Government discards pilot recruitment fees

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)