THE ISSUE OF UK PILOT training to approved UK commercial-pilots-licence standard abroad arises, because flying training overseas, particularly in the USA, is less expensive than in the UK. Direct costs, can be about half of those in the UK, but the licence gained is a full UK one.
UK flight-training schools have long maintained that the price differential arises not just from the southern USA's weather advantage, but because UK schools are burdened with taxes and regulations not faced by US schools.
Consequently, GAMTA has been commissioned by the UK Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to send a team to the USA to report on how the differences arise. The DTI justification, says GAMTA chief executive Graham Forbes, is that the team is studying a competing industry for "best practices".
The GAMTA team, which has already left for the USA and hopes to report by the end of March, is meeting a recently stated CAA principle that all sections of the UK aviation industry should analyse and establish the criteria for "benchmark" quality in their operating methods.
Source: Flight International
