goals: cutting costs due to the high income paid to foreign pilots, plus their more rest time, and in the long term, being able to proactively mobilize local resources. In short, foreign pilots have a 6/2 regime, meaning they work six weeks and take two weeks off.
However, this representative said that recruiting pilots is difficult but that does not mean skipping the process. Even co-pilots are very important, if there are no co-pilots, there will be a lack of resources to develop into main pilots. Because the main source of pilots is from experienced co-pilots.
“If we train 300 domestic pilots to fill the vacancies of foreign pilots, it will take at least three years to train the main source of pilots, not including pilots who reach retirement age or change jobs. So, if we take into account both of these factors, it will increase the number of new pilots needed,” the person in charge of VNA human resources calculated.
Highly competitive market
The person in charge of human resources at VNA affirmed that they are always proactive about the next generation of pilots, including the plan for pilots to change jobs due to the attraction of this labor market which is quite competitive. Rather, the labor market in this field is always fluctuating, the rate of pilots changing jobs in recent years has increased due to airlines opening many new routes.
The reporter asked which type of aircraft is currently lacking in the aviation market. This person said that in reality, VNA does not lack pilots of wide-body aircraft such as B787 and A350 for long-haul flights, but lacks pilots of narrow-body aircraft A321. Because long-haul flights consume a lot of pilots, the airline proactively focuses its forces on this route first. As for short-haul flights, usually young pilots trained abroad, VNA continues to train them, they will gain experience, enhance their narrow-body aircraft skills, accumulate experience to become captains, and control large aircraft.
A representative of Jetstar Pacific acknowledged that recruiting pilots is not as easy as other labor resources because the time to train a pilot is very expensive and time-consuming while other airlines are strong and highly competitive. Particularly for the airline's current pilot team, a stable operation plan has been arranged. However, in the long run, the airline must train and add new pilots to meet the increasing operation needs.
Regarding the "newbie" Bamboo Airways, the current fleet is still modest compared to the remaining domestic airlines, however, according to the roadmap, this airline plans to open international routes. At the same time, this airline is negotiating to buy 44 more aircraft including narrow-body and wide-body aircraft to put into operation in the future. Accordingly, to meet the needs of the pilot team, the airline must train, hire or recruit more. Regarding the pilot team, the representative of this airline informed that the airline is currently in the process of recruiting captains, co-pilots and flight attendants and staff.
As for VietJet Air, on its website, it still has a recruitment policy for both male and female basic trainees and A320 pilot trainees. At the same time, the airline also announced the recruitment of pilots to join VietJet Air's fleet.
