As Covid pounds aviation, a once glamorous career option loses sheen

Illustration: Suneesh Kalarickal

Layoffs, salary cuts and mounting losses—the coronavirus outbreak has dealt a body blow to an already struggling aviation industry as curbs on the movement of people to contain the spread of the infection has hit travel.

In the financial year 2021, domestic traffic slipped to a 10-year low of 53.4 million passengers, rating agency ICRA said in a report. IndiGo, the country’s biggest airline, reported a net loss of Rs 1,147.2 crore in the quarter ending March 2021. The fifth straight quarter of loss for the airline that has a domestic market share of more than 50 percent. The low-cost carrier has reported a net loss of Rs 870.8 crore in March 2020.

The second coronavirus wave that sent daily infections and deaths zooming in the country hobbled the industry just when things were beginning to look up. In May 2021, domestic passenger traffic stood at 19-20 lakh compared to 57.3 lakh in the previous month, a decline of 65-67 percent, ICRA said.

India stopped commercial international flights in March 2020 and the ban has been extended to June 30. Even domestically, airlines are flying with restrictions, including passengers they can carry.

Airlines are bleeding, sending ripples across the industry. Pilots, cabin crew, ground and airport staff, everyone is feeling the pinch.

So what does this mean for youngsters seeking a career in the industry, which once held a lot of promise?

Though it is difficult to draw up trends because of the sheer numbers of those who enroll in various courses for an aviation career, there are fears in some circles that young adults better have a Plan B.

Also read: COVID-19 second wave | Crisis in Indian aviation sector at 'point of no return': CAPA

A new flight path?

Adnan Raul Valdes Bhattacharjea, a young pilot with Pacific Coastal Airlines, a Canadian regional airline, in Vancouver, was left jobless when the first wave of the pandemic hit in 2020. He was rehired recently.

In the pilot community, only those who see a long career ahead of them were continuing in the sector, Bhattacharjea said. “With pay cuts and loans to pay off, some from the aviation industry are moving into other fields like IT,” the Indian- Mexican pilot said.

AVS Ramani runs Travel Services, an IATA accredited travel agency, in Chennai. He had to let go of eight of his 12 staff in the absence of international flights.

Conservative estimates put direct jobs in the aviation and aero manufacturing sectors at around 2,00,000. The figure is expected to grow to around 1 million by 2040, factoring in an expected six-fold increase in air traffic and quadrupling of aircraft.

The number of indirect jobs is 4.8 times that of direct jobs. Even with a lower multiplier of 4.5, the number of direct and indirect jobs in the sector is around 5.5 million. Nearly 45-50 percent of these are blue-collar jobs like those of loaders, cleaners, drivers and helpers, the Vision 2040 document for the Ministry of Civil Aviation released in January 2019 said.

There are worries that not enough of these jobs will be available for students entering the job market over the next two to three years.

Civil Aviation minister Hardeep Puri told the Rajya Sabha in September 2020 that between March 31, 2020, and July 31, 2020, 18,027 jobs were lost in the aviation sector.

“The employment at airlines has reduced from 74,887 as on 31 March 2020 to 69,589 as on 31 July 2020. The employment at airports has reduced from 67,760 as on 31 March 2020 to 64,514 as on 31 July 2020,” the minister said in a written reply.

Ground handling took a hit too—from 37,720 on March 31, 2020 to 29,254 on July 31, 2020. In the three months, jobs with cargo operators dropped to 8,538 from 9,555, the minister said.

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Talent glut

"For youngsters, unless they are extremely passionate about this sector, the ride ahead would be extremely turbulent,” said Satyendra Pandey, Managing Partner, AT-TV.

The coronavirus pandemic had pushed around 27 million middle-class households to the lower-middle-class, drastically reducing the travel base, he said.

“On average, airlines’ workforce hours and wages have been reduced by up to 60 percent. Earning power for talent in these sectors is significantly diminished,” Pandey said, adding aviation and hospitality jobs were not conducive to remote working.

There were huge layoffs in West Asia and people were returning home, adding to the supply at a time when the demand was limited, he said.

A senior aviation official agreed with Pandey. “I only know that the youngsters in travel, tourism, hospitality (and) aviation are extremely jittery with an uncertain future ahead of them. Everyone in the industry is clueless,” the official said on condition of anonymity

Many pilots who left India for better opportunities had been laid off, said a person with more than two decades of experience in the industry.

“What this has done is tightened the job market for younger pilots with little or no experience, as airlines can now hire more experienced pilots at a fraction of the cost that they would have had to pay in pre-COVID times rather than hiring young trainee pilots and incurring costs on training them,” he said.

Stay on course

But not everyone sees the glass as half empty.

Manohar Sajnani, Director, Amity Institute of Travel and Tourism, said the students who would pass out this year or over the next two years were sure that the industry would bounce back fast and strong.

There was no reason for students to be apprehensive because “projections from all corners” were saying that between November 2021 and February 2022, the industry would be back to pre-COVID levels or even better, Sajnani said.

Civil aviation bodies such as ICAO and IATA, World Tourism and the Trade Council and the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) had indicated that the trend had begun to take shape, he said.

Travel had started within Europe and cross-Atlantic movement had begun between the US and the UK, Sajnani said.

“Even within our own region, Southeast Asia travel has started. My students and I firmly believe that post- Diwali, we are going to see a big surge in the movement of people. When there is a movement of people, there is demand for aviation, hospitality and new travel business,” Sajnani said.

At present, Amity’s tourism and aviation course is full, with 100 students in undergraduate courses and 30 in post-graduate courses. A private institute, Amity University is based in Noida in Uttar Pradesh and offers graduate and post-graduate programmes.

Sources in two major multinational aerospace companies that have a presence in India said there was no slowdown in hiring for software and engineering positions, especially in the country’s south.

Domestic airlines declined to speak on the record, though an executive with an airline said they were not facing problems in hiring cabin crew and airport ground staff.

“Most of the youngsters who are venturing into aviation looking for cabin crew and ground-services jobs now are from Tier II and Tier III cities. They are starry-eyed about working in aviation,” the executive said.

India is still on track to receive 1,000 aircraft and there is pent-up demand for domestic travel, especially since airfares in the country are comparatively lower.

A growing middle-class, which is keen to travel not only within India but also abroad, would be more than ready to take off when restrictions ease is the argument put forward by those who see the present slump as a blip.

But there are reasons to worry, for middle-aged professionals whose jobs could be on the line as airlines and airports look to cut costs. The professionals in customer relations or airport services may be replaced by younger, cheaper recruits, which will reduce the wage bill at a time when every penny counts.