“I have leapt off a cliff. I can either grow wings or crash.” This is how a young trainee pilot describes his predicament after spending five years and ₹1.07 crore on learning how to fly, along with a steep employment bond of ₹50 lakh which locks him in for five years with the country’s biggest airline, IndiGo.

In his early 20s, Aravinth Nair* has already witnessed the cyclical and volatile nature of the aviation industry in his fledgling career. First, there was the closure of Jet Airways in 2019 just when he was preparing to embark on his flight training programme after finishing high school. That was followed by COVID-19 the next year when his training was temporarily suspended, even as the spectre of mounting interest on the loan incurred to pay his flying school fee loomed large. Then came the Go First closure in May 2023 that flooded the market with jobless but experienced pilots and delayed his induction at the airline, resulting in an extended wait before he could start repaying his loan. These are just some of the stressors that, unknown to most, hide behind the sheen of a “fat” pay cheque.

Costly training, illegal bonds

Add to this, the unpredictable training timelines that can stretch for up to four years before one can even land an airline job, and the loans incurred to pay exorbitant flight training fees ranging between ₹80 lakh and ₹1.2 crore that can take 10 to 14 years to repay. Pilots also find themselves tethered by “illegal” employment bonds of ₹20 lakh for Vistara or ₹50 lakh for IndiGo in the form of undated cheques, locking them in with the company for a period of two to five years at a fixed salary lower than prevalent market standards. Air India too requires new joinees to furnish a bank guarantee of ₹25 lakh for five years, for which pilots often pledge their fixed deposits or incur loans. These bonds or bank guarantees are in addition to costs borne by pilots for induction training of six to nine months at airlines; at Air India, this costs ₹14 lakh, while Vistara charges ₹12 lakh.

There is also the bureaucratic red tape that can mean three months to clear medical assessments and at least a two-month wait just to be issued a licence by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation. Such factors have a cascading impact on a pilot’s career as these delays could cause other permits to lapse even before one has secured a job.

‘Caught in a chokehold’

The multiple challenges involved in becoming a pilot in India today is also at the heart of the current unrest at Vistara. The airline’s junior pilots have strongly objected to a revised salary structure announced in mid-February which offers them a guaranteed flying allowance for 40 hours instead of the current 70 hours, resulting in a pay cut of 24% to 40% on a salary of ₹3.4 lakh per month. However, many find themselves, as one Vistara First Officer described, “caught in a chokehold” and unable to leave.

“Nothing went off as I had expected. Because there is unpredictability over jobs, I opted for IndiGo’s cadet training programme that cost me ₹1.07 crore five years ago but guaranteed a job at the airline. I paid a premium for a well-known brand and a complete end-to-end package that I hoped would also take care of complex and lengthy regulatory requirements,” recounts Mr. Nair, who is now a First Officer at IndiGo. But that’s not what happened, and the training itself took four years to complete instead of two.

‘Do-or-die situation’

Once he finished his training and joined IndiGo, the induction training for freshers like him was also delayed by four to five months as the airline hired 200 trained pilots from Go First after the latter shut operations.

The delay in induction meant that Mr. Nair would only receive 40% of his salary of ₹2.2 lakh, or ₹90,000 per month, until he was released to fly for the airline, resulting in a longer wait to be able to repay his loan.

“The financial burden is so huge that it is a do-or-die situation for me. I am in a position where I am forced to succeed,” says Mr. Nair.

Several First Officers at Vistara told The Hindu that while the new salary terms were not acceptable, they had no choice but to agree to them because of an ultimatum from the airline’s human resources department that not doing so would result in their ouster from the merged Air India and impact their upgrades.

‘Illegal pay cut’

“The new pay structure announced at Vistara entailing a pay cut for First Officers is illegal because it is a fundamental principle in labour laws that contractual terms can’t be altered to the detriment of an employee after he or she has joined the company. The conditions can be made more favourable though,” said aviation lawyer Yeshwanth Shenoy.

The Hindu sent specific queries to Air India, Vistara and IndiGo but all of them declined to comment.

“We are caught in a chokehold because aviation is a blackhole of money,” said a Vistara First Officer who has decided to stay at the airline as he is expecting an upgrade to Senior First Officer, which will mean a salary bump of nearly ₹1 lakh.

“Firstly, there aren’t many airlines left in the country and IndiGo is the only viable alternative. At some airlines like Air India, even appearing for a job interview requires spending upto ₹1 lakh for a simulator examination. And many First Officers can’t even go overseas as foreign airlines need an Airline Transport Pilot Licence which requires 2,000 hours of flying, which pilots don’t have so early in their career,” he explained.

Junior pilots ‘exploited’

Pilots across the industry are enraged over how Vistara’s new pay structure deliberately “exploits” junior pilots who are unable to reject the new contract because of their vulnerable position. The senior pilots, on the other hand, have received favourable terms where they will earn a sum equivalent of 70 hours of flying under the old regime by flying only 50 hours to 60 hours under the new pay regime.

Quitting an airline in India is also not easy. First Officers have to serve a notice period of six months, whereas foreign airlines like Etihad will only wait for three months for a pilot to join. Then there are employment bonds that tie up pilots for up to five years, and are “illegal”, according to Mr. Shenoy.

“These bonds violate Section 27 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872 which lays down that any agreement by which any one is restrained from exercising a lawful profession, trade or business of any kind is void. As these are civil matters or disputes between a private person and an enterprise only an aggrieved pilot can file a legal case but which pilot will challenge his airline and bell the cat,“ he asks.

Training fees

Even the cost incurred by pilots for their induction training at an airline is unlawful, explains Mr. Shenoy. “Any expenditure incurred on training that is necessary to fulfil the obligations of employment have to be borne by the employer. Pilots can’t be made to pay for this,” he said. Pilots also wonder why they have to pay millions for airline training, given that this is carried out on passenger flights that already earn revenue for airlines. Airline sources said on the condition of anonymity that the fee for induction training is levied because of the cost to the company of removing a pilot from flying duties to conduct simulator training as well as to pay for using simulators.

Sometimes, a dream turns into a bird with a broken wing that can’t fly. After 10 years of training, Saurabh Saxena* lost the ₹40 lakh he paid as an airline training fee to Go First when it collapsed last May. With his family having spent ₹1 crore in all, there was no more financial appetite to nurture the dream and he had to join the family business. “I am getting married on April 23 and I know that I am not an alluring prospective husband,” he said.