Post by flyjoe180 on Nov 23, 2007 9:09:08 GMT 12
More people are flying just as the worldwide aviation industry struggles to cope with a shortage of pilots. Pilots flying our planes consequently do not always have the experience they used to. Should we be frightened? MARTIN VAN BEYNEN reports.
About midnight on July 29, 2000, an Air New Zealand jet with 176 people on board was approaching Faleolo Airportin Apia, Samoa, on a routine instrument landing. What the pilots and the passengers did not know was that the plane was heading straight into the ocean.
The Boeing 767's automatics had fixed on incorrect signals from the airfield's instrument landing system, which had the previous day been damaged by a ditch-digger.
The pilots sensed something was wrong by the angle of the descent and speed of the plane and, only 120m from plunging into the sea, pulled up rapidly.
The close call is now used in training as an example of how pilots saved a flight by acting on their suspicions rather than having blind faith in their instruments.
Would less experienced pilots have recognised the danger signals?
That is the issue that is worrying many in the industry as, due to a worldwide shortage of pilots, less seasoned flyers staff the cockpits of our passenger aircraft.
A New Zealand pilot, who is afraid of losing his job if he is named, told The Press it was well known that standards had dropped.
"Twenty-five years ago, if you tried to join an airline you might as well have forgotten about it unless you had been flying for 15 years, gone through all the general aviation and done hours and hours and hours. Nowadays you can perhaps do a bare licence and they are taking you straight away," he said.
Aircraft are more sophisticated and compensate for possible pilot shortcomings, he says, but "when something goes wrong that's when the experience counts".
The root of the shortage lies in rapid air traffic growth, especially in the Middle East, China and India, and the sustained recovery of airlines in the United States. Low-cost carriers in Europe and Asia have also expanded rapidly and are consequently recruiting pilots in unprecedented numbers.
Airlines have for years taken talented pilots with low flight hours and trained them to fill first officer (co-pilot) positions on jetairliners. More informal training occurs when they are paired with experienced captains in the left-hand seat.
Internationally that combined experience is decreasing. A new qualification called the multi-crew pilot's licence, approved by the International Civil Aviation Organisation last year, has the potential to propel pilots with no real flying experience straight into the co-pilot's (right-hand) seat.
A lively debate on the issue rages on pilot speak-easy internet forums such as PPrune, where some hair-raising stories from flyers surface and where the less experienced first officers are also stoutly defended.
What use are thousands of hours in a light plane when it comes to flying a jet aircraft, is a question commonly asked. The usual answer is "airmanship".
Budget airlines seem to cop, often unjustifiably, much of the anxiety about pilot inexperience and safety shortcuts.
In Asia, some painful lessons are being learnt. The European Union,for instance, has banned all 51 Indonesian Airlines planes from flyinginto European airports and Thai budget operator Phuket Air receiveda similar ban. But in most of Europe, Britain, the US and Australasia, low-cost carriers have an excellent safety record.
However, as the pilot shortage bites, and experience heads for the better money, conditions and perks offered by the established players, inevitably airlines down the food chain will have fewer top-end pilots to choose from.
This month Pacific Blue launched its service between Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland. The domestic foray means the recruitment of a new batch of pilots and prompted a Pacific Blue pilot to tell The Press this month that the expansion was too fast and pilots and management too inexperienced.
This is denied by the airline, but two incidents involving Pacific Blue aircraft this year, one a tail scrape and the other where the aircraft veered off the runway in Sydney, raise the inevitable questions.
New Zealand Air Line Pilots' Association president Mark Rammell, a pilot of 27 years standing, says the level of experience on the flightdeck will always drop any time a shortage of pilots occurs.
"For a long time New Zealand flight decks have had an incredible amount of experience compared to overseas ... but the level of experience will inevitably reduce."
He says the shortage is forcing New Zealand's air operators, particularly the regional airlines, to employ people "with less flying experience into jobs which normally would have had a far greater level of experience".
Pilots who would have expected to wait years to work for Air New Zealand were now getting much more rapid promotions and easier opportunities at such airlines as Cathay Pacific, Emirates, Dragon Air, Gulf Airand others.
"It's premature to say it's more dangerous to fly but any time there'sless experience on the flight deck there's more opportunity for error."
Rammell has heard the horror stories from his colleagues and sayssome overseas "start-up carriers" have captains who are not only flyingfor the company for the first time but are also flying jets for thefirst time.
"And the first officer is as good as fresh out of flight school. There'snothing to say they can't do that but you have got a captain withlow experience on jets and then you have in the right-hand seat aperson with no experience on jets at all. You have to ask yourself,where is that heading?"
Under New Zealand civil aviation regulations, pilots need to have 500 hours flight time before they start training as first officers on jet aircraft and must have at least 1500 hours before training to be captains.
In reality, most New Zealand airline pilots still need to put in the hard yards in general aviation before applying for airline positions.
As yet our civil aviation rules do not provide for a multi-crew pilot's licence.
In answer to written questions, Air New Zealand chief pilot David Morgan says his airline's pilots must have a minimum of 2000 hours flying, including 100 hours in air-transport operations before beingc onsidered for line-haul positions. Most successful applicants have more than 3000 hours flying time, including 500 hours in air-transport operations, he says.
Minimum requirements have not decreased and pilots go through a full induction programme, including specific training on the aircraft to which they are allocated.
Each year every pilot has four full-flight simulator exercises and other courses. On average, Air New Zealand's pilots have 20 years of experience and are in their mid to late 40s, he says.
Asked the same written questions, Pacific Blue's public affairs manager, Heather Jeffery, says new applicants must meet civil aviation standards, but new first officers flying for Pacific Blue already have, on average, 4000 hours of flying time.
The majority of new first officers joined Pacific Blue from other airlines such as Air Nelson, Mount Cook and Eagle Air, where they had been flying large turbo-prop aircraft, she says.
"We have no difficulty attracting experienced pilots. In the lasts ix months alone we have recruited 10 experienced captains for our domestic operations. Each has on average 15,000 hours flying experience,i ncluding 10,000 hours flying jet aircraft."
Qantas was asked the same set of questions but did not respond before deadline.
Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) spokesman Bill Sommer says the authority has no concerns about the experience of New Zealand air crews because operators are complying with CAA rules.
So if everything is hunky-dory, where is the strain showing?
Overseas, for instance, flights are being cancelled. This year, American carrier Northwest Airlines cancelled 1200 flights in one week because it could not provide sufficient pilots.
Morgan says Air New Zealand is not short of pilots and has cancelled no services in the past 12 months due to lack of staff.
Irene King, chief executive of the Aviation Industry Association, says the signs of a severe shortage of pilots are already evident in the difficulty in finding flight instructors.
These are generally young flight-course graduates doing a spell of teaching before getting commercial flying jobs. When a shortage bites, they are snapped up by regional airlines and general operators thatare losing their pilots to the major airlines.
"We are probably 200 to 300 pilots below where we expect to be," says King, who reckons New Zealand churns out about 200 commercial pilot's licence (CPL) graduates each year at a cost of about $65,000 each.
King says such airlines as Air New Zealand would first handle pressures on staffing by changing rostering and deferring leave. In that situation,both the airline and the CAA would be watching things like simulator test results like a hawk, she says.
The Government funds 600 places on the flight courses each year, a figure which King says will have to increase to address the shortage.
The general manager of the Massey University School of Aviation, AshokPoduval, flew for Gulf Air for 14 years and is the former director of operations and safety for the International Air Transport Associationin Canada.
He says the fact he has lost six flight instructors in the past year to other flying positions suggests major changes in the rest of the New Zealand aviation industry are just around the corner. At the moment, however, his students, who graduate with a CPL, 250 hours of flight time, and multi-engine and instrument ratings, still have to go the general aviation route before being eligible to join an airline such as Air New Zealand.
"That will have to change very very quickly because of the global shortage."
In Asia, China, the Middle East and Europe, he says, many airline stake pilots with the same qualifications as his students and put them through a bridging programme (multi- crew communication module) after which they go directly into the right hand (first officer) seat on the jets.
"That has not happened in New Zealand, where there are still enough pilots knocking at the door," says Poduval.
"I don't see how flying for 1000 hours in a light aeroplane around New Zealand gives anybody the competencies required to sit in the right-hand seat of a jet aeroplane."
For passengers sitting behind the cockpit door, it is, as always, mainly a matter of trust in the pilots, the airline and the regulatory authority.
Poduval says, comfortingly, that New Zealand's aviation standards are among the highest in the world. The trick, in these turbulent times, will be to ensure they stay that way.
* Pilots who want to fly commercial aircraft in New Zealand need a CPL, must be 18 years old, have completed a minimum of 200 hours flight time and hold a New Zealand private pilot's licence. They must also have passed several theory exams and hold a class 1 medical certificate.
www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/thepress/4282375a19743.html
About midnight on July 29, 2000, an Air New Zealand jet with 176 people on board was approaching Faleolo Airportin Apia, Samoa, on a routine instrument landing. What the pilots and the passengers did not know was that the plane was heading straight into the ocean.
The Boeing 767's automatics had fixed on incorrect signals from the airfield's instrument landing system, which had the previous day been damaged by a ditch-digger.
The pilots sensed something was wrong by the angle of the descent and speed of the plane and, only 120m from plunging into the sea, pulled up rapidly.
The close call is now used in training as an example of how pilots saved a flight by acting on their suspicions rather than having blind faith in their instruments.
Would less experienced pilots have recognised the danger signals?
That is the issue that is worrying many in the industry as, due to a worldwide shortage of pilots, less seasoned flyers staff the cockpits of our passenger aircraft.
A New Zealand pilot, who is afraid of losing his job if he is named, told The Press it was well known that standards had dropped.
"Twenty-five years ago, if you tried to join an airline you might as well have forgotten about it unless you had been flying for 15 years, gone through all the general aviation and done hours and hours and hours. Nowadays you can perhaps do a bare licence and they are taking you straight away," he said.
Aircraft are more sophisticated and compensate for possible pilot shortcomings, he says, but "when something goes wrong that's when the experience counts".
The root of the shortage lies in rapid air traffic growth, especially in the Middle East, China and India, and the sustained recovery of airlines in the United States. Low-cost carriers in Europe and Asia have also expanded rapidly and are consequently recruiting pilots in unprecedented numbers.
Airlines have for years taken talented pilots with low flight hours and trained them to fill first officer (co-pilot) positions on jetairliners. More informal training occurs when they are paired with experienced captains in the left-hand seat.
Internationally that combined experience is decreasing. A new qualification called the multi-crew pilot's licence, approved by the International Civil Aviation Organisation last year, has the potential to propel pilots with no real flying experience straight into the co-pilot's (right-hand) seat.
A lively debate on the issue rages on pilot speak-easy internet forums such as PPrune, where some hair-raising stories from flyers surface and where the less experienced first officers are also stoutly defended.
What use are thousands of hours in a light plane when it comes to flying a jet aircraft, is a question commonly asked. The usual answer is "airmanship".
Budget airlines seem to cop, often unjustifiably, much of the anxiety about pilot inexperience and safety shortcuts.
In Asia, some painful lessons are being learnt. The European Union,for instance, has banned all 51 Indonesian Airlines planes from flyinginto European airports and Thai budget operator Phuket Air receiveda similar ban. But in most of Europe, Britain, the US and Australasia, low-cost carriers have an excellent safety record.
However, as the pilot shortage bites, and experience heads for the better money, conditions and perks offered by the established players, inevitably airlines down the food chain will have fewer top-end pilots to choose from.
This month Pacific Blue launched its service between Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland. The domestic foray means the recruitment of a new batch of pilots and prompted a Pacific Blue pilot to tell The Press this month that the expansion was too fast and pilots and management too inexperienced.
This is denied by the airline, but two incidents involving Pacific Blue aircraft this year, one a tail scrape and the other where the aircraft veered off the runway in Sydney, raise the inevitable questions.
New Zealand Air Line Pilots' Association president Mark Rammell, a pilot of 27 years standing, says the level of experience on the flightdeck will always drop any time a shortage of pilots occurs.
"For a long time New Zealand flight decks have had an incredible amount of experience compared to overseas ... but the level of experience will inevitably reduce."
He says the shortage is forcing New Zealand's air operators, particularly the regional airlines, to employ people "with less flying experience into jobs which normally would have had a far greater level of experience".
Pilots who would have expected to wait years to work for Air New Zealand were now getting much more rapid promotions and easier opportunities at such airlines as Cathay Pacific, Emirates, Dragon Air, Gulf Airand others.
"It's premature to say it's more dangerous to fly but any time there'sless experience on the flight deck there's more opportunity for error."
Rammell has heard the horror stories from his colleagues and sayssome overseas "start-up carriers" have captains who are not only flyingfor the company for the first time but are also flying jets for thefirst time.
"And the first officer is as good as fresh out of flight school. There'snothing to say they can't do that but you have got a captain withlow experience on jets and then you have in the right-hand seat aperson with no experience on jets at all. You have to ask yourself,where is that heading?"
Under New Zealand civil aviation regulations, pilots need to have 500 hours flight time before they start training as first officers on jet aircraft and must have at least 1500 hours before training to be captains.
In reality, most New Zealand airline pilots still need to put in the hard yards in general aviation before applying for airline positions.
As yet our civil aviation rules do not provide for a multi-crew pilot's licence.
In answer to written questions, Air New Zealand chief pilot David Morgan says his airline's pilots must have a minimum of 2000 hours flying, including 100 hours in air-transport operations before beingc onsidered for line-haul positions. Most successful applicants have more than 3000 hours flying time, including 500 hours in air-transport operations, he says.
Minimum requirements have not decreased and pilots go through a full induction programme, including specific training on the aircraft to which they are allocated.
Each year every pilot has four full-flight simulator exercises and other courses. On average, Air New Zealand's pilots have 20 years of experience and are in their mid to late 40s, he says.
Asked the same written questions, Pacific Blue's public affairs manager, Heather Jeffery, says new applicants must meet civil aviation standards, but new first officers flying for Pacific Blue already have, on average, 4000 hours of flying time.
The majority of new first officers joined Pacific Blue from other airlines such as Air Nelson, Mount Cook and Eagle Air, where they had been flying large turbo-prop aircraft, she says.
"We have no difficulty attracting experienced pilots. In the lasts ix months alone we have recruited 10 experienced captains for our domestic operations. Each has on average 15,000 hours flying experience,i ncluding 10,000 hours flying jet aircraft."
Qantas was asked the same set of questions but did not respond before deadline.
Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) spokesman Bill Sommer says the authority has no concerns about the experience of New Zealand air crews because operators are complying with CAA rules.
So if everything is hunky-dory, where is the strain showing?
Overseas, for instance, flights are being cancelled. This year, American carrier Northwest Airlines cancelled 1200 flights in one week because it could not provide sufficient pilots.
Morgan says Air New Zealand is not short of pilots and has cancelled no services in the past 12 months due to lack of staff.
Irene King, chief executive of the Aviation Industry Association, says the signs of a severe shortage of pilots are already evident in the difficulty in finding flight instructors.
These are generally young flight-course graduates doing a spell of teaching before getting commercial flying jobs. When a shortage bites, they are snapped up by regional airlines and general operators thatare losing their pilots to the major airlines.
"We are probably 200 to 300 pilots below where we expect to be," says King, who reckons New Zealand churns out about 200 commercial pilot's licence (CPL) graduates each year at a cost of about $65,000 each.
King says such airlines as Air New Zealand would first handle pressures on staffing by changing rostering and deferring leave. In that situation,both the airline and the CAA would be watching things like simulator test results like a hawk, she says.
The Government funds 600 places on the flight courses each year, a figure which King says will have to increase to address the shortage.
The general manager of the Massey University School of Aviation, AshokPoduval, flew for Gulf Air for 14 years and is the former director of operations and safety for the International Air Transport Associationin Canada.
He says the fact he has lost six flight instructors in the past year to other flying positions suggests major changes in the rest of the New Zealand aviation industry are just around the corner. At the moment, however, his students, who graduate with a CPL, 250 hours of flight time, and multi-engine and instrument ratings, still have to go the general aviation route before being eligible to join an airline such as Air New Zealand.
"That will have to change very very quickly because of the global shortage."
In Asia, China, the Middle East and Europe, he says, many airline stake pilots with the same qualifications as his students and put them through a bridging programme (multi- crew communication module) after which they go directly into the right hand (first officer) seat on the jets.
"That has not happened in New Zealand, where there are still enough pilots knocking at the door," says Poduval.
"I don't see how flying for 1000 hours in a light aeroplane around New Zealand gives anybody the competencies required to sit in the right-hand seat of a jet aeroplane."
For passengers sitting behind the cockpit door, it is, as always, mainly a matter of trust in the pilots, the airline and the regulatory authority.
Poduval says, comfortingly, that New Zealand's aviation standards are among the highest in the world. The trick, in these turbulent times, will be to ensure they stay that way.
* Pilots who want to fly commercial aircraft in New Zealand need a CPL, must be 18 years old, have completed a minimum of 200 hours flight time and hold a New Zealand private pilot's licence. They must also have passed several theory exams and hold a class 1 medical certificate.
www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/thepress/4282375a19743.html
