A U.S. pilot school has suspended all solo flights for Cathay Pacific trainees after several accidents in which planes were damaged during training and went unreported by training crews.
Based in Phoenix, Arizona Aeroguard Flight Training Center According to a memo seen by Bloomberg News, Cathay Pacific told all its trainees “to cease all solo flying with immediate effect” after Aeroguard found “an alarming increase in solo flying incidents during trainee training.”
“These incidents were not minor – one involved a wingtip collision with a fixed object, one involved a bounce upon landing which caused the propeller to strike the runway violently, and most recently one involved a complete runway departure. While each situation is different, the concern is the same in each case – necessary consultations were not carried out.” And in two of the three incidents, “students did not properly report the incidents.”
Cathay Pacific confirmed the incident to Bloomberg and said it was taking it seriously.
“These accidents involved students supported by our airline who will become our employees once they have successfully completed their training courses. They will then need to undergo further structured training before taking on flying duties,” Cathay Pacific said in a statement. “Every decision we make is safety-driven and we fully support the decisions of the training schools,” it added.
The Aeroguard Flight Training Center did not respond to calls seeking comment outside normal U.S. business hours.
The suspension of solo flights will be a blow to Cathay Pacific as it struggles to replace pilots lost during the pandemic. Cathay Pacific, along with several other airlines, relies on Aeroguard to train hundreds of new pilots each year.
The airline’s pilot numbers fell sharply during the pandemic as Hong Kong closed its borders and implemented some of the world’s strictest quarantine measures, forcing many people to leave the city. Significant pay cuts also led many pilots to quit, and Cathay Pacific’s business, which is entirely international because Hong Kong has no domestic routes, has yet to return to pre-COVID levels.
Cathay Pacific will Hire and train It plans to train 800 new pilots by 2025. A person familiar with the Aeroguard affair, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said the decision would affect about 150 of Cathay’s 250 to 300 trainees currently at the training school.
Aeroguard is for 5 years agreement The airline will partner with Cathay Pacific in 2022, giving the flight school responsibility for training hundreds of future pilots over a 10-month program.
Aeroguard has previously said it trains two types of pilots for Cathay Pacific: those with no flying experience, and those who are already air crew but need to convert their licence to Hong Kong standards.
The US school also has training contracts with Air India, China Airlines and US regional airline SkyWest Airlines.