Flight International online news 08:00GMT: China’s pilot shortage has led the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) to standardise and update regulations to help local carriers wishing to employ foreign aircrew.
“Before we allowed foreign pilots to come to China but there were no standard procedures,” said an official at the CAAC’s flight standards department in Beijing.
In China, airlines wishing to employ foreign pilots go through the local CAAC office for the region in which they are located, so standardising regulations means the CAAC’s offices across the country will have exactly the same set of regulations.
The official also said the previous regulations were introduced in the early 1990s and are now considered “old”. The new standardised regulations signed on 11 July spell out more clearly what is required from foreign pilots and airlines, he said.
Many of the regulations are the same as before but there are a few changes such as “a more complete system for testing pilots”. Previously, pilots were tested on theory and also did flight tests but now the tests have been standardised and are in English in addition to Chinese.
China is experiencing a pilot shortage because the country’s training schools have failed to keep up with demand from fast-growing airlines.
Today there are 70-80 foreign pilots employed in China and these mostly work for second-tier carriers such as Shenzhen Airlines and start-up carriers such as Okay Airways.
Source: Flight International
