UAE: Thousands of aviation jobs, training opportunities as industry faces shortages

With travel and tourism taking a leap over the past three years, a massive demand for pilots is creating gaps in the market that may be leading some airlines to compromise quality to fill gaps.

Boeing announced last year that around 650,000 new pilots are needed within 20 years, out of which 58,000 are needed in the Middle East. The estimate indicates the annual demand will reach 32,500 pilots, compared to only 4,500 pilots entering the industry per year over the last two decades.

“The demand is almost seven times more than what’s available. The aviation training industry is not moving at the same pace as the rising demand,” said Capt. Abhishek Nadkarni, CEO of the Sharjah based pilot training academy Pier Seven.

Stay up to date with the latest news. Follow KT on WhatsApp Channels.

The reason being that pilot training is quite expensive and complex. “In the past, only 20 per cent of trained pilots made it to airplanes, the remaining 80 per cent don’t make it. But now airlines are recruiting people with lower calibre because there aren’t enough pilots to meet the demand.”

There should be more support from airline companies to sponsor young people into entering aviation schools, he said, as many may be reluctant to spend a lot of money on pilot training and risk not being selected to run an aircraft in the end.

Nonetheless, Pier Seven has witnessed a surge in demand, training 500 pilots in the past three years, with plans to expand its training capacity to include 14 flight simulators by 2026.

“We train pilots who have already finished their initial pilot training on specialised aircraft.” Since its inception in 2014, Pier Seven has trained more than 1,500 pilots.

An Abu Dhabi exhibition aims to fill the industry’s shortage by introducing the Middle East Aviation Career Zone (MEAC). Air Expo 2024 kicked off yesterday at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (ADNEC). The seventh edition of the three-day event gathers 50 airlines companies and 40 training academies with hundreds of students and 20,000 expected visitors.

"We aim to use Air Expo 2024 as a platform to inspire youth to explore all aviation roles, from ground operations to the skies,” said Didier Mary, CEO and Founder of Air Expo.

“We created MEAC to address the rapid growth of the industry in the UAE and around the world. During Covid and after the pandemic, aviation almost lost millions of jobs, and some aircraft carriers almost went bankrupt.

"But now, two years after Covid the recovery is massive, and the number of aircraft is 10 per cent more than before. Therefore, the aviation leap is not only a speculation but a reality.”

For instance, Emirates managed to recover Covid losses within a period of six months. "It expanded its fleet massively last year, so did Etihad, and we are only talking about the two national carriers. This has been the situation in almost all over the world,” he added.

• UAE travel: Arrive 4 hours prior to departure for Toronto flights, Etihad tells passengers