The national flag carrier Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) is preparing to upgrade pilots for running international flight operation smoothly.
The pilots conducting domestic flights will be upgraded to Airbus A320 whereas A320 pilots will be upgraded to wide-body A330.
NAC has planned to send 25 pilots and 10 co-pilots for Airbus training within 2019. The corporation says that it is better to upgrade our own pilots rather than outsourcing.
As per pilot upgrade program, 12 pilots and a co-pilot have already taken necessary training from Indonesia. Additional 22 pilots will take the training by the end of 2019, reported NAC.
It take almost a couple of month for the pilot to get Airbus training. A year ago, only 26 candidates filed application for the post of Nepal Airlines’ pilot while the vacancy was for 50. The national flag carrier is in need of competent pilots as it is preparing for adding fleet along with newer destinations.
Out of 5, 3 pilots who used to fly Boeing 757 have already taken Airbus training and remaining 2 will be deployed soon. Similarly, 2 A320 pilots have already taken A330 training from Singapore while other 8 will complete the training by 2019. The training for narrow-body aircraft is conducted at Indonesia and wide-body aircraft at Singapore.
The corporation which currently flies to Malaysia, Qatar, UAE, Hong Kong, Bangkok and India is trying to expand its destinations for which necessary process has been started. As per the information, Shanghai (China), Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Cambodia are the newer choices for NAC.
NAC is operating international flights with 2 wide-body Airbus A330 and 2 narrow-body Airbus A320. A330s are intended to operate long haul flights so, the corporation is eyeing destinations such as Japan and Korea.
Besides, NAC is also planning to extend its fleet capacity by adding more A320s and operate flights to other regional destinations for which the pilot update program has been brought into action.
