Rising demand for airline pilots has prompted Air Canada’s Jazz affiliate to begin developing a new programme that would transition aviation college students to first officer positions.
Under partnership with the Canadian Association of Aviation Colleges (CAAC), Air Canada Jazz is in the early stages of studying the standards and criteria necessary to initiate the programme, which would complement its current recruiting efforts.
"The concept of hiring aviation students is not new to the industry but we will be working with the CAAC on this partnership to determine the types of bridging programme required [and] what changes [are] needed in order to facilitate that transition from aviation college graduate to first officer positions, while maintaining a high safety standard of course," says an Air Canada Jazz spokeswoman.
Candidates for the programme would be graduates of colleges within CAAC, whose members include Canada’s Confederation College, Chicoutimi College, Georgian College, Mount Royal College, Sault College, Selkirk College and Seneca College.
Accrued flight hours of CAAC graduate students vary, with some students bringing more experience than others dependent on their respective backgrounds. The number of flying hours also is dependent "upon the operating certificate of the training institutions, where they would have access to state-of-the-art simulators", says the spokeswoman.
She says successful completion of the same ground school and Transport Canada pilot proficiency checks on Bombardier CRJ or Dash 8 turboprop aircraft as all other Jazz first officers would be required under the programme.
The first graduates will start their training this fall. It is not yet clear when they will be brought into the Air Canada Jazz system, however.
At present, the majority of pilots applying to Air Canada Jazz come from smaller airlines within Canada. But demand for commercial airline pilots in North America as well as other parts of the world is high, and continues to grow significantly.
The programme being developed with CAAC will "in no way replace the current pilot hiring program, but it will just provide us with an additional source to complement [our] existing recruitment programme", says the Air Canada Jazz spokeswoman.
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Source: FlightGlobal.com
