Boeing to start flying lessons this year

TO help its clients meet rising demand for pilots, aircraft manufacturer Boeing is working on a Pilot Development Programme (PDP) that can train up to 500 pilots a year.

The programme will comprise two phases. The first is general aviation training. Candidates become certified pilots after this phase, which can take between 12 to 18 months.

The next stage, spanning approximately two months, will take the candidates through jet bridging - transiting from flying propeller planes to jet planes - and type rating, which qualifies the pilot to fly specific models of aircraft.

Boeing's goal is to provide an end-to-end programme that can produce fully-trained pilots, ready to assume duties from the get-go.

It will be working with clients to customise the programme to their needs, changing the training and protocols as required. It even wants to simulate the corporate culture of its clients during the training phase.

Boeing is open to training pilots for flying aircraft manufactured by other companies.

While its programmes are designed with Boeing planes in mind, a large part of flight training is in fact model-agnostic, said Bob Bellitto, director of the customer group at Boeing Flight Services.

Boeing expects to kick off PDP as early as end of this year. The programme will go online amidst rising global demand for pilots.

From 2014 to 2033, Boeing expects 533,000 new pilots and nearly 37,000 new airplanes globally, according to the Pilot and Technician and Outlook which the company put out in July. Forty-one per cent of the new pilots and 37 per cent of the new planes will go to the Asia-Pacific region.

"The Asia-Pacific region is seeing tremendous economic growth and is set to become the largest air travel market in the world," said Mr Bellitto.

The demand is most voracious in China, which will require 98,000 new pilots and 6,020 new planes by 2033.

South-east Asia, meanwhile, will add 55,000 pilots and 3,350 new planes, in large part due to its rapidly growing budget carriers.