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Transport Ministry To Impose Quota On Hiring Of Local Pilots
24th Oct 2015
Very soon, local Thai airlines will have to implement a new ruling on the hiring of pilots. The Ministry of Transport (MOT) would like each air carrier to hire Thai nationals, increasing their number to at least one-fifth of the total number of pilots.
According to Arkhom Termpittayapaisith, Thailand's transport minister, this new ruling will soon be formalised and eventually implemented. However, no details were given as regards the effectivity date. He said however that in the near future, this will be one of the prerequisites among local or foreign airlines applying for a business license.
Minister Termpittayapaisith said that once implemented, he expects to see more Thai pilots flying the skies.
Thai government is currently pushing to increase the number of trained and skilled pilots in the country amid tremendous growth exhibited by the aviation sector here and abroad. The proposed new ruling is in line with this endeavour.
The Civil Aviation Training Centre (CATC) is a government unit tasked to train and educate aspiring Thai pilots. Yearly, about a hundred new pilots complete their training from the CATC. This number however still falls short of the aviation sector's total pilot requirement.
Right now, no more than 15 per cent of total pilots per airline are composed of Thai nationals. These surveyed local airlines have been in operation for about 10 years now.
So far, CATC have difficulty increasing the number of pilot trainees, citing the limited budget and teaching tools as major challenges. Government allocates around 400 million baht yearly to run the centre.
CATC however is seriously exploring ways how it can grow the number of Thai student pilots. It will come up with a study which will include the number of pilots it needs to train and educate in order to feed annual demand.
It is also establishing measures which focus on safeguarding airline passengers and their rights for better and improved service. According to the transport minister, one of these measures seeks to ensure that the number of aircraft per carrier is enough to sustain satisfactory service.
He said that new rules will be more stringent. For instance, an air carrier with limited aircraft may not be granted an operating license.
Some airlines offer promotional tours at rock-bottom prices but fail to fly passengers on time due to aircraft limitations. This leaves passengers being stranded on airports. This should never be tolerated, he said.
There are also incidents where airlines' licences have been revoked but for some reason, these same companies were still able to sell tickets.
Next week, members of the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will be conducting a three-day safety audit of Thailand's aviation sector. He assured that government is prepared for this and had, in fact, drawn a number of resolutions on safety issues raised by the International Civil Aviation Organisation.
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