Pilots Wanted: Preferably Those Who Can Fly a Plane
There was recently a plane crash in Phuket, Thailand on a routine flight from Bangkok. Eighty-eight folks (mostly tourists), and the pilot were killed. They don’t fully know what caused the crash, but the current speculation is wind shear.
Whether it was pilot, plane, or just plain bad luck, the crash has reopened a can of worms all wriggling about air safety on the many small budget airlines that are cropping up across Asia. According to a recent MSNBC article , more than 50 new budget airlines have popped up, all offering super low prices. Combine that with the global pilot shortage, and Houston, we have a problem.
The issue has been percolating for a while. In March, a Garuda Indonesia flight slammed into a Jakarta runway, killing 21 people. Pilot error has been blamed for that one. Another incident had a plane from Adam Air falling from the sky at 35,000 feet. Then there was the China Airlines jetliner with the ruptured fuel tank that exploded (luckily, no fatalities for that one), and the less fortunate PMT Air flight that slammed into a mountain on its way to a Cambodian resort.
As someone who’s taken her share of small jumper flights in Asia (including the route from Bangkok to Phuket), I’m not entirely comfortable with this new trend. According to an AP report last month, there’s been a huge migration of experienced pilots (and airplane mechanics) from developing countries in Asia and Africa, to higher paying nations like those in the Middle East and Europe, where new airlines are also abounding. Can’t blame them, really. But that leaves fresh-faced grads to pilot and service the rest of the world’s planes.
I’m really not trying disrespect grads in any way—we all have to start somewhere—but there’s something to be said for experience. Whether it’s reacting under pressure, or relying on a knowledge base of issues you’ve seen before to quickly identify the one at hand, in a real pinch, experience can come in pretty handy. And who is going to mentor these fledgling flyers? Aviation authorities in some countries are talking about extending the mandatory retirement age from 60 to 65. Others are having new grads co-pilot with experienced captains, but there are concerns about the increased strain this puts on the command pilot.
Ironically, as the problem gets worse, it’s getting harder to train new pilots. And the problem isn’t isolated to Asia. Flight schools are complaining that they are now understaffed because their teachers are being recruited away to actually be pilots because, you know, there’s a now a world-wide pilot shortage. Quite the Catch-22 we’ve got here.
This has some trying to find ways to cut the necessary training time required to fly a commercial jet, just to get more pilots in the air. Take the new Multi-Crew Pilot License, which has pilots with only 240 hours of flight time, and as few as 12 take-offs and landings in the type of plane they’re going to fly, sitting in the right seat of high-performance transport jets. Is this really the fix we’re looking for?
And then, of course, there’s the brilliant idea of pushing pilots to the maximum hours of flight time allowed by regulation. But pilots don’t get tired do they? I’m sure that doesn’t impact performance at all.
I don’t pretend to know the answer to this many-layered problem. On the one hand, it’s good to see the economies of countries that have had so many problems in the past doing well enough to demand and support more airline options. It’s also good to see the airline industry, as a whole, recovering from the effects of 9/11 and that people are once again taking to the friendly (if crowded) skies. For the time being, though, it seems to be a case of “buyer beware.” If you’re traveling in a small country and are tempted to take a jumper flight to that gorgeous beach for some serious tan time, do your homework first.
Have you considered taking the train?