A chronic shortage of airline pilots, engineers and air traffic controllers is grounding flights and stoking safety concerns around the world.

Airlines, already buffeted by record high oil prices, are cutting routes and even flying around badly affected countries in the wake of a skills crunch. A spokesman for the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the industry body, said that a dearth of trained staff was becoming "a serious global issue … as aviation becomes a low-cost industry".

The problem is hitting the fastest-growing markets the hardest. In India, where the middle class has embraced flying and passenger volumes surged 30 per cent last year, airlines can not recruit enough pilots. This week Air India, the national carrier, was forced to scrap a route to London for want of a trained aircrew.

Meanwhile, shortages of technical personnel have affected countries ranging from Israel, where a government committee recently found that "aviation safety is in dire straights", to Ireland, where air traffic controllers threatened to strike earlier this year, claiming they could not deal with a surge in the number of flights.

The problems follow years of cost cuts. The IATA estimates that airlines had increased their labour productivity by two thirds since 2001 — by axeing slack capacity. There are also suggestions that the sharp drop in pilots' earnings in the wake of 9/11 (the highest salaries have fallen by a third, to about £100,000) has turned would be fliers off the career at a period when global air traffic is growing at 6 per cent a year.

Existing talent is migrating to the most lucrative markets. In Africa, which US officials have suggested is suffering "an exodus" of aircraft engineers, air travel is six-times more lethal than in Europe, according to the IATA. A British Airways spokesman said that the airline had not encountered problems hiring pilots so far because of its status as "an aspirational carrier that pays very competitively". He added, however, that BA was "aware of a larger issue surrounding a finite resource".

Time lags in training are now coming into play, carriers say. Air India pulled its service from Calcutta to London "owing to a shortage of Boeing 777 commanders" — who need to accrue flying hours over three to four years before they are qualified. Flights between Delhi, Bombay, Chicago and New York will also be affected. A spokesman said: "We have tapped all resources, retrained staff and brought in ex-pat pilots where the markets permit, but still we have shortages."

It is estimated that more than two new pilots are needed a day to keep up with demand on the subcontinent, but there are also concerns for the state of the planes they will fly. A recent report found that half of the positions in some government-run offices responsible for carrying out aviation safety checks in India were unfilled.

The highly-trained staff that direct the passage of planes from the ground are also in short supply. The International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers' Associations estimates a current shortage of 3,000 controllers – though many staff already work heavy overtime and claim the real number could be higher.

There have been reports of aircraft being directed to fly around countries such as Poland because there were too few controllers on duty to ensure their safe passage.

Adding to concerns that years of safety improvement may be coming undone, a report published by the IATA last week said that the rate of serious accidents increased by 15 per cent last year from 2006. The rise, to 0.75 serious accidents per million flights, was the first in a decade, although the number of fatalities fell.

A majority of aviation professionals recently polled by Ascend Worldwide, a specialist consultancy, said that they expect airline safety to make no improvement or to decline over the next five years. The most important factor cited was a lack of trained personnel.

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