NEW DELHI, INDIA: When Mr Aditya Beri left for the United States to join a flying school two years ago, the Indian civil aviation industry was going through an unprecedented boom.

With new airlines taking to the skies and others going into expansion mode, pilots, cabin crew and ground staff were all in great demand.

Mr Beri, now 20, came back in November 2007 with a US commercial pilot licence and, by July, completed the mandatory equivalent commercial pilot's licence course conducted by India's Directorate of Civil Aviation.

The young qualified pilot, whose father is a senior pilot in Air India, held high hopes of quickly landing a job with an airline company in India - but found himself joining the growing rank of unemployed pilots in the country.

'I have been without a job for the past five months. It is frustrating sitting at home like this,' he told The Straits Times.

According to some estimates, there are more than 4,000 unemployed pilots in India.

The large number is the result of the boom that the airline industry was enjoying several years ago, which caused a rush of young men and women to join flight schools.

Then, the situation was so rosy that even those who had obtained commercial pilot licences in the mid-1990s but had turned to non-flying jobs because the state-controlled aviation industry had few openings, had started returning to the skies abroad to do flight training again.

Mr Beri said his flight training in the US alone cost US$45,000 (S$66,600) - excluding what he had to spend on food and lodging.

'I'm lucky,' he said. 'At least I didn't have to take a loan. A lot of others had taken bank loans to join the flight schools and now have to pay back.'

Mr Beri said there were 13 other Indian students in his flight school, and another 20 in a neighbouring school.

With no prospects of employment in the airlines in the immediate future, he hopes to be able to find work with a large company that might have acquired aircraft and now requires pilots.

'These are small aircraft, but it will help me to gain multi-engine hours that will add to my experience,' he said.

Meanwhile, he said, he plans to take up a correspondence course and get a university degree.

This article was first published in The Straits Times on January 10, 2009.