Pilot Training College announces
Air Astana contract extension
Waterford firm to train up to 60 new cadets annually for
Air Astana

Pilot Training College (PTC), one of Europe’s leading pilot training providers, with bases in Waterford, Ireland and Florida, USA, will train up to 60 new cadets annually for the Kazakhstani flag carrier, Air Astana. PTC commenced training Air Astana students in April 2009 and since then 8 Air Astana cadets have just graduated from PTC and a further 30 are currently training in the Florida Training Centre. The agreement was formally announced at the graduation of the first eight cadet pilots trained by PTC on behalf of Air Astana.  In recent times, PTC has focused its efforts on building strong ties with Kazakhstan as that country plans to triple the size of its airline fleet over the next decade.

PTC Executive Chairman, Mike Edgeworth, who held talks with Air Astana President, Peter Foster, to promote further co-operation said, “This is another milestone in our aim of becoming one of the leading global provider of airline pilots. Our airline partners such as Air Astana are choosing PTC as a trainer of their pilots for a number of reasons, including state of the art training facilities with access to a fleet of over 40 modern aircraft and the very latest in avionics; experienced instructors who are focused on delivering training excellence to the highest of international airline standards and our philosophy centred on training our students to be ‘airline’ ready through focus, professionalism and attention to detail”.

Commenting, Air Astana President Peter Foster said, “I’ve had twenty years in the airline industry and safety and the quality of training is paramount whichever airline I have worked for. We’ve put PTC through an extraordinarily rigorous examination, looking at every aspect of the training the cadets receive. We are building a world-class airline at Air Astana and we want world class pilots to match. That’s what PTC delivers and that’s why we have been happy to substantially extend our contract with them”.
 

A major draw to PTC for the leading international and regional airlines such as Air Astana, and Flybe are the benefits in training from two distinct locations. PTC Waterford provides trainee pilots with excellent IMC conditions ideal for instrument training, while PTC Florida provides PTC students the broadest flying education possible with over 300 days of near perfect visual flight rules conditions. With this new contract Air Astana also announced that PTC has been chosen to manage all future assessment and selection of new ab-initio cadets on their behalf further endorsing the strong ties that exist been both organisations.

Congratulating the company on behalf of Enterprise Ireland, Kevin Sherry, Head of Internationally Traded Services said, “Pilot Training College is a dynamic company that has pursued its internationalisation strategy with great determination and energy.  This new contract is a major step in advancing the company’s ambitions to become the market leader for flight training in Europe and we will continue to strongly support their efforts to secure new international business. Pilot Training College is exactly the type of innovative export-oriented company operating successfully from a regional location in the South East that Enterprise Ireland is keen to support.”

“Mr. Edgeworth added “We are starting to see the up-turn in pilot demand that we had predicted several months ago. Any student now setting out to train as a commercial pilot is, in my opinion, heading on a very positive career path for life. We keep adding to our portfolio of quality airlines for whom we either train cadets directly such as Flybe or where our graduates have gained employment such as Aer Lingus, Ryanair , CityJet, and Aer Arann to name but a few”.
 

About Air Astana
Air Astana is a joint venture between the Government of Kazakhstan and BAE Systems. It operates a fleet of 22 western aircraft with an average age of 7 years and has over 50 domestic and international routes covering the resources rich country the size of Western Europe.  The Air Astana fleet is forecast to grow to 34 planes by 2014 and 63 aircraft by 2022.  By 2012, Air Astana needs to recruit 300 pilots and the number of pilots needed will then continue to grow in geometric progression. Air Astana covers 100% of the cadetship training and pilot education costs for each Kazakh pilot cadet selected.

On completion of their training with PTC, the graduates will become first officers with Air Astana joining its existing 2,000 staff members. Air Astana, after a series of independent service delivery audits by the official World Airline Star Rating Programme, Skytrax Research, has been ranked third amongst carriers for the “Best Airline: Eastern Europe” award.  No other carriers in the top three came from Russia/CIS, which demonstrates Air Astana’s leadership in service standards in the region.This latest Skytrax award follows the overall rating of Air Astana in March 2009 with 3-Stars, with its short haul Business Class being rated as 4-Star. Aer Lingus, KLM, Flybe and Delta Air lines are ranked in the 3 star category also.

For further information please contact:
Robert Connolly, Pilot Training College, +353 51 876 706/ +353 51 86 0459213
Or log on www.pilottrainingcollege.com