Pakistan-UK friendship driven on aviation: Christian Turner
Islamabad: The UK High Commissioner to Pakistan Christian Turner said this week that Pakistan-UK friendship was driven on Aviation as it provides contact between the two people.
This builds an indigenous capability within Pakistan to train its pilots within the country rather than going abroad. It’s a real step forward in self reliance.
His comments came after the Pakistan International Airlines, the national flag carrier and the largest airline in Pakistan announced that it is acquiring an all electric motion system, move-by-wire Airbus A320 simulator.
This will be the first A320 full reality simulator in the country, where there are over 670 pilots trained or training on the Airbus A320, the most popular narrow body aircraft in Pakistan.
Despite the fact that there is a good number of pilots requiring their mandatory trainings on the simulator equipment, it was not available in the country and Pakistani pilots and the airlines had no choice but to train in Dubai, Bangkok, Tashkent or Johannesburg.
The commercial aviation regulator also had to send its inspectors with the trainees to conduct the checks of the training pilots. This was very cost intensive as the standard charges to train a pilot per hour on the simulator is approximately US$300, not to mention the travel expenses, accommodation and daily allowances of the pilots. With over six hundred pilots, the average training expense in foreign currency is in millions of dollars.
The training had become more difficult during COVID times when strict travel restrictions were put in place by all these countries on Pakistan. It is worth mentioning that simulator training and bi-yearly refreshers are mandatory for licensing on a particular aircraft.
PIA has 13 Airbus A320s in its fleet which is expected to grow by 16 within a year. It had plans to induct a A320 simulator ever since it started inducting these aircraft in 2015 but was not getting materialized. With the current management coming in, it had made it a priority as cost saving bid but with COVID cash flow crunch, it got pushed back.
Now it has signed a contract with UK based company L3 Harris for supply and installation the simulator, and thus also becomes the launch customer to deploy such a latest equipment in Middle East & Asia Pacific Region.
The contract was signed at a modest ceremony held at PIA’s Islamabad offices between PIA’s CEO Air Marshal (R) Arshad Malik and President of L3 Harris Robin Glover-Faure.
UK’s High Commissioner to Pakistan Christian Turner was also present at the event. The simulator is the latest in its category and will not only save on the training cost of the pilots but is more maintenance friendly requiring only 10 hours of maintenance per year compared with 100 hours required on the models installed everywhere else.
Speaking on the occasion President of L3Harris Robin Glover said that the acquisition represents significant milestone both for PIA and Pakistan as they develop inhouse capability for highest standard pilot training on world class device. He said we look forward for a long term partnership with PIA in the future.
CEO PIA Air Marshal (R) Arshad Malik said it’s a big day for PIA and Pakistan Aviation as we have achieved a key milestone. PIA as the national flag carrier always operates in the national interest. This is the most modern and the latest machine in the region and will bolster training standard for the Pakistani pilots as well as contributing in the overall flight safety spectrum of the country. He further added that PIA is creating an Aviation Training & Simulator Complex at Karachi Airport whereby this simulator will be placed right next to the Boeing 747 & Boeing 777 simulators already installed at its training centre. The complex will be linked to PIA’s airport hotel, thereby providing accommodation to the trainees and allowing them to train with full safety and peace of mind.
