The world's second-largest air travel market will suffer a shortfall of at least 2,000 pilots by 2010 as the growth in air traffic outstrips the nation's ability to train pilots, a senior civil aviation regulator said.
'By the end of the 11th five-year development plan, we will need an additional 9,000 pilots,' said Gao Hongfeng, vice-minister of the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China (CAAC), yesterday during a real-time Internet interview organised by the Xinhua News Agency. 'But, we are only capable of training about 7,000 pilots, leaving a deficit of more than 2,000.'
The regulator allows privately owned companies to offer pilot-training programmes as another way to fill the manpower shortage.
CAAC has adopted austerity measures, such as curbing daily flights to the busy airports of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu and Kunming.
However, Beijing Capital International Airport is undergoing expansion to add a third runway, which will increase daily flights to between 1,400 and 1,500 during the Olympic Games, up from 1,000 next March when the project is completed.
The skies are so crowded that regulators have instituted safety measures, such as curbing flights and suspending new application for airlines until 2010.