SINGAPORE — In 2014, Danny Perna found himself caught up in the global shortage of pilots that has vexed airlines from China to the United States. For the first time in 15 years, the founder of Epic Flight Academy in Florida couldn’t find enough trained U.S. pilots to be flight instructors at his school. Offering sign-on bonuses of up to $10,000 did not help, he said. Eventually they decided to advertise a sponsorship program to partially fund pilot cadets’ training. “Basically once we started to fund training then it satisfied the pilot shortage,” he told Reuters by phone from Florida. Newly trained U.S. pilots are usually required to teach at flight schools to gain the hours needed to join an airline. “So in our opinion it’s not a pilot shortage, it’s a funding or finance shortage, the inability for young people to be able to afford training.” His realization is hitting other airlines and flight schools too, as growing competition across the world for a shrinking pool of trained pilots pushes up salaries and prevents carriers from operating at full capacity. Pilots say the burden on cadets to pay for their flight training, which can cost more than $70,000, has been a key reason why enrolment has plummeted at flight schools, especially in places like the U.S. and Australia. Many banks suspended loans for flight training after the 2008 financial crisis. Many experienced pilots were also laid off at the time, which analysts said concealed how few new student pilots… [Read full story]
The German pilot who crashed a plane in the French Alpslast week, killing 150 people, told officials at a Lufthansa training school in 2009 that he had gone through a period of severe depression, the airline said on Tuesday. The statement is potentially damaging for the airline and its CEO Carsten Spohr, who told reporters last week that the carrier knew of no reason why 27-year-old Andreas Lubitz might deliberately crash a plane. The fact that Lufthansa officials were aware that Lubitz suffered from depression raises questions about its screening process for pilots as it faces the threat of legal…... [read more]
A Vietnamese man has been fined VND15 million ($660) for punching another passenger on a domestic flight after the latter refused to move to his allocated seat. The Northern Airport Authority said in a statement Tuesday that it had punished a 46-year-old man, only identified as Phuc, for disturbing order on a flight. He and another passenger, named Dung, 41, got caught up in the row soon after boarding a Vietnam Airlines flight from Hanoi to Saigon on Friday afternoon, local media reported. Phuc’s boarding ticket said he had an aisle seat but found Dung in his place. After Dung…... [read more]
The man who was dragged off an United Airlines flight has been identified by various media as 69-year-old Vietnamese-American grandfather, Dr David Dao. Footage of him being dragged off an overbooked flight on Sunday (April 9) went viral on social media, sparking outrage at the way he was treated. Dr Dao is a father of five children - four of whom are also doctors - and is also a grandfather, Daily Mail said in a report on Tuesday (April 11). He studied at a medical school in Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City, and is married to a paediatrician. While reports…... [read more]
A Continental passenger plane en route from Brussels to New York landed safely at Newark airport after the pilot died during the flight in a rare mid-air drama, officials said. The Boeing 777 flight, carrying 247 passengers, was guided down by two co-pilots around midday (1600 GMT) at the New Jersey airport, its final destination which is one of three main airports serving New York City. "The captain of Continental Flight 61, which was en route from Brussels to New York, died on flight apparently of natural causes," the airline said in a statement. "The flight continued safely with two…... [read more]
A Vietnam Airlines flight was forced to land suddenly in Frankfurt, Germany on July 28 because one of the passengers lost consciousness. The crew of flight VN17 had to urgently land at the Germany airport to take the passenger to the hospital A representative from Vietnam Airlines said that the flight left Hanoi at 6:20am, bound for Paris. Two hours before landing in Paris, the Vietnamese a passenger fainted. Her husband immediately informed the crew. After receiving first aid, the passenger was unresponsive, so the captain decided to make an unscheduled landing at Frankfurt. The passenger was taken to the…... [read more]
