Qantas Pilot Academy

‘There is little doubt Wellcamp is an ideal site for pilot training.’

“We won’t give that breakdown but the vast majority is from private money,” explained Joyce. “It’s money from Qantas, L3 and the Wagners (the family company which built Wellcamp in 19 months and is building the new facility). The state government has helped and that is part of what you usually get in these types of investments. There are huge benefits to local communities and huge benefits to the state which will be recouped multiple times over by the State Government. These investments do make a return.”

The total investment at Wellcamp is understood to be around $35 million.

What is known is that L3, a major global pilot training organisation, is investing a significant amount in aircraft and training equipment. The Wagner Corporation – an Australian-owned business, established in 1989 by Henry, John, Denis, Neill, and Joe Wagner, has a reputation for delivering high-quality products and services internationally… and on time. It is investing a significant amount in the facilities, including hangar, classrooms and accommodation, and few doubt the academy will be up and running when promised in July next year.

As Joyce put it: “Wagners are a can-do organisation and Dennis and family have really pulled together a package of building the hangar, the accommodation and training classrooms in the speed we couldn’t have got anywhere else.”

The Qantas chief also made note of the fact one of the Wagners, John, wasn’t in attendance for the big announcement. He was in the US, somewhere on Route 66 riding a Harley Davidson motorcycle. But he’ll be back to join the rest of his family in guiding the project to a conclusion.

There is little doubt Wellcamp is an ideal site for pilot training. The airport has a 2,870-metre single runway capable of handling aircraft up to Boeing 747 size.

Construction of the airport at the site of a former quarry owned by the Wagner family since 1994, began in April 2013, with an ambitious timeframe for completion by October 2014, a schedule that was met, although the first aircraft to land there, A Beechcraft King Air owned and piloted by John Wagner, touched down on November 22 2013.

The airport has been able to label itself as international since, in November 2015, the first 747, a Cathay Pacific freighter, made a brief stop en route from Sydney to Hong Kong to collect produce bound for China. A year later that became a weekly service operating direct from Wellcamp to Hong Kong (the first cargo export booking from Toowoomba was for a live crocodile.

In 2017, Wellcamp handled 157,000 passengers (a 25.9 per cent growth from the previous year), which made it only the 33rd busiest regional airport in Australia. That means plenty of room and blue Queensland skies for training.

The type of training aircraft that will be used has not yet been decided. But L3 has plenty of experience. Formerly CTC Aviation, the Sussex, UK-based business was renamed L3 Commercial Training Solutions (L3 CTS) in May 2017 after being taken over by L3 Electronic Systems.

The new L3 Commercial Training Solutions has pilot training academies in the UK at Bournemouth, Coventry and Southampton, in Portugal and Italy, at Orlando and Jacksonville in the US, Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates and Hamilton in New Zealand. The training fleet worldwide includes Diamond DA42 Twinstar, Diamond DA40, Diamond DA20 Katana, Cessna 172 Skyhawk, Slingsby Firefly, Piper PA-44 Seminole and Cirrus SR20 aircraft. It provides commercial aviation with a full spectrum of pilot training solutions: cadet pilot training, airline training, aircrew resourcing and flight simulation systems.

‘This being a greenfield site we have the opportunity to get it all right.’

And it is no stranger to Qantas. As recently as October L3 announced it has been selected by Qantas to provide a Boeing 787-9 RealitySeven full flight simulator (FFS), which will be used for training at Qantas’s flight training facility in Sydney. Selection of the device followed a competitive tender process and complements two Dash 8 flight training devices (FTD) Qantas ordered from L3 earlier this year.

And at the Singapore Airshow in February budget subsidiary Jetstar Asia also announced it was launching a new Jetstar Asia Airways Cadet Pilot Training Program with L3.

As for the Wellcamp site, Alan Rowlandson, L3 CTS’ regional business development manager Oceania, based in Sydney, explained during the announcement ceremony at Toowoomba that the new Qantas Academy would be modelled on its facility at Hamilton, which trains around 500 pilots annually.

“Basically, we will model our academy on Hamilton. It will be modelled on that but obviously improved, this being a greenfield site. We have the opportunity to get it all right.”

Hamilton operates over 40 training aircraft – 14 Diamond DA20 and 19 Cessna 172 singles and eight Diamond DA42 twins – but a decision has yet to be made regarding Toowoomba. Rowlandson said L3 actually has an RFP (request for proposal) out in the market right now for more than 100 new aircraft.

“That has been answered by the five main manufacturers. That was in place already. We are upgrading our fleets around the world. We don’t actually know what these aircraft will be yet. That assessment is going on at the moment. That’s happening as we speak. So, what we are able to do is within these contracts make sure we have aircraft available for July 1 next year so we can just divert some of those aircraft to Toowoomba.”

In terms of aircraft numbers for Wellcamp he said because it would be an integrated training course it would start of with ground school and “gradually advance in batches… that is yet to be determined with Qantas but it will be something in the order of 20 (aircraft) to start with and maybe a couple of months later another 20 and then build up and the aircraft will be delivered here for that program.”

L3 will also not be alone. It is teaming up with Aviation Australia, which currently provides certain levels of pilot training, APL, cabin crew training, engineering and maintenance training. “We are partnering with them so that we can bring that level of product. We are kind of hoping eventually this will be a one-stop shop for aviation training.”

Attracting applicants for student enrolments, which will open by the end of this year, certainly won’t be a problem. More than 18,000 people have so far registered their interest in the Academy via qantas.com/pilotacademy. One issue which will confront L3 will undoubtedly be recruiting sufficient experienced instructors to staff the academy.

“Obviously, instructors are a problem. They are being recruited into the airlines and we will face the same issue,” said Rowlandson.

“One of the reasons we were very keen on Toowoomba is that it is a unique location. It is all very important for instructors. It’s all very well to recruit them but keeping them is hard. So, you have to have a place that is not only good for the instructor and student, you have to have a place where the instructor’s partner can get a job and the children can get a good education. And most of all when the children grow up you don’t need them moving a thousand kilometres away to get a job. Here, you have Brisbane which is just a couple of hours away. To me Toowoomba is a beautiful city. It’s a place where people would really want to live.

I think once we get instructors it will be easier to retain them. Professional instructors. We’ll also look at giving them a career path, giving their instructor ratings free of charge and certainly encouraging them to stay for a period of time.”

L3 is also talking to Qantas about pilots reaching the end of their career.

“Also in south-east Queensland we have a rather large number of retired airline pilots who are very keen to do part-time work and so that is another avenue of recruitment. Based on all that combination we are convinced we will be able to get a stable and consistent workforce,” said Rowlandson.

‘We’re not just here for sentimental reasons.’ ALAN JOYCE

“There is also an opportunity to use people who are destined to become pilots. They may accept a three-year delay in getting an airline job to do instructing for a couple of years. We will explore all these options but to me the biggest thing is the location.”

That’s a point Joyce fully agrees with.

“We’re not just here for sentimental reasons,” he said. “First of all, we believe there is a really good case to be here. This is an amazing new facility with plenty of room to build our hangar, to build our training classrooms and to build the accommodation. I’m also told that it benefits from the Queensland weather. 300 clear days at least each year, a critical requirement for pilot school. It’s also 90 minutes from Brisbane where Brisbane is a gateway to the rest of the world to attract those pilots in, to attract people into this location. Most importantly of all we know that the trainers and the students want to live in a place that is a great place to work, a great place to live and a great place to study. And Toowoomba is that.”

For Qantas however, it isn’t merely a matter of having two of its own academies training at least 500 pilots annually for its own and Australia’s needs. It is clearly an enormous business opportunity. The statistics for pilot requirements have been well documented with Boeing forecasts putting it at 790,000 pilots over the next 20 years.

“Air travel in some regions is going to double,” says Joyce. “We do need to replace retiring pilots as well. In the past two years Qantas has hired 850 new pilots, mostly because of our expansion and the arrival of B787s. We are looking forward to potentially Project Sunrise allowing us to fly from Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane direct to London and direct to New York. That will need a lot of pilots into the future and we are getting ourselves prepared for that demand.”

But there’s a longer-term objective.

“Our intention is within a few years to get this facility up to at least 250 pilots and within a few years to have a second facility that can do the same… so 500 pilots. At that stage we will be selling those places or encouraging that commercial activity for overseas pilots. That’s when we should be making a return out of it. We do believe the prime objective here first of all is to get this up and running for Qantas and Australian pilots but it is a great opportunity to train overseas [pilots]. And as you know the Qantas reputation is second to none in the selection and training of pilots.

“So, we think that is a sellable asset for Queensland, for Australia and that’s something that the country should be pretty proud of and will be willing to invest in. This academy is going to be training pilots for the Qantas Group, Qantas, Jetstar and QantasLink but we also believe there is a huge opportunity worldwide. It’s a business opportunity using our brand. It’s a business opportunity to attract people in other airlines from all over the globe here to be trained and to use the Qantas name to make that a business proposition.”

Toowoomba is the first of two locations chosen from a shortlist of nine regional cities, with Alice Springs, Bendigo, Busselton, Dubbo, Launceston, Mackay, Tamworth and Wagga Wagga still under consideration for the second academy site. Selection criteria include access to uncongested airspace, a high proportion of clear weather days per year, access to support infrastructure and ability to attract students and trainers to live in the area. The second academy is expected to be up and running in 2020.

Wherever it is, the regional economy can look forward to a boost. Wagner Corporation director Denis Wagner said that 100 direct new jobs and an estimated 300 indirect jobs would be created through the construction phase. In the operation phase another 160 jobs would come to Toowoomba and the region.

“There are huge economic benefits going forward.  Current estimates in the first year of operation is that the gross regional product will be $34 million. We are confident our world-class facilities will enhance the training opportunities for our future airline pilots. This decision by the Qantas Group highlights that when the private sector, Australia’s national carrier, the Queensland State Government and our local council work cohesively, we can achieve a long-term economically sustainable future for our regional communities”.

That message was echoed by Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk at the Wellcamp launch. “The Q in Qantas stands for Queensland and it’s clear that home is where Qantas’ heart is. Together with the Brisbane base for four new Dreamliners and its 470 direct and indirect jobs, today’s announcement shows my government’s commitment to attracting the industries that will create jobs and opportunity and keep creating them well into the future,” she said.

That may be so but while the Premier said everything would be done to try and also attract the second academy to Queensland – specifically Mackay – that would seem unlikely. Qantas will certainly be keen to spread some of the love around to another state.