DAVID LEARMOUNT / LONDON
Company says $100m contract is largest ever in Europe
CTC-McAlpine has landed Europe's largest ever airline training contract from EasyJet, worth $100 million over seven years.
The UK-based crew training company will instruct a significant proportion of the pilots EasyJet needs to fly the 120 Airbus A319s that it has on order. The deal also includes a renewal of CTC-McAlpine's contract to provide EasyJet with 737 pilots, says the airline.
"We believe it is the largest airline pilot training agreement ever signed in Europe," says CTC-McAlpine chairman Chris Clarke.
The first five EasyJet A319s will go into service on 1 October with the company's Geneva-based Swiss operation. Initially, the crew/aircraft ratio will be higher than usual, says the airline's chief pilot Mike Keane. "We want a buffer supply of crews for the Airbus introduction," he says.
A319s will start operating from the airline's London Luton airport base in March. Keane says EasyJet obtains its pilots from many sources, needing a proportion of them to be first officers with airline experience, and a few to be captains or training pilots. Around 90% of its captains are promoted internally, he explains, and the command preparation courses are with CTC.
The airline requires 240-290 pilots a year, and 40-50% of the experienced first officers will be supplied via the CTC-sponsored type-rating scheme.
In addition, 40 pilots annually will come from CTC-McAlpine's ab initio cadetship training programme. These younger pilots arrive at EasyJet with a frozen airline transport pilot licence and type rating and get the flight hours to consolidate it on the line.
CTC says the new contract means that it will have to expand its training capacity and it is looking for a second "south of England" training site and more simulators.
EasyJet has still to place a contract for its Airbus full flight simulator type and recurrent training, and CTC says it is also bidding for that.
Source: Flight International
