Why airlines prefer expatriates to trained Nigerian pilots, by Operators

Airline operators have attributed their preference for expatriates and established pilots over unemployed ones to the latter’s lack of experience and the required flying hours.

The operators said no airline in the world would allow a pilot with just 150-hour experience to mount the cockpit of an aircraft.

Recent statistics have shown that over 100 pilots remained unemployed despite graduating from approved aviation training institutions in the country and beyond, and almost another 100 aircraft engineers are unemployed.

Stakeholders had raised concerns that Nigeria Airlines prefers to poach from existing carriers rather than train and engage the unemployed pilots, thereby limiting opportunities for the trained personnel.

However, the Chairman of Air Peace Airline, Allen Onyema, at a forum recently, said Nigerian airlines are trying their best to absorb many of the fresh pilots and engineers from training colleges, but “the dubious nature of some of the pilots makes difficult for the operators to employ them”.

He said: “All over the world, pilots with 150hrs cannot get to the cockpit of a 100 seater aircraft. You can’t finish from a flight school and get into a Boeing 737 or Max.

“The pilot will have to go back to school and buy hours at a costly rate, or he can even become an instructor at the training college and be paid stipends to have more flight hours. You must have about 1000hrs before an airline can consider you,” he said.

The Chairman of United Nigeria Airlines, Prof. Obiora Okwonkwo, also stated that the airline has a policy of employing 30 per cent experienced employees and 70 per cent freshers in a bid to absorb some of the graduates of the Nigeria College of Aviation Technology, Zaria, “who had become recharge card sellers due to lack of job”.

He disclosed that they begin with a salary scale of N150,000 – N200,000 and then are subjected to necessary training and certification, all expenses paid by the airline, and after getting the essential certification, their salary grade increases to N1.5 million.

“No industry pays people to qualify or guarantee such a growth rate. For instance, some pilots came into our places with about 200-400 hours of training time. Today, some of them are captains. If we grow and are sustained, the benefit of this industry is enormous to the economy.”

Okonkwo added that in the last 10 months, the airline had trained about 100 personnel, adding that some of their cabin crew recently left for Baku to train for YIASA certification.