Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 4, 2020 14:40:03 GMT 12
Hamilton flying school set to close, coronavirus to blame
Mike Mather
12:19, Nov 04 2020
It’s been the training ground for thousands of pilots and airline staff, but it looks like Hamilton’s aviation industry training school L3 Airline Academy will be permanently grounded early next year.
Staff at the business met on Wednesday morning, and Stuff understands L3 have proposed closing the Hamilton operation down in early February.
About 170 staff will lose their jobs as a result.
The company is understood to have begun a consultation process with those staff, and will make a final decision in about a month.
As with many other businesses, the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic had proved devastating. Each year the Hamilton Airport-based operation trained about 500 cadets, most of whom came from overseas.
They currently have 98 students, who will all have completed their training in February, and at that point the school will close, Stuff understands.
It began life in 2005 as CTC Aviation, a branch of a UK-based company with the aim of training pilots for the then-burgeoning European market. The business was opened with much fanfare by then-Prime Minister Helen Clark. By 2013 it was a base for 45 planes, 100 staff and 70 instructors.
In 2015 the company teamed up with Waikato University to develop joint pilot training programmes and in 2017 its ownership changed to another UK-based firm, L3 Commercial Training Solutions.
Until the Covid pandemic hit, the business was seen as a vital component of the airline industry, helping address a worldwide shortage of pilots.
The airlines it provided staff to included British Airways, Dragonair, the Jetstar Group, Monarch Airlines, Oman Air, Qatar Airways, Royal Brunei Airlines, Ryanair, Thomas Cook Airlines and Virgin Atlantic Airways.
In 2018, then-New Zealand academy director Peter Stockwell told Stuff he believed New Zealand had the capacity to take a larger share of the international pilot training pie.
"It's effectively an export business."
Director of the L3 Airline Academy in Hamilton, Richard Bennenbroek, referred Stuff enquiries to the company’s international communications department.
The company was yet to respond at midday on Wednesday.
www.stuff.co.nz/business/123290799/covid19-hamilton-flying-school-set-to-close-coronavirus-to-blame
Mike Mather
12:19, Nov 04 2020
It’s been the training ground for thousands of pilots and airline staff, but it looks like Hamilton’s aviation industry training school L3 Airline Academy will be permanently grounded early next year.
Staff at the business met on Wednesday morning, and Stuff understands L3 have proposed closing the Hamilton operation down in early February.
About 170 staff will lose their jobs as a result.
The company is understood to have begun a consultation process with those staff, and will make a final decision in about a month.
As with many other businesses, the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic had proved devastating. Each year the Hamilton Airport-based operation trained about 500 cadets, most of whom came from overseas.
They currently have 98 students, who will all have completed their training in February, and at that point the school will close, Stuff understands.
It began life in 2005 as CTC Aviation, a branch of a UK-based company with the aim of training pilots for the then-burgeoning European market. The business was opened with much fanfare by then-Prime Minister Helen Clark. By 2013 it was a base for 45 planes, 100 staff and 70 instructors.
In 2015 the company teamed up with Waikato University to develop joint pilot training programmes and in 2017 its ownership changed to another UK-based firm, L3 Commercial Training Solutions.
Until the Covid pandemic hit, the business was seen as a vital component of the airline industry, helping address a worldwide shortage of pilots.
The airlines it provided staff to included British Airways, Dragonair, the Jetstar Group, Monarch Airlines, Oman Air, Qatar Airways, Royal Brunei Airlines, Ryanair, Thomas Cook Airlines and Virgin Atlantic Airways.
In 2018, then-New Zealand academy director Peter Stockwell told Stuff he believed New Zealand had the capacity to take a larger share of the international pilot training pie.
"It's effectively an export business."
Director of the L3 Airline Academy in Hamilton, Richard Bennenbroek, referred Stuff enquiries to the company’s international communications department.
The company was yet to respond at midday on Wednesday.
www.stuff.co.nz/business/123290799/covid19-hamilton-flying-school-set-to-close-coronavirus-to-blame
