QANTAS Looking to India for Pilots

[J170 Owner]

Is it true that QANTAS is looking to employ pilots and crew from India? Looks like our airline industry is going the way of the taxi industry!!! Catch a plane to Melbourne and end up in Brisbane.

 

 

[facthunter]

Maybe that guy who has been trying to sell me a cheap holiday will get a better job, and leave me alone. Nev.

 

 

[dunlopdangler]

probably get their flight training done at one of the sausage factories here as well

 

 

[facthunter]

When you are paying the big money You don't get failed. Isn't that a good state of affairs?

 

Nev

 

 

[Guest Jake.f]

Probably be paid half the amount for doing the same job as well

 

 

[Litespeed]

Gone are the days of the Flying Kangaroo

 

The typical Aussie race to the bottom for the salary earner and race to the top for the execs pay.

 

From a good source- many of the pilots have never before flown a light plane, never had a drivers licence and have not even basic mechanical knowledge.

 

But they do have Money!

 

Tell the bloody Irishman we want our Kangaroo back.

 

Phil

 

 

[robinsm]

Given the quality of the pilot trainees I see doing cross countries and landing at Goulburn, this worries me a lot. There is an old saying that if you pay peanuts, you get ................ And I am damn sure that I do not want ......... flying when I am in a passenger seat. Maybe it will be a tea, curry or me experience?

 

 

[XAIRVTW]

That would be a major concern if that is the case!

 

 

[Yenn]

I won't be flying Qantas if they don't have real pilots, ie white anglo saxons who speak english. I am not racist, but I will not risk my life with undertrained and underperforming non English speaking so called airline pilots. We only have to read the accident reports andit is apparent that some of them are completely lost if the auto pilot plays up.

 

 

[dunlopdangler]

With the risk of this thread resembling one from the old plum..... I spoke to a senior flight instructor (and close friend) today who is currently trying to train these overseas students and yes they are Indian... they pay the school up front with the fees and then have the ordasity to demand an outcome without putting in the effort... a couple of them demanded to know why they have not been put up for their tests and his reply...."Well when you are good enough........." Most of them are very hard to train and although they have passed the english exam still have a poor understanding of just about everything.. I shudder to think what is going to happen when these clowns are in the pointy end of a qantas plane when the sh+t hit the fan:insane:

 

 

[facthunter]

It's hard to believe that they would contemplate this sort of thing. Do they really know anything about pilot training and maintenance? Accountants don't get the full picture. Nev

 

 

[fly_tornado]

Save yourself the stress and fly air new zealand

 

 

[XAIRVTW]

The management of Qantas are bean counters all they are concerned with is the share price & profit $$$$$$

 

 

[Tomo]

Was speaking to someone the other day who was at Uni to get to the airlines.. or however it works, anyway, the first and all the initial training is done on simulators - good ones mind you, but really? I reckon it's the first few hours of a pilots life in learning the flying basics, that will stick there for the rest of his career. I guess it's a pretty cheap and easy option, but we don't want pilots as robots!

 

To be a good pilot you need to be passionate about it, not just going through the motions - goes for all humans.

 

 

[Guest Jake.f]

Was speaking to someone the other day who was at Uni to get to the airlines.. or however it works, anyway, the first and all the initial training is done on simulators - good ones mind you, but really? I reckon it's the first few hours of a pilots life in learning the flying basics, that will stick there for the rest of his career. I guess it's a pretty cheap and easy option, but we don't want pilots as robots!To be a good pilot you need to be passionate about it, not just going through the motions - goes for all humans.

All pilots for the big airlines should have lots of experience in light aircraft.... In normal airline ops with the level of automation I doubt its an issue but when something goes wrong things change.....

I say that airline pilots should be stuck in a rec plane, without any of these fancy attitude indicators, VSI's and such as part of the interview. Prove they can fly on an ASI, altimeter and slip ball only first (And engine gauges of course). From what I have read when I was once thinking of going down the aviation career path and doing research a lot of assessments of flying skills is done on 'realistic' simulators and then training occurs in those simulators before being thrown straight into the actual aircraft...

 

 

[Ultralights]

It's a sad state of affairs that with my nearly 1000 hrs, I have been told by 2 airlines in Oz, that I am to experienced to be considered.

 

 

[facthunter]

Pretty stupid statement from them, then. There's one A-380 and load of passengers that wouldn't be around If a few guys didn't have heaps of experience ( and PROPER. training). That should count for something. ( Even if you only look at the bottom line.) Or perhaps the insurance would have paid it out without much increase in premiums. Nev

 

 

[Gnarly Gnu]

This sounds too much like a yarn from the QF pilots union who are all uptight currently as they demand more $$.

 

One problem I've noticed for a lot of Indian lads (and girls) is the lack of mechanical 'fix-it' type experience. Labour is so cheap it just doesn't make sense to DIY and even if they did India doesn't currently have the type of hardware stores western countries have. Besides the trades and many fix-it type occupations tend to be poorly paid and looked down on. Also as the country becomes more affluent (and it is quite rapidly in some parts) I would expect a more diverse range of hobbies will appear - as in more diverse than playing video games and the like.

 

 

[facthunter]

Think a lot of them are genuinely worried about having a job with the new-look Qantas, and I think they have good reason to be concerned. Nev

 

 

[davebutler]

The course where they put the student on a simulator from the get go, is this not this Multi Crew License? They take the student straight out of school put them into the simulator for a number of hours and when happy put them in the RH seat with a safety FO on the flight deck and after a number of flights the safety FO comes off and it just the Capt and our "Wonder Pilot".

 

I was talking with a RA instructor who is also a retired ALTP and still does sim traing for a large airline and he is of the opinion that this is going to overload the Capt as the "Wonder Pilot" will just not have those basic skills. Also this pilot will one day be a Capt, scary:yikes:Imagine the Capt and never flown solo:big_grin:

 

 

[facthunter]

This multi crew licence or whatever it is called has been in the offing for a while. The holder cannot fly things like a Cessna 172 as a PPL does. I don't know all the ramifications of it but I will be seeing a few sim instructors this thursday, who are involved with it, so If you have some specific questions you have a couple of days to get them to me.. I have misgivings about it. They used to like to get blokes/girls in with about 1,500 hours experience and a fair bit of multi-engine time. That can sort a few things out. A lot more hours was not considered to provide much additional benefit. They like qualifications in maths and sciences too and today probably computers.

 

There is a specified minimum number of command hours required for initial command, on a first class ATPL. I don't know how you would get around that.

 

It would be possible to train a pilot on a simulator to probably do a good appearance of being a pilot in about 6 months, with all the theory, instrument procedures and systems trainers. You can find the sims pretty realistic, with full motion and view, but a simulator is only "playing the game". If you fly them a lot, you learn little tricks that make it easier than it should be by using things that the real aeroplane doesn't do, to get it there.

 

Getting back to the real thing and what you are facing when the CM2 finally gets to sit in the left hand seat and run the show, as the PIC, he will have had NO experience where he alone has to make the final decision prior to then. He can go through command assessment training and can sail through because he knows that there is always someone there who can save his life if it all goes pear shaped. He has never experienced the "loneliness" of command, in reality. Nev

 

 

[David F]

It does not surprise me but it is idiotic.They are doing this in tandem with the latest jingoistic marketing campain,Do they really think that the general fair paying passengers are that stupid ? I hope that irish boys tenure ends before the brand is totally destroyed (ps he is ok scraping by on a lazy 5 mill pa )

 

 

[Guest Jake.f]

It does not surprise me but it is idiotic.They are doing this in tandem with the latest jingoistic marketing campain,Do they really think that the general fair paying passengers are that stupid ? I hope that irish boys tenure ends before the brand is totally destroyed (ps he is ok scraping by on a lazy 5 mill pa )

5 mil p.a? Well jeez he is practically in poverty then! :rolleyes:

This story is one I could imagine a show like Sunday Night snapping up if told about it... Which would be good and bad in a way.

 

I do have to cringe when race is brought into it as a reason for the outrage. Personally, I would rather fly with an Indian pilot who has had the proper training and started at the bottom then with an Australian one who's rich daddy paid his/her way to a multi crew licence with minimal hours in the air. I think race has nothing to do with it, its the training that is being given and how it is given.

 

 

[68volksy]

I do love playing Devlis Advocate...

 

Good on Qantas for not pigeon-holing India! Just because they're currently a third-world country doesn't mean the people that live there are without intelligence or common sense. I think that a student that comes out of India through a school setup by Qantas will be considerably better trained than any of the kids of rich parents who come out here and pay top dollar. There's a billion people over there - imagine the quality of talent you'd be able to pull from a pool of that number if it wasn't only the kids of parents rich enough to send them overseas to study that you had to choose from!

 

Add that to the fact that Qantas could probably afford to provide absolutely free training to only the best over there compared to the cost of training over here. Could even find some kids from here might head over there - it'll probably be a considerable amount cheaper than getting your commercial licence over here. They have that new Indian Mahindra aircraft they'll probably be able to access very cost-effectively also.

 

Also 20 years from now will very likely see India and China as far and away the most highly trafficked airways in the world.

 

 

[Wayne T Mathews]

The course where they put the student on a simulator from the get go, is this not this Multi Crew License? They take the student straight out of school put them into the simulator for a number of hours and when happy put them in the RH seat with a safety FO on the flight deck and after a number of flights the safety FO comes off and it just the Capt and our "Wonder Pilot".I was talking with a RA instructor who is also a retired ALTP and still does sim traing for a large airline and he is of the opinion that this is going to overload the Capt as the "Wonder Pilot" will just not have those basic skills. Also this pilot will one day be a Capt, scary:yikes:Imagine the Capt and never flown solo:big_grin:

Oh boy!... Does this scenario press some "Raw Nerve Buttons", or what?