(Image source from: CNBC.com)
At least two Indian-origin captains were among the four pilots who flew the first world's longest nonstop New York-Singapore flight, on Friday.
The world's longest commercial flight took off from Singapore's Changi Airport on Thursday, with passengers on board settling in for almost 19 hours to cover 16,800 km, to land at Newark Liberty Airport, which serves New York City.
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While sources say both the commanders of the first Newark-Singapore nonstop on the Airbus A350 ultra long range (ULR) are of Indian origin, SIA did not comment on that.
"There were four pilots operating the inaugural Newark-Singapore flight. Out of the four pilots, three are Singaporeans while one is Malaysian. Their names and ranking are: Captains I R Chaudhury and Ruben Gamoo and senior first officers Maxx Tan and KH Lim," an SIA spokesperson said.
This nonstop New York-Singapore flight has two sets of pilots with each set having a Captain and a First Officer (FO). SIA, which has about 2,000 pilots, did not say how many of them are of Indian-origin.
Indian pilots have been proving their mettle worldwide and foreign airlines are getting to fly the latest aircraft.
An Indian pilot said "While monetary aspect is obviously there when we go to fly for foreign airlines, the other reason is also that we get a chance of fly aircraft that are not on the radar of Indian airlines. Kingfisher had ordered five A380s but it closed before taking delivery of any of them."
Officials of some big foreign airlines say on condition of not being identified that there has been a gush in job applications from pilots of wide-body aircraft of the only two Indian carriers that at present operate planes like the A330 and Boeing 777, 787 and 747.
"In India, Tata-SIA JV Vistara has ordered Boeing 787 and some pilots of AI (which has been flying this aircraft for years) and Jet (which has B-777) are applying there. IndiGo and SpiceJet have been talking of inducting wide-body aircraft in their fleets. The ramp up of Vistara's wide-body fleet is going to be a gradual one and we do not know what the low-cost carriers will do when. So the number of wide-body pilots these three airlines can absorb is rather limited and applying for foreign airlines with twin aisles in their fleet is an option that we have to look at," said a wide body pilot of an Indian carrier.
A chief Gulf carrier's website says the total monthly salary (tax-free with accommodation allowance included) is about Rs 7.9 lakh for first officers on Boeing 777 and A-380. For captains, this figure goes up to about Rs 10.5 lakh.
"While in overall terms, the salary may not seem too high compared to what pilots earn in India. But being tax-free makes it really big for us. Then we get to fly planes which we cannot aspire to in Indian carriers," said an Indian pilot working with a domestic airline.
By Sowmya Sangam
