CAL seeks experienced foreign pilots to boost ranks

China Airlines Co (CAL, 華航) is recruiting foreign pilots due a shortage of domestic pilots at a time when many foreign airlines are laying off pilots, Chinese-language media reported yesterday.

Thirty former Singapore Airlines pilots will join CAL this month and dozens of pilots laid-off by Air Canada will sit for job interviews with the airline in Vancouver this week, according to the Broadcasting Corp of China (BCC).

The recruitment in Canada was arranged through the Air Canada Pilots Trade Union.

The BCC said China Airlines has recruited 100 pilots this year and needs 150 more before early 2005.

"We need more pilots because China Airlines will take delivery of two B747s and three Airbus A300s next year, and due to the boom in air cargo business. We need pilots who can start flying after a short period of training," the BCC quoted CAL spokesman Hang Liang-chung (韓梁中) as saying.

The airline will recruit 200 to 300 foreign pilots in the coming year to meet its operational demands, Liu Fang-you (劉方友), a senior executive of CAL' flight affairs department, said in Vancouver on Wednesday.

Liu who arrived in Vancouver earlier this week to preside over pilot interviews, said more than 40 former Air Canada pilots have registered for the first round of interviews scheduled for yesterday and today.

Those who pass the first-round interviews will then travel to Taipei for physical checkups and second-round interviews.

Liu said the airline has plans to open new routes and will gradually take delivery of 18 new passenger and cargo planes ordered from Airbus and Boeing in the coming years. In the meantime, about 50 of its pilots will retire in the next two years.

Against this backdrop, the carrier badly needs experienced foreign pilots and co-pilots, Liu said.