India’s Aviation Market Surges

With domestic air travel forecast to grow by 25% a year for the next five years, the Indian aviation market is booming.  Aircraft manufacturers, as well as India’s carriers and the government, are hustling to keep up with it.  The demand for pilots is great — and India is unable to train a sufficient number of pilots to meet demand.  This is an excellent opportunity for expatriate pilots to be hired.

In April, the U.S. and India signed an Open Skies agreement; starting this month U.S. carriers are expected to raise the number of of flights between the two countries by 84%.  Including flights operated by Indian carriers, the number of lifhgts between the two countries is expected to rise 70%.

To meet the demand for new aircraft, Boeing plans to deliver 492 aircraft to Indian carriers in the next approximately 15 years.  It has revised its previous estimate upward from 370 aircraft for this period.

To accommodate this increase, India is also investing heavily to upgrade airport infastructures — new terminals, runways and airport roads are being built, and a second airport in Mumbai is being planned.