Boeing Training and Flight Services (T&FS) aims to start a multi-crew pilot licence (MPL) course in eastern Europe and North America this year.
"The idea is to get carriers from Asia and the Middle East to send" their people to the MPL course in North America whereas the eastern European course will be for locally-based students, says Boeing chief customer officer T&FS commercial aviation services, Roei Ganzarski.
Ganzarski declines to say which North American country the course will be in but he describes Transport Canada as "very progressive" and says Canada has put in the necessary regulations to facilitate MPL courses.
The USA, meanwhile, is still working on it, he says.
Other countries that have the regulations in place include: Australia, the Philippines and Singapore.
T&FS had a Beta test in Australia in 2008 for MPL.
The six students graduated early last year and T&FS is continuing to monitor the students' performance now that they are flying with Chinese carriers, namely China Eastern Airlines and Xiamen Airlines, says Ganzarski.
The push to establish MPL courses reached its high point in 2008 when carriers around the world were suffering from an acute shortage of pilots.
But since the 2009 economic downturn there is now a surplus of pilots in some parts of the world.
Ganzarski says there will be demand in future for MPL courses Airlines realise they need to prepare for when the economy recovers and are operating at full capacity again, he adds.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
