Aviation is a high profile activity and a novel profession that demands the highest levels of self-discipline, sense of responsibility, professional competence and ethics. Unless these values are ingrained in the pilots’ right at the outset and fostered during their career progression, there is little hope for the future of the airline industry in India.

National carrier Air India has once again hit the headlines and as can easily be predicted, again for all the wrong reasons. Mumbai-based Captain R.S. Dhillon, a senior pilot with the airline and the General Manager Operations, who is also responsible for training of pilots, was recently placed under suspension by the Minister of Civil Aviation, Ajit Singh. As reported in the media, Captain Dhillon was caught literally red-handed fudging records in respect of simulator training of two fairly senior pilots in the airline. Captain Dhillon was scheduled to carry out training of two senior pilots of the airline on October 29, 2012, on the A330 simulator hired by Air India from Jet Airways. As against the mandated eight hours of simulator training, Captain Dhillon carried out just four hours of training for no justifiable reason. Of course, Air India had to pay Jet Airways for full eight hours of training even if the session was cut short.

Training on the simulator at the prescribed periodicity and duration, is vitally important for pilots to maintain flying proficiency at the desired level, both in the civil and the military, in the airline industry or in business and general aviation. It is not only a statutory requirement for renewal of the licence to fly, neglect in this regard has serious implications for skill levels and consequently for air safety. Inadequate levels of proficiency especially of the pilot in command can quite easily place the lives of hundreds onboard at risk. It is understood that for the last 10 years, Captain Dhillon has been holding the responsibility of simulator training of pilots for renewal of licence and in this period, hundreds of pilots would have passed through his hands. It goes without saying that the extent of internal damage to the health of the airline would have been extensive, the consequences of which are much too horrendous even to imagine. This episode will only worsen the already battered image of the airline.

Air India has been discredited in the past not only on account of flawed strategic decisions, questionable procurement of aircraft in unusually large numbers and frequent strikes by the various unions; it has in fact been afflicted by major and minor misdemeanours at practically every level of the organisation. In April 2011, it was reported in the media that a certain senior pilot holding the post of Executive Director in Air India, on May 17, 2010, failed to complete the scheduled compulsory simulator training at the facility in Hyderabad. In the first week of January this year, Minister of State for Civil Aviation K.C. Venugopal, while onboard an Air India flight, stumbled upon and exposed a ticketing scam, a malaise that apparently had been overlooked for years. As admitted by the Minister of Civil Aviation, Ajit Singh, Air India has been plagued by “a culture of theft, fraud and abuse of perks by staff” and that “the airline was currently investigating 161 such incidents, ranging from the theft of spare parts to that of whisky and caviar, to even more financially damaging cases of fraud”. It is little wonder that the once glorious airline symbolised as the “Maharaja,” is today fallen into disrepute and driven to bankruptcy. But perhaps the most bizarre instance of wayward and irresponsible conduct in the recent past has been that of a lady pilot of Air India who was suspended in January for “disregarding orders to alter the flight route” as she had prearranged to pick up her favourite food from somewhere along the original routing!”