[photopress:aviation_training.jpg,full,alignright]China Southern Airlines has received thousands of applications to join a pilot training course where the students pay RMB710,000 ($90,000) to be taught to fly.
Chengdu Shangbao, a newspaper in Southwest China’s Chengdu City, said that the airline nearly 2,000 applications for 100 openings in the first 10 days. The company has promised to hire graduates from the project as its pilots.
Student loans are available and the RMB710,000 will be paid in three installments. The head of Southern airline’s flight management department said that tuition plus loan interest might be RMB900,000. However, a pilot can earn RMB2,900,000 in 10 years so as a return on capital invested that it not all that bad.
Southern Airlines is the first carrier on the Chinese mainland to ask some of its student pilots pay for their own tuition. Normally, airlines cover all training and study costs for pilots although for that they are almost indentured to the airline and have to pay up if they want to move elsewhere.
Faced with a shortage of pilots and bothered by labor contract disputes with former pilots, many domestic airlines, including Southern Airlines, also plan to recruit more pilots from overseas.
Source: Shanghai Daily