DAVID LEARMOUNT / LONDON
Although the pilot training market is slowly recovering after the shocks of last year, war with Iraq could send its prospects crashing.
Since the shock of 11 September 2001, the restructuring of major airlines has mainly involved reducing fleet numbers or putting plans for expansion on hold. This has inevitably had a global impact on carriers' pilot workforce needs, with US airlines the worst affected.
Only the no-frills carriers in Europe and the USA appear to have escaped the 11 September effect, but even they have experienced around six months in which their load factors have suffered and business either dipped or expansion slowed.
Although Air Inc, a US-based supplier of online information for pilots seeking jobs or a career change, estimated in April that US carriers will have hired around 6,000 pilots by year-end, and will take on 7,000 flightcrew in 2003, much of the shock is being taken up by experienced pilots, laid off after 11 September, 2001.
Although US flight schools have been affected by the downturn in recruitment of newly qualified pilots, it has not all been bad news. They have been able to retain just qualified instructors for longer, before commuter carriers whisk them off. This has enabled them to improve instructor experience levels.
More than a year on from 11 September, main line carriers are still struggling to restructure for survival, pilots remain furloughed, recruitment by many carriers has been suspended, and US schools' traditional trade in training foreign pilots has been affected by new security clearance requirements for foreign students.
At present, depending on where students come from and what kind of licence or type rating they want to train for, visa requirements vary, and obtaining a permit to enter the USA for flight training can take between 10 and 60 days. George McAndrews, director of safety and operations at the Western Michigan University College of Aviation (WMUCA), says that even before 11 September, his college had been preparing to help students meet upgraded security requirements.
He says Michigan state law requires foreign ab initio trainees to be vetted, including fingerprinting, by the state and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), but training may start while background checks are carried out. If the student wants to progress to the Boeing 737-400 type-rating on the WMUCA simulator, however, the FBI needs 45 days' notice for further checks. McAndrews says this can be planned in advance to avoid causing delay.
Although the combination of a poor home market and the loss of foreign students sounds like disaster for the US pilot training industry, major US supplier organisations report steady business. McAndrews says places on WMUCA's US Federal Aviation Administration syllabus course are all filled, but it has no students for its European Joint Aviation Authorities course at present, although it expects to offer more JAA courses early next year.
Same classes
WMUCA's FAA pilot training syllabus contains "the best of the JAA" course, says McAndrews, which means that the FAA and JAA students can attend the same classes or use the same computer-based learning for much of the course.
The WMUCA FAA course is a four-year, self-funded degree which includes training for the full commercial pilot's licence. "A degree education and the licence make you more marketable," says McAndrews, adding that most major airlines will now not take on anyone without a college degree except experienced pilots.
A degree, he says, is not usually a requirement in the general aviation sector, but most WMUCA students want one, and if it is aviation orientated, so much the better for students that want to make aviation their career. He says his contacts with similar organisations like the University of North Dakota and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University indicate that they also enjoy full take-up on their licence-centred FAA-syllabus degree courses.
Meanwhile, BAE Flight Training, with a school in southern Spain and two in Australia, says its market is booming. It had to find additional accommodation for the courses that began in October and November this year, and bookings ahead also look good, according to general manager of the Jerez, Spain, college Peter Newman. The institution trains a mixture of sponsored and self-sponsored would-be pilots, who study together.
The UK's largest charter carrier Britannia Airways, having taken a break from pilot training for many years because it had increased the average size of the aircraft in its fleet rather than the numbers, will have students at Jerez from February, and Algerian carrier Khalifa Airways is also training pilots there.
Europe's largest flying college Oxford Aviation Training (OAT) is less hopeful about the long-term state of the training market. Airline sponsorship of pilot training and interest from bright young people in taking up piloting as a career are simultaneously falling, says OAT managing director Anthony Petteford. The cost - about £50,000 ($79,000) for a course without a guaranteed job at the end - plus competition from other potential careers are two reasons, he says. "This is the first time we have had to go out [to schools and colleges] and stimulate interest in piloting as a career," Petteford adds, predicting there will be more of the same work to do when there is again an upturn in pilot demand.
OAT says a number of factors are reducing the attractiveness of piloting. These include: closed cockpit doors making the job more remote because passengers - especially the young - can no longer see airline pilots at work; increased automation changing the nature of the job; and the irregularity of the lifestyle.
At the same time, financial pressures on airlines have forced European airlines that used to sponsor a proportion of their pilots as ab initio entrants to look at alternative schemes. OAT says the last British Airways sponsored entrants will graduate shortly, and that at present BA has no need to train more. Launching its "airline partner programme", Petteford says the industry cannot assume a sufficient supply of people with the ability to become successful airline pilots with command potential - it has to work to attract them. Only a tenth of airline training applicants, he says, will pass OAT's screening and selection tests. Without success there, the chances of graduation from a course might be too low to risk the investment. Petteford estimates that in the UK market, the rapidly expanding low-cost airlines will need 400 new pilots a year until at least 2007.
Meanwhile, according to OAT, "BA alone retires about 200 pilots a year", and the UK Civil Aviation Authority is issuing around 500 airline pilot licences a year.
Shortfall
So when those pilots made redundant following the 11 September market dip have been re-employed, OAT says there will be a shortfall in the supply of pilots unless the training organisations and airlines develop a training product attractive enough to motivate quality applicants, and persuade them that the career is worth the considerable investment.
Meanwhile, a different form of "sponsored" ab initio airline pilot training has been arranged by another UK organisation which, so far, has one definite airline customer and another signed up to use the system as soon as pilot needs dictate. CTC has specialised in supplying multi-crew jet conversion and airline-tailored type-ratings to pilots, but it has now teamed with McAlpine, well known for helicopter training and operations, to provide an ab initio course designed to produce type-rated airline pilots, who are made familiar with company standard operating procedures (SOP).
CTC McAlpine is giving airlines a money-back guarantee if graduates fail to come up to scratch in probationary line flying, which is considered part of the course and remains unpaid. It offers aspiring pilots training with nothing to pay until they have a job. The company says this means the pool of potential ab initio pilots is not limited to those who can self-finance or persuade parents to provide the money.
Students that pass CTC McAlpine's exhaustive selection procedure sign a bond with the company that the airline takes over when they finish their acceptance period of supervised line flying with the carrier. Then the airline repays the bond and the student receives a "cadet entry" salary for the first seven years.
If there is a downside to the arrangement, it is that the bond period is long, and that students are liable to repay the bond if they leave before the agreed time expires. Most student pilots, however, seem to be enthusiastic about the deal. The arrangement, says CTC McAlpine managing director Rod Wren, means airlines do not have to finance training in advance, and are "guaranteed" a "no-risk" supply of type-rated pilots. One drawback, however, is that carriers do not have to guarantee to hire graduates if the need for pilots falls, so there could be a gap between the end of training and employment.
UK charter carrier JMC says it has signalled its interest in the concept partly because the first of the new courses - beginning in February - will produce line-ready pilots in 2005, when the expected economic upturn could create a demand for new crews.
Cerebral approach
The scheme, says Wren, entails 30% more single-engined flying, 50% more twin-engined time, and takes what he calls "more of a cerebral" approach to flying training than traditional instruction, allocating more time to efficient problem solving and the intelligent use of resources, in single pilot as well as crew situations. The time from beginning of the course to airline acceptance is estimated at two years, says CTC McAlpine, at a cost of about £100,000. The JAA syllabus will lead to the European licence.
Basic flying training will take place at Ardmore near Auckland, New Zealand, using Diamond Katana and DA40 single diesel-engined types, followed by 50h multi-engined and instrument rating training in the UK on the new DA42 TwinStar twins - not even certificated yet - with full glass cockpits. Since the DA42s will probably not be ready in time, early students will be trained on Beech Duchesses.
Students converting to the Boeing 737-300/700 will undertake type training on CTC's simulators near Southampton, UK. For other types - JMC would need Airbus A320-ready pilots - CTC arranges simulator time from training centres, where necessary. Students will then, as part of their training, conduct a six months unsalaried line flying under supervision before final airline acceptance.
CTC McAlpine says its scheme delivers line-ready pilots schooled in company SOPs at no risk to the airline and with no money required up front. At a time like this, says Wren, cash-strapped airlines still need pilots, and getting proven quality in such a package is appealing. While some of its training components are well-tried - particularly the CTC bridging course to prepare pilots who have just won a licence for line operation - the total CTC McAlpine product is certainly innovative, although unproven in the marketplace.
Still working a well-tried formula popular with some airlines is Cabair College of Air Training (CCAT) at Cranfield, UK. To win part-sponsorship, it requires its students to have a JAA private pilot's licence (PPL), which they can acquire at CCAT or elsewhere. The students are then put through a selection procedure and, if they pass it, an interview with one of the sponsoring airlines - at present UK-based Buzz and FlyBe.
Sharing cost
If the airline approves, the student, CCAT and the airline share the cost of the rest of the training to "frozen" air transport pilots licence standard (all the exams and flying tests have been passed but the pilot has to accumulate at least 1,500h flying time). The student then repays Cabair by flying for two years on a reduced salary as an instructor of PPL students at one of the group's flying schools. Having built up hours and experience, the graduate is then taken on line by the sponsoring airline.
CCAT says that, up to October, the year had been a good one, but some students appear now to be delaying until 2003 because the industry consensus is that the upturn will come in around 18 months or two years. Meanwhile, there is still uncertainty about the effect on airlines of war in Iraq, and potential pilots look as if they are hedging their bets for another six months.
Source: Flight International
