BANGKOK, 11 May 2015 – Thailand is severely lacking aviation related personnel while the nation has a limited capacity to produce such technicians, according to the Civil Aviation Training Center. It said the problem needs the government’s serious attention before intensifying into a crisis.
Deputy Governor of the center Squadron Leader Wattana Manon said the number of engineers, pilots, and air controllers are particularly insufficient to satisfy the demand. The problem could even derail Thailand’s plan to become an aviation hub in Asia and the Pacific if it was not addressed properly.
He said both Boeing and Airbus predicted the world would need 533,000 pilots in the next 20 years. Of this, 216,000 would be needed in the Asia-Pacific region alone. The companies also projected the world would need 584,000 technicians and engineers over the same period. The number scales down to 224,000 for the Asia-Pacific region.
This means that the region needs to produce at least 10,000 aviation personnel each year, Squadron Leader Wattana explained. He said Thailand would need to develop both aviation human resources and infrastructure, in order to achieve its goal of becoming an aviation hub in Asia and the Pacific.
