Kingfisher Airlines? A330 pilots will shortly be trained on Jet-owned simulators, as a part of the strategic alliance between the arch-rivals.
Jet, incidentally, has four simulators (two B777 and A330 each) in Mumbai, while Kingfisher currently sends its pilots to London to undertake mandatory flying tests every six months.
Kingfisher has nearly 30 pilots and 37 first officers for A330, who are flown to London to undergo mock flight training in real life conditions and emergencies in a dummy aircraft.
?Currently, the airline spends $1,500 per pilot, in addition to $500 on allowances for a two-day training session in London. If the training is done in India, the airline will save around 40% of the cost per pilot,? said an official from Kingfisher.
Jet CEO, Wolfgang Prock-Schaeur, while announcing the third quarter results on January 16 this year, had told FE, ?The operational efficiencies in any kind of alliance like the one with Kingfisher cannot be ascertained with immediate effect. We will see better financials on account of the alliance in the ensuing quarter. The alliance is very much on track.?
The full-flight simulators replicate in every detail the cockpit of the aircraft that it simulates. It also reproduces, with accuracy and realism, the visual environment the aircraft appears to be flying in, including clouds, thunderstorms, and the landing approaches of airports around the world.
Each simulator also recreates operational emergency situations that the cockpit crew needs to train in. The use of simulators as a training device greatly reduces cost of training.
Last October, Jet and Kingfisher had announced a wide-ranging operational alliance, intended to help them battle slumping demand and rising costs.
Meanwhile, National Aviation Company of India Ltd (Nacil), which runs Air India, is setting up a new flight simulator to train Boeing 777 pilots. The simulator will come up on the company?s Kalina campus, on the south-west of the Mumbai airport in 3-4 months.
Nacil already operates three flight simulators for Boeing 747, 737 and Airbus A310. It plans to offer the latest simulator to international carriers for training their pilots.
Airlines have undertaken many measures to cut costs and enhance their bottomlines in the past few months.
Since airline companies are expected to post losses to the tune of Rs 8,000 crore collectively for this financial year, airline operators are analysing means to bring down monthly operating costs. Leasing out aircraft and not renewing contracts expat pilots are some such measures.