Government discards pilot recruitment fees

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesian airlines no longer have to pay government charges when recruiting pilots who graduated from the state-owned Aviation Training School in Curug, West Java, Minister of Transportation Haryanto Dhanutirto said early this week.

Haryanto said the airlines preferred recruiting pilots who had graduated overseas to the school's graduates because they had had to pay the school between Rp 60 million (US$25,400) and Rp 80 million a pilot, while they had paid nothing to recruit pilots who graduated overseas.

The minister said the government had eliminated the charge to promote recruitment of the school's graduates.

"The government is now drafting a rule on recruitment of the school's graduates," he said.

The pilots who had graduated from the school were no less skillful than those who had graduated overseas, he said.

The pilots trained for two years at the school, while those at a popular pilot school in California, United States, only trained for between four months and a year.

"I think the standard of education at the training school in Curug is as good, if not better," he said.

Haryanto said that from this year all pilots graduating overseas would be tested at the training school in Curug before they could get a license.

The school in Curug graduates 60 pilots a year and plans to increase this to between 120 and 200 a year, making it the biggest training school for pilots in the region.

The school recently got 70 training aircraft, including TB-10, TBN-70, Baron B58 and MD3 aircraft. (jsk)