Nearly Half of Russia's Civilian Pilots may Soon Leave the Industry for Retirement or Work Abroad

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 11 – Russian civilian pilots are leaving the country to work abroad in ever greater numbers, according to the airlines and pilots’ union, and ever more are planning to leave in the next several years, a trend that, if nothing is done, will leave Russia with only about half of the pilots it needs to service current routes, let alone expand.

            In the first instance, URA.ru journalist Mikhail Bely reports, the pilots leaving to work for Asian airlines and especially Chinese ones where both pay and working conditions are far better. Russian pilots make “at a minimum” 50 to 60 percent more when working for foreign airlines, Vladimir Kurochkin, head of the pilots’ union says (ura.news/articles/1036278019).

            Some Russian airlines, the union head says, are already suffering from a shortage of pilots, but most are compensating for the flight of Russian pilots by hiring pilots who have been working for carriers in the former Soviet republics.  Hires by Russian airlines are thus cutting into the number of pilots these countries have.

            One pilot, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Bely that Asian carriers not only pay more but threat their pilots better. Those companies keep to a schedule so pilots can plan. IN Russia, “a pilot at any moment can be called to work even if he is on vacation.” That leads to all kinds of problems.

            Yury Sytnik, a member of the Presidential commission on civil aviation, agrees that pilot flight is a warning sign and means that there are “ever fewer high-class” airmen in Russia. Most of those who leave go to China, South Koreaa, Cambodia, the UAE, and Vietnam; and what is worse, Russia pays for the training of pilots other countries then benefit from.

            Another problem, Sytin says, one much on the mind of Russians since the Sheremetyevo disaster, is that the pilots who remain working in Russia are either people with less experience or who have had problems in their careers that make them unacceptable to foreign carriers. That is “a catastrophe” for Russian airlines whenever something unusual arises in flights.a

            Sergey Melnichenko, the head of the Flight Security Analysis Agency, says that not all Russian pilots who want to work abroad can get jobs because they lack the training or experience foreign carriers require, including much higher levels of English-language competence than most Russian pilots have.

            Bely cites two figures which show just how difficult it is going to be for Russia to maintain an adequate stable of pilots over the next decade. On the one hand, few carriers have the funds needed to train civilian airmen up to the level of co-pilots. And on the other, ever more Russian pilots want to leave the country.

            According to one study, some 2500 pilots plan to leave Russia for work elsewhere; and over the next decade, something like 6700 will be forced to retire. Those two factors mean that in five to ten years, “more than 42 percent” of pilots now working for Russian carriers will potentially be leaving the branch.

            That will put severe constraints on the ability of Russian airlines to operate existing routes let alone open new ones and mean that in many cases, those flying Russian planes may have far less experience and expertise than their counterparts elsewhere.