Airline Operators Fault FG’s Directive On Pilots

Nigerian airlines are
seriously criticising the new directive given to them by the Federal Government stipulating that every aircraft on commercial service must at least have one Nigerian pilot in its cockpit.
The directive was aimed at providing jobs for about 500 Nigerians pilots who are yet to get jobs many years after their training, while indigenous carriers employ expatriates who now dominate the technical area of the airline sub-sector.
Minister of Aviation, Mr. Osita Chidoka, who gave the directive on behalf of government in Lagos recently gave July 2015 as deadline for airlines to comply with the new regulation, failing which they would be grounded.
But while many airline owners view the directive as good because it was meant  to create jobs for indigenous pilots, they noted that it would be practically difficult to enforce the regulation.
One of the indigenous operators told Aviation Correspondents on Wednesday that the new directive was good, but that government must provide the funds for further training to accumulate accepted numbers of hours that would qualify the pilot to be type-rated and be made a co-pilot for a particular aircraft type.
The operator said if government is not ready to fund the training, the airlines may revolt and ground their operations before government’s directive to ground them.
“When a pilot finished training as a pilot, he may have logged in about 200 flying hours. There is no way you can make a first officer as co-pilot of medium-sized equipment and large, body aircraft. Insurance insists that you log in minimum of 50 flying hours on that particular aircraft type with about 500 hours flying experience”, he said.
According to him, when will the pilot get the extra 300 hours flying experience? Insurance wants to ensure that the co-pilot will be able to at least, land the airplane if the pilot in command is incapacitated or if he dies.
He said that to get 500 flying hours experience of the aircraft type, the pilot will have to train on single pilot certified aircraft, adding that such aircraft are not in Nigeria, so the pilot will have to go overseas to train and get the stipulated minimum hours.