Originally Posted by
thorn bird
"Are these chinese students training to Australian licence standards? Or do they follow a syllabus laid out by their bosses, but do not attempt a licence test here?"
Aside from being very expensive, exactly what makes Australian "Standards" so much better than anyone else?
I comment having spent the last 10 years working with the end product in a PRC airline environment.
The outsourced training is conducted in the USA, Canada & Australia. The offshore trained pilots are trained to a significantly higher standard than those internally trained, and English communication is very much second nature to them by then. The offshore trained pilots continue to improve at a greater rate after training as such things as Fcom, Jeppesen & ATC are within their comprehension. They are also more likely to ask questions. The Australian license is viewed as a difficult one to obtain by the Chinese pilots.
Our biggest assets are the low dollar & Chinese owned flying schools. These far outweigh any short term disputes between the two countries and withdrawal of training from Australia would be punishing the Chinese flying school owners, many of whom are influential.
Chinese airlines moving Chinese passengers to foreign countries is big business & whilst still cyclical, is less dependent on the economic health of the destination countries than western airlines. They will rebound quickly once border restrictions are eased & the internal demand for pilots will continue for some time.