Waiting outside the gate of the People's Supreme Court of China in the cold, 43-year-old Zhao Hong, a pilot captain, is hoping to finally be freed from the open-ended contract with his employer.

"This is the first labor dispute case over a pilot to be dealt with by the top court and may set a precedent that other pilots could follow," Zhao told the Global Times while waiting. He was confident that, if he won, hundreds of pilots who had so far been unable to leave their companies would be able to get their freedom.

Three years ago, when Zhao's employer, State-run Air China's Chongqing branch, turned down Zhao's resignation request, he sued the company. Before going to the Supreme Court, the case went through three court hearings which all ruled against Zhao, saying he could not break his contract.

Unlike pilots in other countries that sign contracts with a clear time limit, pilots in China sign an open-ended contract with the company and can only quit through drawn-out legal proceedings.

After a two-hour long hearing, the judge told Zhao to wait for further notice.

"We're facing a severe shortage of pilots so we cannot let a pilot leave so easily," Sun Yang, the airline's legal representative, told the judge at the court hearing on January 31. "This industry cannot suffer that."

Too valuable assets

Pilots are too valuable to be let go, the airlines say. Sun said that a captain is valued at 3 to 4 million yuan in the labor market and that the company has paid for their high training cost, so an experienced captain like Zhao should compensate the airline for the losses caused by his resignation.

This attitude is difficult to fathom for people working in many other industries, but in aviation, it is backed up by regulation. In 2005, CAAC introduced a bill to ensure the stability of flying personnel and a regular supply of pilots, regulating that a pilot's resignation had to be approved by the employer, and the pilot needed to pay compensation ranging between 700,000 yuan ($110,000) to 2.1 million yuan, depending on the level of training.

"The key point is to prevent pilots from leaving," Zhang Qihuai, Zhao's lawyer, told the Global Times.

Zhang's law firm has received 600 pilot cases similar to Zhao's since 2005 with 180 cases dealt with in 2012.

According to him, beyond this regulation, strict control on pilot's employee files and licenses also contribute to the difficulties of leaving.

During the three years of the lawsuit, Air China refused to hand over Zhao's employee file, without which no other airline will hire him. He has been kept on the ground, receiving a minimum wage of 1,000 yuan per month to show that he is still employed.

Zhao called himself "a fighter" because many pilots compromised when faced with the high cost of quitting and the vast amount of time and money wasted.

"In many cases, pilots cannot stand the procrastination and would agree to pay compensation to terminate the contract," said Zhang,

Tao Shizhou, a 36-year-old captain who resigned from Southern Airlines in 2011, agreed to pay 1.75 million yuan to get his employee file. 

"Being a pilot here is so stressful. I cannot take a rest during national holidays and must fly overtime. I cannot ask for leave, even if I agree to getting no pay," Tao told the Global Times, adding that he decided to leave when other private airlines offered him a better working environment and a higher salary.

"A characteristic that I found was shared by most pilots from the major three State-owned companies (Air China, China Southern Airlines and China Eastern Airlines) is that they want to work for smaller, private airlines," Zhang said.

The private airline Tao would work paid his compensation of 1.75 million yuan for him. Zhang concluded that is almost the only way private companies will be able to hire experienced Chinese pilots.

Pilot penury

Zhang Yong, a lawyer representing Air China, said at the court hearing that "if there were enough pilots, we wouldn't try so hard to hold onto one."

Due to the speedy development of the civil aviation industry, at least 3,000 new pilots are needed while only 2,000 graduates can be offered annually by the five major pilot training academies. Figures from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) show that China has nearly 25,000 pilots and will face a shortage of 18,000 pilots in 2015.

Every year before the national college entrance examination, large airlines will select from student applicants with the best physical aptitude and send them to flight schools and cover all their training fees, averaging around 700,000 yuan ($110,000) per pilot.

The selection process is strict and only about 100 top high school students are selected by each major airline and sent to flight schools, said Wu Wei, a retired captain from China Eastern Airlines.

Except for high school students, some Air Force soldiers can transfer to work in aviation and a precious few college students from top universities are chosen to follow a pilot training program in Australia for 18 months. 

However, only large airlines can afford the high expenses of training a pilot and decide where graduates will work, Wu said, adding that large State-run airlines like Air China can also add around 150 pilots every year from their exclusive flying academies, the Air Force and other training programs they run.

For smaller private airlines, paying double the salary of local pilots to hire foreign pilots is a way out. By 2011, nearly 1,300 foreign pilots were employed by Chinese airlines, said Li Jiaxiang, head of CAAC, the Beijing Daily reported.

Wu said that this is only a temporary stop-gap measure. As passenger service demands increase, the government has purchased more planes that airline companies have to digest as "political missions."

Boeing predicted in 2005 that China would need 2,600 new aircraft by 2024, making China the second-largest aviation market after the US.

But the question raised by industry experts was: where are the captains to fly them? For every plane, one captain and four to six pilots are needed to ensure a regular rotation of flight crews.

With the quick expansion of civil aviation, pilots have felt the pressure pile on. "The burden to digest new planes falls onto us. Everyone has to work extra hours and receive extra training courses whenever a new type of plane arrives, so more pilots want to leave," one of Zhao Hong's colleagues at Air China, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Global Times.

Limited private choices

The pilot lawsuit cases started in 2005 when private aviation took off. "That's when pilots were offered choices," said Zhang.

Without enough time or resources to get pilots graduating from major academies, private companies turned to attracting experienced pilots by offering them a better package to compete with State-run companies.

However, with the CAAC regulation controlling the pilots' flow between companies, the situation for private airlines is hard.

Although the official reason behind the regulation was to ensure the supply of pilots, as far as some insiders are concerned, it directly benefits State-run enterprises.

"Maybe the State-owned airlines are not trying to limit the development of small airlines, but the fact is that they cannot get the most important resources: pilots," Tao said.

State-run airlines deny this charge. "When new planes are ordered by CAAC or others, we are the ones, rather than these smaller companies, who have to incorporate them, so we cannot have any shortages," an official and  pilot from Air China told the Global Times.

Zou Jianjun, professor with Civil Aviation Management Institute of China, a think tank for CAAC, said it was a waste of resources to see so many captains involved in lawsuits and not allowed to fly.

"The regulation has proved to be of no help in easing the shortage of pilots. On the contrary, it discouraged not only many pilots from seeking better career developments, but also hurt new companies who are in urgent need of pilots," Zou told the Global Times, adding that in a mature market economy,  companies have the right to compete for the best personnel.

"No matter whether they want to have a better working environment due to the stress brought about by increasing routes and planes, or pursue higher life goals, they should not be kept grounded and waste their time because of those wishes, " Zou said.

Future prospects

A pilot's qualification should be renewed every six months by taking tests, but after being kept grounded for so long, Zhao said he would have to restart as a co-pilot when he returned to the cockpit. The situation is similar for Tao, who took nine years to become a captain.

In fact, according to a report by the International Civil Aviation Organization, Chinese airlines are not alone facing the battle to recruit and train pilots. This is a problem for all major international carriers and airlines around the world are facing an average shortage of 8,146 pilots every year.

As such, going abroad could also be a solution for pilots like Zhao and Tao since leaving the industry altogether is not an option.

As Tao explains, "all we learned is how to fly. We do not have many other skills with which to make a living."