SHENZHEN Airlines has recently hired 40 Brazilian pilots, one of the largest batches of foreigners to be employed in the Chinese aviation industry.

They will be paid about US$8,000 each month, double the salary of Chinese pilots and a little more than what they were getting in Brazil, the Beijing News quoted Shenzhen Airlines' vice president Zhang Pei as saying.

Most of the pilots were facing unemployment as Varig, Brazil's largest airline company, is on the brink of bankruptcy, the report said.

Eighteen of the pilots have arrived in Shenzhen, the paper said.

To cope with a steadily worsening shortage of pilots, China last year began allowing the country's airlines to employ foreigners to fly their planes.

Some of the major airlines, such as Air China and Shanghai Airlines, have this year hired foreign pilots or announced their intention to do so, but the numbers have been very small.

China's commercial airlines currently employ about 11,000 pilots but experts have warned the number needs to increase fast to cope with a rapid expansion of the nation's aviation industry.

Based on the delivery of new aircraft, industry experts have estimated that China currently needs up to 1,600 new pilots every year.

Shenzhen Airlines plans to purchase eight new aircraft in the second half of the year, which will need about 50 pilots to fly them.

Editor: Wing