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May 18 (NBD) -- With the booming of China's civil aviation industry in recent years, the pace of cultivating mature pilots can't keep up with surging demands rising from the industry's development. 

The country's air transportation market maintained rapid growth in the first 4 months of this year, according to data release by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC). The total turnover volume reached 38.58 billion ton-kilometers, presenting a year-on-year rise of 13.4 percent, with passenger traffic amounting to 197 million, up 12.5 percent compared to last year.

In 2017, China's civil aviation industry registered 105.97 million hours of air transportation and 808,000 hours for general aviation flights, climbing 11.6 percent and 6.2 percent year on year, respectively. 

Moreover, the number of civil aviation aircrafts grew sharply last year and 424 aircrafts including 17 air freights were introduced to China, the industry data provider China Aviation Daily reported.

The International Air Transport Association predicted that China will overtake the U.S. to become the largest air passenger market in the world by 2022.

The tremendous development of the industry leads to the increasing demand for pilots. According to the airplane manufacturer Boeing Company, due to the huge capacity demand, Chinese airlines are forecast to purchase 7,000 aircrafts and will need up to 110,000 new pilots in the years through 2035, said Financial Times.

An annual report on China's civilian pilots published by Flight Standards Department of CAAC shows that the number of valid licenses for pilots totaled 55,765 as of 31 December of 2017, rising 10.4 percent from a year earlier. China has adequate pilots to basically fulfill the needs of the industry's development, the person in charge of the Department said to NBD.

The person also noted that the country has sufficient pilots. 

However, Chinese airline companies now are facing a lack of mature captains, some insiders told NBD.

It is noted that it will take a flight cadet an average of 7 years to get promoted to captain, but the time could be extended for pilots of heavy aircrafts such as the Airbus A330 and Boeing 747.

Besides, the spokesperson of Spring Airlines Zhang Wu'an and an insider told NBD that it will cost airlines more than 5 million yuan (784,154 U.S. dollars) to produce a captain, and the costs will be bear mainly by the company.

The long captain training period and rising demand for pilots propel airline companies to hire foreign captains with high salary, a captain surnamed Chen explained.

As of the end of last year, the Chinese administration had issued pilot's certificates to 3,699 foreign citizens, with 3,168 of those being airline transport pilot certificates, said CAAC's report.

The proportion of foreign captains in domestic airlines is climbing as well. For example, the number of foreign captains at Sichuan Airlines stood at 95 in late 2017, accounting for 14.75 percent of the total.

Email: zhanglingxiao@nbd.com.cn