US-Bangla Airlines, the country’s largest private airline operator, has taken an initiative to groom pilots on its fully-funded sponsorship in the backdrop of a dearth of pilots for the country’s growing aviation sector.
The first batch of 10 cadet pilots left Dhaka on Tuesday for Florida in the USA after receiving a three-month ground training in Bangladesh to participate in a 10-month long flight training course at the Epic Flight Academy. The rest of the 11 cadets will leave next month.
US-Bangla has taken the initiative to develop pilots through a fully-funded programme to meet the ever-growing demand for pilots in the airlines along with attaining global standards in pilot training in a bid to achieve more confidence of the clients on the airline operator and ensure aviation safety.
A total of 15,000 applicants applied for the programme, US-Bangla officials said.
US-Bangla has finally selected 21 cadet pilots out of the total 6,500 short-listed applicants through a rigorous selection process jointly conducted by the Bangladesh Air Force and US- Bangla team.
A press conference was organised in this regard at the US-Bangla head office in Uttara on Tuesday where 10 cadet pilots, including one female cadet, were leaving for USA for the licence training, were present.
In his introductory remarks, Sqdn Leader Lutfor Rahman (Retd), CEO of US-Bangla Airlines said that the flying academies in Bangladesh could not operate during the Covid period from 2020 until end of 2021 causing a gap of two years.
“The gap created in the Covid period could not be filled up until now. There is a demand of at least 30 pilots in our company in a year which will continue for the next couple of years,” he said, adding: there will be more demand for pilots of multi-engine modern aircraft as we will procure four wide-body aircraft in our fleet this year.
Referring to the US-Bangla Airline’s Managing Director’s vision, he said that the main objective was to facilitate some meritorious students who dream to be pilots but cannot fulfil their dreams due to lack of funds.
When asked why US-Bangla has been sending the cadets for pilot training in the USA, Captain Iliyas Malik, Director, Flight Operations (DFO) of US-Bangla, said that the requirement for pilots has been increasing exponentially compared to which the infrastructure is poor here.
“National flag carrier Biman Bangladesh Airlines has been providing line training and sharing experience to foreign pilots. But we are not getting the supply of pilots as per our demand,” said Capt Iliyas.
“There should not be any link between financial status and merit. We want to eradicate the financial barrier in flourishing the student’s merit,” he said, adding: Primarily we wanted to send 200 pilots to the USA, which was revised later.
Answering another question, AIR Astra DFO Captain Farhad Jamil said that Biman has been providing training to those who are already rated pilot. There are only two flying academies operating now in the country. But they have been facing aircraft and instructor crises for which they are unable to deliver a required number of pilots every year. That’s why US-Bangla has been taking support of another country. The basic training here takes a long time, about two years, he added.
Regarding the contract between the cadet pilots and US-Bangla, HR Director said that under the programme, the students will spend two years in training and then work in the US-Bangla Airlines for at least 10 years. US-Bangla will have to spend $60,000 for 10 months of training in the USA.
TDM/MI
