INDONESIA STILL ACCEPTS FOREIGN PILOTS

Jakarta, Mar 6 (ANTARA) - Indonesia is still recruiting foreign pilots because the number of locally trained fliers for domestic airline companies is still inadequate.

"We are still accepting foreign pilots, including flight officers and co-pilots, but they remain under supervision," Air Transportation Director General Herry Bakti S. Gumay said on the Batch I Graduation Day 2010 "Bali International Flight Academy (BIFA)" in Jakarta Saturday.

He said in the past Indonesia accepted foreigners only as instructors, but now pilots are allowed because of the lack of domestic supplies.

"There are now only seven flying schools in Indonesia producing 100-120 fliers per year, while we need 400-500 pilots per year," he said.

But Herry did not say for how long will Indonesia accept foreign pilots.

On the occasion the first batch of BIFA graduates consisting 21 pilots had been accepted by PT Garuda Indonesia.

President Director of PT Garuda Indonesia, Emirsyah Satar said he had selected the future pilots.

"This year we need 100-120 new pilots, and this process will last until 2014, when the number of our planes would reach 116, and now only 67 units," he said
Emirsyah also said that this year alone Garuda will have 24 new planes, for which new pilots would be needed each year until 2014," he said.

Emirsyah also said that to meet the need, he will also cooperate with a number of flying schools like STIP in Curuq, Malaysia and Cebu in the Philippines.

"From Curuq this year we will get 41 new fliers, and about 20 from Malaysia," Emirsyah said.


Foreign instructors
BIFA chairman Robby Djohan said BIFA now still has 9-10 foreign instructors.

But he said he will continue recruiting more domestic instructors. "This year, 10 instructors are being trained at a cost of Rp6 billion," he said.

Then each year 2-4 instructors will be trained to reinforce BIFA until they reached 20 instructors.

"We are planning to become a country with one of the best flying schools in Southeast Asia in the next few years" Robby said.

BIFA is located in Buleleng regency, Bali , and started operating early in 2009.

(E008)
(H-NG/f001)