Australian airlines, flying training organisations, universities, industry groups and the government have established the Future Pilot Task Force in an attempt to tackle the country's growing pilot shortage.
The pilot shortage is the key risk factor for the Australia's aviation industry in the future, according to the group, which includes Qantas, Virgin Blue, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority and the Department of Infrastructure and Transport.
The first target of the group, which met for the first time in February, is to increase pilot instructor numbers by at least 15% over the next five years in order to avoid further serious pilot shortages.
Flight training providers in the country are increasingly finding it difficult to recruit and retain qualified instructors and are experiencing a high turnover and loss of instructors to the country's rapidly expanding airlines.
To address the problem Flight Training Adelaide, for example, is recruiting instructors worldwide and has launched a supplementary business to train instructors, while other providers have launched instructor sponsorship schemes.
The task force has agreed to work together to promote the role of flight instructor as a valuable and essential element in ensuring the country can produce sufficient pilots for future industry demand.
"It is difficult to retain pilot instructors for a range of reasons, including the high demand in the job market for working pilots," says Stephen Phillips, head of aviation at the University of South Australia and task force convenor. "That points to a need for greater career path planning for qualified pilots and more promotion of the flight instructor role as a legitimate and rewarding occupation," he adds.
The group has also agreed to establish a joint airline working group to develop a unified industry pre-selection process involving psychometric, numeracy, literacy, decision making and motor skills tests to identify pilots with the potential to be instructors and airline pilots.
Launch of the task force comes as Australian regional carrier Rex Airlines has been forced to suspend more regional services which it blames on its ongoing pilot shortage.
Source: Flight International
