Page 36 - AAA JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2018 Online Magazine

By 2036, approximately 7.8 billion passengers are
expected to travel by air and the Asia-Pacific region
will be the biggest driver of demand, accounting as
the source for more than half of new air travellers
by 2036 (IATA figures). According to the IATA’s 20
year passenger forecast, the Asia-Pacific region
will have an annual average growth of 4.6 percent
for an overall market size of 3.5 billion passengers.
China is expected to displace the USA as the world’s
largest aviation market around 2022.
The surging growth will also mean that large
airplane inductions by airlines will also require suf-
ficient numbers of pilots to be trained and available
to cope with the airplanes joining an airline. As per
current regulations at least one licensed captain and Focussed Approach
a second pilot (either a captain or first officer) are ith the region’s fleet of in-service aircraft
needed to fly a commercial aircraft. An airline would is projected to significantly increase in
typically be flying on short-haul, medium-haul and size, Asia-Pacific will see the strongest
long-haul routes, which require three different air- Wgrowth in pilot demand with 90,000
craft types. Hence an airline would typically have a new pilots required to be trained by 2027. “Airlines
fleet of regional transport aircraft (RTA), single-aisle and their training partners will need to produce an
and twin-aisle jetliners. As per the CAE survey, average of 70 new type-rated pilots per day globally
“Over the last 10 years, the increase in aircraft to match the record high aircraft delivery rate and
utilization resulting from efficiency improvements account for pilot attrition,” the report says. Airline
has driven a slight growth in the average crew ratio operators are now increasingly choosing to work
and is expected to remain at a similar level over the with training provider for their simulator training
next decade.” RTAs play an important role in link- needs, as they convert the fixed cost of acquiring
ing smaller towns and cities to an airlines hub and simulators into a variable cost and only use what
spoke network and their pilots typically fly sectors they need, providing much needed flexibility. CAE
that range from 30-minutes to two-hours. These has announced training partnerships with Vietnam
pilots fly several sectors a day before reaching Airlines in Vietnam, Japan Airlines in Japan, Air Asia
their daily flight time, duty time or operational limits. in Malaysia, Cebu Pacific in the Philippines and a
“Narrow-body jets (typically 100 to 220 seats) are training operation in Singapore. CAE is also looking
widely used by network carriers and low cost car- to expand its presence in Indonesia and Thailand,
riers (LCCs) on short- and medium haul routes of while India remains an important market, where it
up to five to six hours, including overnight ‘red eye’ has strong existing partnerships with IndiGo and
services. Today, narrow-body jets represent 55 per Jet Airways. A typical full flight simulator costs in
cent of the global in-service fleet. This number is the range of 10’s of millions of dollars and when
expected to grow to over 60 per cent during the this investment is made with a training partner the
next 10 years,” says the CAE survey. Hence the cost of the facility can be leveraged over multiple
largest numbers of pilots will be needed for nar- customers and ensure higher utilisation. Hence by
row-body aircraft, which are typically crewed by a entering into training partnerships, airlines not only
Captain and a First Officer. The flight durations here benefit from flexibility but also gain scale as the
can range from 30 minutes - 3 hours (short-haul) investments in IT systems, courseware curriculum
or 3 hours – 6 hours (medium-haul). Longer-range and infrastructure is spread across a broader base.
non-stop domestic and intercontinental routes typ-
ically feature experienced crews with a relief crew
as well and a particular challenge in this area will be
ultra long-haul flights, which have flight durations of
more than 12 hours. The new generation of highly
fuel-efficient wide-body aircraft can fly more than
15 hours non-stop and management of crew fatigue
will be an important factor on these flights.

36 | January/February 2018 www.GBP.com.sg/AAA