Going global

The College first started operating in November 1993 at Jandakot Airport as a joint venture between a local flying school and China Southern Airlines. At the time, it was the first venture of a Chinese airline into training pilots overseas, and is now gearing up for a greater role.

The size of its operations today are significant, with 74 staff, including 37 flying instructors and a fleet of 45 aircraft. This is comprised of 39 Grob 115C single engine trainers, four twin-engine Piper Seminoles and two jet-powered Cessna Citation IIs. In addition, it also has four synthetic flight training devices. The aircraft are also supported with major maintenance hangars at Jandakot, where the College employs its own engineers to maintain the Grob and Seminole fleets.

As the College has grown over the years, so too have its facilities. The main campus at Jandakot is now home to a number of classrooms, two maintenance hangars and dormitory style accommodation for the cadets. New classrooms are also currently under construction.
In addition to its main facility at Jandakot, in 1995 the College acquired an aerodrome at Merredin, 250 kilometres east of Perth. Bought from the local council for the princely sum of one dollar, it has made some major investments in new facilities facilities, building accommodation and adding aircraft there to make it a key part of the training experience.

In June this year, the vertically integrated aviation training giant CAE announced that it had acquired a 47 per cent stake in the College from parent company China Southern Airlines. As such, the College has now come under CAE’s management as part of its global network of training centres, and is in the process of being rebranded as the CAE Global Academy Perth.

This change sees it now join a network of 10 other ab initio flying schools around the world managed by CAE under its Global Academy banner. These schools deliver a range of courses developed by CAE on behalf of a number of airlines around the world.

“It’s kind of our answer to the pilot shortage worldwide, but it also completes our unique portfolio to deliver services to the airline industry. In this case the cadet to captain pipeline, so to speak,” Walter Visser, CAE’s vice president and leader of the Global Academy operation told Australian Aviation.

The acquisition now gives CAE a hold in the Australian ab inito market which has been growing as airlines both locally and around the world look to increase their training pipelines to cope with the predicted demand for over 20,000 pilots over the next decade.

For the Canadian organisation, the acquisition of the stake in CSWAFC has given it a major operation in Australia, which it expects to play a major role in years to come as Visser explains. “We are in a growth mode, so we are looking at expanding our CAE global academy and Australia is in terms of climate, weather conditions as well as other operational environmental factors is concerned is a good place to grow our ab initio business.”

The acquisition also comes in the context of an already well established relationship with China Southern Airlines. CAE operates a training centre in Zhuhai in partnership with China Southern, while the airline also sends some of its cadets to another Global Academy training organisation, the Moncton Flight College in Canada.

“To complement our partnership, it makes a lot of sense to combine both, taking advantage of a great operating environment in Australia to expand our business as well as to strengthen and expand our partnership with China Southern,” said Visser.” These two things came together, and that just made a lot of sense.”

The Academy is set to benefit from the mix of experience and resources from the local management as well as CAE’s global network of ab initio and type rating training centres.

“The joint venture is expected to be beneficial for both parties,” said JP Van den Berghe, the newly appointed general manager of CAE Global Academy Perth. “The school’s capabilities expand CAE’s already broad training offering into a new region, while CAE’s global reach, customer relationships and brand awareness will help grow the school.”

Van de Berghe’s experience will play a key role in shaping the Academy, with the former Belgian Air Force pilot and instructor already having strong experience in running CAE’s ab initio school in Phoenix, Arizona.

He sees some major positives to the operation in Perth. “Perth is a strategic location in the region and enjoys excellent flying weather throughout the year,”said Van den Berghe. “Perth is also a hub for both domestic and international air traffic, as it is a similar distance from Sydney and Singapore. And, of course, Perth is rated one of the most livable cities in the world.”

Another aspect of the strategic nature of the acquisition is the Academy’s proximity to RAAF Base Pearce, which CAE’s military training division is examining as part of its eventual bid for the ADF’s AIR5428 pilot training program. While the Academy will likely operate separately to any military operations, CAE says that it has now given it a strategic presence in WA.

Visser adds that the local operation will also benefit from having access to CAE’s established network and resources, while he also expects that the existing knowledge and expertise of its staff will also feed back into the wider network. “Obviously our first objective is to share best practices from (the China Southern) side, because they have been operating for some time in Australia,” he said. “They can add value for us to have a kick-start in Australia as well as from our side we have a lot to bring to the table in terms of state of the art training, best practices and our suite of training materials and training management systems that we are going to implement in that organisation.”

Catering for Cadets

While it has major growth plans ahead, the Academy is still currently focused exclusively on providing training for cadets selected by China Southern Airlines, as it has since it started in November 1993.

“In Perth, they will learn and master basic flying skills. Then they will transition directly to Zhuhai to earn their type ratings,” said explained CAE’s group president of civil simulation products Jeff Roberts at a ceremony in Perth to mark the new joint venture.
“This very focused approach – training young cadets specifically to become airline pilots – is quite different than the rather random method that many flight schools followed in the past. The traditional emphasis has been on accumulating hours in the cockpit, even if those hours add little real-world value to the student’s experience and skill,” added Roberts.

Selection of cadets is undertaken by China Southern Airlines, and in most cases those chosen have had little experience in aviation beforehand. Prior to their arrival at the Perth academy, all cadets undertake a two year course in aviation theory at Beihang University in Beijing. This course covers over basics of aircraft systems and basic theory prior to arriving in Perth to commence their practical training, which is focused on gaining a Commercial Pilots License.

Training for cadets is carried out in four phases. The first phase takes place at Jandakot and involves taking the students through to solo flying on the Grobs. Students at this phase also undertake their initial CPL theory exams before progressing to the next phase.

From there, they are transferred to Merredin where the next two phases take place. These involve conducting navigation flying, completing the remaining CPL exams and also completing ICAO Level 4 Aviation English exams. This stage also includes the remainder of their CPL flying requirements, which are again primarily flown on the Grobs.

After gaining their CPLs, the students are then transferred back to Jandakot to undertake their advanced training. This includes Command and Multi-Engine ratings on the Seminoles, before they step up into the Citations for high-performance training. This includes flying ILS approaches at Albany Airport.

Upon graduation, the cadets return to China holding an Australian CPL with multi engine and instrument ratings, where they undertake training for a frozen Air Transport Pilots License. They then undertake aircraft type rating training at the Zhuhai Flight Training Centre in Guandong province, after which they are appointed as First Officers with the airline.

The tempo of the college has been busy in recent times, with over 100 students passing through each year. New courses commence approximately every two months, ensuring that there is a continued, strong flow of cadets through the program and ultimately into services with China Southern. That is only expected to increase as the airline, which is already the largest carrier in China, continues to build its fleet to keep up with the demand for travel in China.

Although little will change to that process with the changes to the Academy, CAE is planning to introduce some of its own courseware and its suite of customised training management and selection systems.

“We also have a very advanced aviation English language training course which is extremely important, specifically when training the Chinese pilots as it is not their mother tongue,” said Visser. “Going forward, we will implement all of these systems and create a ‘centre of excellence’ in Australia to deliver the best pilots in the marketplace.”

Expansion ahead

While the Academy will initially continue to exclusively cater for China Southern Airlines, the major growth in Asian airline traffic is expected to see the Perth operations expand to accommodate other customers.

“The first objective is to satisfy China Southern, but going forward we will definitely position ourselves to also train third parties,” explained Visser. “That is going to be very exciting, because that means this can grow into a very large training centre in the future.”

A large part of that will involve the worldwide marketing power and relationships of CAE, which will no doubt play a large role in attracting third party training work for the Perth Global Academy when the time comes. Much of that marketing effort is expected to be directed at airlines in Asia, who are expected to be at the forefront of a looming global shortage of pilots.

“The Asian market is very attractive because we have many customers who already have a relationship with CAE already,” said Visser. “Not only that, there is also the fact that China is one of the biggest growth markets in the world.”

The expected growth of the operation is likely to require further investment in aircraft and facilities, and Visser notes that the previous investments of China Southern in the College’s facilities give it a good base to grow from. “We have two airfields we are operating from – Jandakot Airport as well as Merredin – and that positions us to grow the business to some higher volumes,” said Visser.

The location of the Merredin facility has a number of positives for the cadet training. Being in the Wheatbelt region, the surrounding area is largely flat farming land that provides few obstacles, while the airspace is largely clear. As a smaller town, there is also much more space to expand the physical facilities when required.

CAE also plans to keep the operation at Jandakot, despite it being one of Australia’s busiest airports and increasingly crowded airspace due to the growth of airline activity at nearby Perth, as well as Pearce further to the north. Visser says that with proper management that there is no reason why its operations there cannot continue to expand as the business does. “We think that there is still room to grow there as long as you have the right procedures in place in terms of the air traffic control, safety measures and the like,” he said.

One of the areas which CAE hopes to tap into with the Perth Academy is the growing market for training pilots for multi-crew licenses. The company launched its own MPL course in the US for AirAsia earlier this year, and is pushing forth marketing those services to a number of airlines around the world.

Visser notes that with Australia having played a key role in the development of ICAO standards on MPLs that it could be a natural avenue for the Perth operation to undertake. “To have this operation in Australia now with CASA which is an authority open to these type of developments is certainly encouraging for us,” he said.

At this stage though, there are no firm plans to start MPL training in Perth until there is an airline willing to sponsor the process, which would likely be China Southern before any other carrier.

Overall, the busy operations of the former China Southern WA Flying College look set to increase as it begins a new era, which will no doubt add to the variety within Australia’s flying training landscape and provide new opportunities in the future.