Airlines call for reinforcements in the cockpit

The streamlined multi-crew pilot licence (MPL) training scheme is addressing the dearth of pilots, particularly in Asia, the world’s fastest growing aviation market. In India, more than 6,000 pilots will be required to meet the anticipated doubling of passenger traffic over the coming 10 years. Last month, the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China warned that it only had the capacity to train 7,000 of the 9,000 pilots required by the country’s airline industry by 2010.
The story of MPL’s creation illustrates how companies finding themselves facing a recruitment crunch can use a combination of technology and smart training methods to fill the gap.
The Clark is one of three schools – the others are in Denmark and Australia – pioneering the MPL. It reduces schooling time by tailoring the training to a specific type of aircraft and using flight simulators more than planes.
Rick Norman, a former pilot who is now flight operations manager at the Clark school , says: “This is a course that gets you straight to where you want to be. The day after you get the licence, you should be flying from Manila to Bangkok, with 180 passengers behind you.”
The Clark school was established by Alpha Aviation, a privately held British group, in partnership with Cebu, which is sponsoring 59 of the 104 students. Alpha is talking to several Asian airlines about replicating its joint venture model and expects to open 10 more schools in the region over the coming five years.
Clark certainly doesn’t lack rigour. Students in freshly pressed pilot uniforms stand to attention when visitors enter the classroom. Their 12-month course involves a minimum of 70 hours of flying, including 30 hours solo, as well as at least 180 hours spent on a simulator. However, the bulk of the course is in class, with much of the learning coming from computer coursework. That helps explain why the Clark licence, at $80,000 for the year, is relatively cheap by industry standards.
In Asia, where being a pilot has been prohibitively costly, the MPL’s arrival is a welcome opportunity. As Marsha Bell, vice-president at Alteon, Boeing’s training subsidiary, says: “The dream of flying is not something that everybody in Asia has been exposed to. This (MPL) makes it accessible, as well as more advantageous.”
07/10/07 Raphael Minder/Financial Times, UK