Faced with being wound up following many years of work yielding few visible results, the International Pilot Training Consortium (IPTC) has had its mandate renewed for a further three years, subject to approval by its member organisations. This was agreed at the 23-25 September International Flight Crew Training Conference at the Royal Aeronautical Society’s (RAeS) headquarters in London.
The IPTC mandate is “to improve safety, quality and efficiency of commercial aviation by developing international agreement on a common set of pilot training, instruction and evaluation standards and processes”. But having worked with ICAO to create a series of updated training standards, these recommendations are being comprehensively ignored in almost all ICAO signatory states.
Considering that IPTC member organisations consist of ICAO itself, IATA, the International Federation of Airline Pilots’ Associations, the RAeS and the manufacturers’ representative body, the International Co-ordinating Council of Aerospace Industries Associations, it is difficult to imagine how the results of their work can be so easily ignored – but that is what is happening, according to Capt John Bent, chairman of the IPTC’s training practices workstream. On the other hand, says Bent, “a broad global interest is being generated”.
It seems to be this faith that word is getting through – even if nothing is being implemented – that led the RAeS meeting to propose a three-year extension of the IPTC and its work. “We will publish a report [summing up the findings of the IPTC workstreams]. Please do not read that report and do nothing about it,” says outgoing executive chairman of the IPTC, Peter Barrett.
Barrett says there will be a meeting at ICAO’s Montreal headquarters in spring 2017 – as the new three-year mandate comes to an end – to examine progress on implementing the IPTC’s recommendations for pilot training modernisation, improvement and standardisation.
Source: Flight International
