Lowered requirements Emirates

[bigmountain]

Lowered requirements

Lets look at it at both sides of the coin.

When Emirates commenced operations with its own aircraft , they decided to break from the norm of limiting themselves to just taking British, Australians, Canadians , License Holders. Previously these Pilots had the monopoly in airlines like , Gulf air ,Air Brunei , Kuwait airways and Far East Carriers. A lot of "ho ha" was raised about compromising on safety standards and sops etc .
Fast forward 30 years and 'touch wood" , EK is now a case study on how an airline with such a large mix of nationalities and pilots licences have managed to maintain an enviable safety record. Mind you there have been some close calls, yet it is due to the crews professionalism and situational awareness of the crew that saved the day. Lessons have been learned
We have then had another "hue and cry" about various professionals from the southern hemisphere and lack of standards and professionalism. Yet Emirates inducted the best of those and they have proved to be an asset . Some who have gone on to join the Training and Audit departments and applied them selves well.
Again we now are hearing further rumblings of "lowering of standards " and lack of experience of turbo prop pilots etc. I would tend to disagree. Emirates has a history of employing pilots who have had no airline experience,only single pilot jet experience , turbo prop military experience, military jet experience ( with no glass cockpit 707 /AWAC) experience , and also regional jet ( commuter ) experience. All of these entries have successfully gone through a rigorous selection process and online training experience prior to release. Emirates already has a well embedded Cadet Training program and a Limited experience training program. I'm confident that the Training program can be adjusted to meet the requirement of Turbo Prop induction to Emirates .
Lets not underestimate the Turbo Prop pilot. Most turbo prop aircrafts are now glass cockpit and a capable of flying P-RNAV Dep and approaches and are frequently required to fly into airports with LOW vis operations. Combined with that ,Turbo prop pilots frequently fly into more challenging destinations with little or no facilities and are often left to fend for themselves. The Challenge for Emirates is to groom these candidates to quickly assimilate themselves into EK world wide ops of SAT Phones , ACARS and Checking back with Network control , while employing a decision making model that has an awareness not only on safety , but on operational efficiency and the impact on whole operation of the Emirates Network when one aircraft comes off the network.

So yes I'm sure those who have some misgivings about turbo prop pilots are somewhat correct if they were talking of some other airline. However this has to be taken in context with the relative demand and supply of the market and Emirates experience with inducting and training low time and limited experience pilots .With the current time to move from left to right increasing from the 4 -5 +years ,gives sufficient opportunity for the Turbo Prop Pilots to learn and prepare themselves for the challenging role of a Commanding an Emirates aircraft

So to Recap : Lets not short change our Turbo prop pilots. Emirates will still follow a strict interview process. They will have a modified training program .Their progress will be monitored and future inductions will be fine tuned. With over 120 odd destinations ( Polar Routes, Atlantic Crossings , Far East, Africa , South America Europe, Asia and the Middle East) and counting and right hand experience of 4-5 years on type ( 3500-4000hrs) before getting command should be more than sufficient preparation for them to take up the challenge for the Left seat

BM