Training

Boeing's training company Alteon says the first multi-crew pilot licence (MPL) graduates of the course it devised with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority of Australia and the Civil Aviation Administration of China are poised to start flying the line with their employers China Eastern and Xiamen Airlines. Early in February the graduate pilots were presented with their pilot licences by CASA and the CAAC having completed the required 12 real landings in the Boeing 737s they will be flying on the line.

Alteon's course was run in Brisbane, Australia in association with the Airline Academy of Australia. Alteon's chief customer officer Roei Ganzarski says that the company will now begin a two-year period of monitoring the MPL graduates for validation purposes and, if necessary, fine-tuning the company's MPL training programme.

Ganzarski told Flight International that its experience with the MPL has convinced it of the licence's validity to present-day airline requirements, and the company expects to be working with other partners on MPL in the future. He says that airlines from Africa, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East are showing the greatest level of interest, but he debunks the theory that MPL has no place in the USA's training culture. It could well serve the purposes of US regional carriers when the demand for pilots returns, says Ganzarski.