Shortage of fuel to affect pilot training in flying schools

Pilot training at flying schools across the country has been hit over the last four weeks due to non-availability of certified aviation gasoline or Avgas.

While commercial aircraft rely on aviation turbine fuel, around 80-90 per cent of the trainer aircraft in India use Avgas, which is produced by Indian Oil Corporation (IOC).

IOC tests the product for its performance at an overseas laboratory. A delay in certification has held up the supplies. Flying schools, however, are not convinced by the refiner's claims and fear that supply disruption could slow down pilot production. 

"For past month, Avgas supply is around tenth of our requirement. Consequently, our flying has declined to 10-20 per cent of the normal. In fact, on Saturday we gave a day off to conserve limited stock. The months of April-May are fair weather season across the country. If the disruption continues for longer, students would be badly hit as flying halves during the monsoon months," said Jati Dhillon, Managing Director of Government Aviation Training Institute, Odisha.

The association has sought Civil Aviation Ministry's intervention in the issue and suspects that supply shortage was caused due to exports. An IOC executive denied this and said the company always meets domestic demand first before exporting products.

Prior to September 2022, all the Avgas consumed in the country was imported from Europe. IOC began producing it from its Vadodara refinery as a part of an initiative to reduce dependence on imports. Local production is now taking care of domestic requirement.

"There are around 220 trainer aircraft in the country with flying schools across the country and nearly 80-90 per cent of them run on Avgas. While some larger schools keep buffer stocks even those would be close to exhaustion. Thus, the impact of supply disruption will be felt across the board," said Hemanth DP, CEO of Asia Pacific Flight Training Academy.

There are 34 DGCA-approved flying training schools in the country operating at 55 bases. Last year, DGCA issued a record 1,562 commercial pilot licences to domestically trained pilots and those to trained overseas.

In a statement, IOC said there is no disruption in Avgas production. “Before supplying it to our customers one final test is done in a foreign laboratory. We are awaiting the certification report. We expect to receive it in coming week. We have sufficient stock of Avgas at our refinery and normal supplies can resume immediately once we receive the certification,” IOC said