India may require 31,000 pilots and some 26,000 mechanics over the next 20 years amid the growing order book of the aircraft original equipment manufacturers, said Salil Gupte, President, Boeing India.
“Considering India's air traffic growth, a lot of focus has to be on making infrastructure robust, both hard infrastructure which includes airports as well as critical infrastructure, which includes pilots, among others.
Last September, Boeing had projected India's air traffic growth at around 7% through 2040.
He also said that after coming out of the pandemic, the recovery in air travel demand has stunned the world and Boeing does not see any impact of the financial crisis on air travel growth.
Commenting on the looming economic crisis Gupte said: “It is too early to know what the consequences of the bank situation of the US and Europe and others are going to be. At this stage, we really see no slowdown in the demand for aviation.”
Stressing India as a booming market for narrowbody aircraft Gupte added: “Over 90% of the market in the next twenty years is going to be a narrowbody market and we expect we will be successful in competing for every single campaign.”