Report: Fast-Growing Asian Airlines Are Not Vetting Pilots Enough

Jack GUEZ / AFP via Getty Images The attempted hijacking of Flydubai Flight FZ1073 by its co-pilot on Wednesday has brought renewed attention to the importance of carefully vetting airline employees. A report by Germany’s Die Welt on Friday warned that fast-growing Asian airlines are not practicing good “social controls” as they rapidly add staff members. “The low-cost airline Flydubai, whose Boeing 737 Max was almost brought down by a suspected terrorist pilot on Wednesday, only started operations 17 years ago and has grown in a short time to almost one hundred aircraft and 16 million passengers a year,” Die Welt observed. This undated photo released on Israel’s Foreign Ministry social media shows Indian Capt. Smit Machchhar in the cockpit of a plane in an unknown location. Machchhar was at the controls of a FlyDubai flight that was diverted to Tabuk in northwestern Saudi Arabia for an emergency landing on Wednesday, September 30, 2026. (Israel’s Foreign Ministry via AP) The report said Flydubai “exemplifies the rapid growth of aviation in Asia, which has produced new airlines and routes at a dizzying pace in recent years — and with that, possibly new dangers as well.” The Asia-Pacific region will need about 268,000 more pilots and 298,000 more maintenance technicians over the next 15 years to keep up with demand, and those personnel will come from all quarters of a huge region whose nations have wildly different standards for airline safety and employee vetting. Controversy is already brewing in Israel over the Omani co-pilot of Flight FZ1073, because Israel is supposed to have regulations that require inbound flights to be piloted by crewmembers from countries that have diplomatic relations with Israel. Oman does not have such relations. Israel is widely regarded as having the tightest airline security standards in the world, for obvious reasons. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) takes pride in having high standards for its airlines and the Dubai International Airport – from which Flight FZ1073 originated – has a reputation for safety and professionalism. An Omani national nevertheless ended up behind the controls of the plane on Wednesday with a blade in his hand. Israeli passenger Yaniv Hayoun, with blood stains on his shirt, who was aboard a Flydubai aircraft that made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia, is welcomed at the arrivals gate at Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, September 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Tomer Appelbaum) Aviation security experts told NBC News on Friday that Israel has been trusting friendly airlines such as Flydubai to vet its flight crews and to respect Israel’s requirements for pilots on inbound flights. Those practices will probably tighten up very quickly in the wake of Wednesday’s narrowly averted catastrophe. Die Welt pointed out another problem: with the rapid pace of airline growth, the fraternity of pilots and airline employees is not as tightly knit as it once was. It is growing more likely that pilots and co-pilots will take off without knowing each other at all and they might even have trouble communicating due to language barriers. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) warned this year that an “unprecedented talent challenge” is coming, as rapid airline growth and evolving technology makes it harder to find enough pilots and staff with the necessary skills. IATA advised human resources departments at airlines to “move beyond their traditional framework” to increase the pace of hiring – which could, unfortunately, mean some corners will be cut on vetting employees. Increasing “workplace flexibility” could also lead to more pilots from dramatically different cultures, linguistic backgrounds, and security environments working together on the same aircraft.