Instructor pilots worth 8.1 Million monthly salaries sent free to Nepal Airlines by Airbus
Jun 4, 2016 – Nepal Airlines which has been continuously facing pilot shortage and economic crisis can be no more relieved than getting delivery of a group of 5 experts straight from Airbus, European aircraft manufacturing company to work for the operation, flying and maintenance of the fellow company. Airbus has provided a group of 2 instructor pilots, 2 captains and 1 engineer for maintaining the international standard of operation of Nepal Airlines.
Nepal Airlines if has to bear all the expenses of the team will have to spend around 50 million a month but now it can utilize the team at a zero cost. The team of experts sent by Airbus has started working since last Thursday. In the first phase they will take charge of study of operation and engineering prospect of Nepal Airlines according to Director Sugat Ratna Kanshakar and he is positive about the fruitful outcome after the utilization of the team.
According to him the 13 copilots of Airbus 320-200 series aircraft will fly with those 2 instructor pilots and get promoted to commander of the aircraft and the two captains will handle the operation of the airline and give the proper directions for the development of the airline by identifying the flaws and problems in the operation. The team will be staying in Nepal for 3 months working for Nepal Airlines. All the expenses of food and accommodation of the pilots and engineers will also be taken care of by Airbus itself. The salary of an instructor pilot form airbus would cost 8.1 Million monthly for Nepal Airlines had he not been provided for free by Airbus.
2 captains and engineers will take responsibility of the engineering department and check for the standards of operation and suggest the proper adjustments to be made to maintain the standard of Nepal Airlines in international level. After they start working effectively inside airline, Nepal Airlines will have a very high chance of getting out of the Black List of European Union according to Director Kansakar.
2 Airbus 320-200 series aircraft bought by Nepal Airlines are facing the shortage of commander since they were brought and are not being able to fly according to their capacity. The plane is commanded by 8 captains and 13 copilots for which the number of captain is very less for the operation of 2 aircrafts. The instructor pilots will now fly with 13 copilots and upgrade them to the captains, after which the pilot shortage problem is also supposed to be solved to an extent according to the airline.
The failure of transferring the pilots of Boeing 757 aircrafts to Airbus led the airlines into the problem of pilot shortage. Because of this reason Director Kanshakar had kept a proposal of help for the Airline in front of Airbus while he met the Assistant Director of Airbus in Singapore Air Show 2016. And Airbus finally helped him out managing this team of experts which really means a lot to Nepal Airlines in the present situation. This has also helped the airline to save a lot of expenditure necessary to be made for the team.
After the promotion of the 13 copilots to captain, Nepal Airlines can utilize the two Airbus aircrafts to the fullest capacity to all the proposed international destinations. Then the more copilots will be hired to pilot the aircrafts. Airbus also has agreed to manage one other instructor pilot after these 2 instructor pilots fly for 3 months in Nepal Airlines for free.
Nepal Airlines is currently flying 2 Airbus 320-200 series narrow body aircraft with 8 Business and 150 Economy Class seats each. It is looking forward to ass 2 wide body aircraft from Airbus of series A330-200 with 250 to 280 seat capacity in the nearest future.
