Spring Airlines recruits 1,000th pilot
Spring Airlines recruited its 1,000th pilot on Wednesday to help expand its global network and cap the rising demands on low-cost carriers among domestic passengers.
The Shanghai-based budget carrier has owned a fleet of 81 Airbus 320s and six Boeing 737s since its establishment in 2005, requiring a group of skilled and experienced pilots, said Wang Gang, the operation deputy president of the carrier.
As the biggest private airline in China, Spring Airlines has trained 657 pilots on its own among its 1,000 pilots. It has spent 800 million yuan (US$115 million) establishing a pilot training center with four A320 simulators to reduce reliance on pilots recruited from abroad. The fifth simulator will be installed in 2019.
“The carrier has cooperated with most of the major Chinese pilot training institutes as well as some foreign institutes for its pilot training,” Wang said.
Wu Junyi, 22, became the 1,000th pilot of Spring Airlines and was appointed a co-pilot on Wednesday. He had been sent to study at the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics as well as the IASCO Flight Training in the United States since 2014.
“I had a dream of flying in the sky since I was a child," Wu said. "I will push myself with the toughest criteria to become a reliable and excellent pilot,” he added.
It usually takes about five years for a co-pilot to become a captain.
The budget carrier plans to expand its outbound routes in Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia in 2019, Wang Yu, president of Spring Airlines said. It currently operates over 200 domestic and overseas routes.