CAAN bonding Pilots and Engineers to Airline
Kathmandu – 20 September 2016
The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) concluded that any pilot or engineer working for a company needing to resign should inform their respective company in written before one year of the estimated resignation date, in a meeting of authority board of CAAN held yesterday. Presently, the pilots and engineers can inform the airlines just three months prior their resignation.
The authority board of CAAN is constituted of the Minister of Culture, Tourism and Aviation, Joint Treasurer of the Ministry, Director of the authority, Director of Nepal Airlines and two representatives from private airlines.
Even though, the system of three months prior notice is supposed to be followed, the trend of the pilots and engineers from some helicopter and airplane companies to leave their working airlines just couple of days after the information to airlines is increasing.
Tourism Minister Mr. Jeeban Bahadur Shahi believes that the new system of a year prior notice should be implemented and this will help to avoid the unhealthy competitions of the airlines and also to improve the aviation safety standards. One of the biggest aviation industries of world India has also system of 6 months prior notice that they have been working to amend to 1 year system.
The aviation safety standard and the unhealthy competition seem to intensify with the current situation where pilots and engineers are controlled by some airlines offering more pay and facilities. The pilots and engineers are changing airlines because of that kind of offers frequently.
An airline established with a huge investment and massive procedures are directly impacted if a pilot or engineer unexpectedly resigns from the company. This will also effect in the safety standard of the operation of airlines.
Pilots and engineers are hard to prepare. They should be trained abroad in a huge investment of airlines. If those pilots and engineers leave the company working for just a short period of time, the company will be affected financially as well as in manpower. The airlines will have to spend double in preparation of other new manpower for the company.
The new system focused on a ‘Bond’ consignment between the pilots or engineers and their respective company to work for a certain period after a pilot or engineer completes training at the airline’s expense.
If a pilot or engineer needs to leave the company before the bond period, he/she will need to obtain the approval from the respective airline compulsorily as well as will need to pay the bond amount if the company will suffer a loss in his/her resign.
According to an official, if a pilot after being promoted in Nepal Airlines will need to work for the airline for 6 years after that. If the pilot wills to leave the airline, he/she will need to pay 3 Million Nepali Rupees to the airlines. The airline spends around 10 Million rupees for all the expense of the training period approximately.
