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QF flying school update -

Via the Oz:

Qantas steps up hunt for pilot training facility




Qantas pilot Haidee Wong on the tarmac at Brisbane Airport as the carrier looks to train more female pilots. Picture: Claudia Baxter
The Australian12:00AM May 11, 2018

ANNABEL HEPWORTH
Aviation EditorSydney
@HepworthAnnabel

Qantas will today detail the next stages for selecting the region that will be home to its coveted new multi-million-dollar pilot training ­facility.

As carriers rush to deal with a looming pilot shortage, Qantas is setting up a new pilot academy that is expected to become one of the biggest in the southern hemisphere.

The Australian can reveal that Qantas will launch a formal request-for-information process for regional cities and state governments vying to host the Pilot Academy based on a raft of criteria, including access to a mix of controlled and uncontrolled airspace and weather conditions that would allow for at least 300 days a year that are suited to flying.

The criteria will include having a minimum asphalt runway length of 1300m. The airport would need to be able to have fuel tanker refuelling and be able to have full lighting for night and reduced-visibility operations.

As well, the group has a preference for an airport that has a control tower.

Those bidding to host the academy are also expected to include detail on teaching facilities that have full Wi-Fi capability and ­facilities to accommodate simulators. Accommodation for students will also be needed.

Qantas will be taking the responses up to June 8 and expects to announce a shortlist before making a final decision on where the base for the pilot training college will be.

Already, leaders from a raft of areas have expressed interest in the academy coming to their city.

Qantas is expected to tip an initial investment of up to $20 million into the new facility.

The more than 12,500 aspiring pilots who have registered their interest in the academy will receive an update on the process.

Qantas Group Pilot Academy executive manager Wes Nobelius said he was encouraged by the number of people who had expressed an interest in a career as an aviator. He pointed to an estimate by US aerospace giant Boeing that globally, more than 640,000 more ­pilots will be needed in the next 20 years.

In Australia, concerns about a pilot shortage are serious enough that it was reported this week that the Royal Flying Doctor Service was struggling to fill jobs in outback Queensland, in Mount Isa and Charleville.

Qantas’s regional arm, QantasLink, has indicated that it wants to bring in a “limited number” of experienced pilots and simulator instructors from overseas, but wants the government to extend the time foreign pilots can stay in Australia on work visas for this.

Of the aspiring pilots who have registered their interest in the Qantas academy, 15 per cent are women.

Mr Nobelius said the proportion of women was “also significant for a profession that currently has a global average of 3 per cent female representation”.

He said this put the group on track to meet its “Nancy Bird Walton” initiative to get to 40 per cent in the pilot intake in a decade.

Last week, rival Virgin Australia committed to a target of 50 per cent women in its cadet pilot intake for the year.

Mr Nobelius said regional cities nationwide had put their hands up to host the academy.

“We’ve already had some very positive discussions with governments and state leaders,” Mr ­Nobelius said. “More than 40 regional cities have indicated they’ll be making a bid to be home to the academy. We’ve even had one council posting a video on social media featuring its residents and all the city had to offer.”

Qantas announced earlier this year that it wanted its pilot academy to be based at a regional centre with an airfield.

Businessman and aviator Dick Smith has previously described the plan for the academy as the best aviation news he has heard in the past 20 years.

The creation of the academy comes after reports of a rush to ­secure pilots, and the costs and red tape that have dogged flying schools and the greater foreign ownership of Australian training schools.

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