The government is expected to delay applying changes to requirements related to airline captain licenses. It had planned to introduce approved training organizations (ATO) and require them for obtaining captain licenses by the end of this year, but it appears to have stepped back amid industry opposition.
According to the aviation industry on the 2nd, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport held a meeting with airlines, aircraft manufacturers and pilots on the standards for designating approved training organizations (ATO) for air transport pilots and said it would add a supplementary provision to postpone changes to the requirements for obtaining an air transport pilot license (ATPL) by three years.
Starting in Nov. this year, the rules will be changed to require ATO training to obtain an ATPL, but the existing method will also be recognized until 2029. An air transport pilot license is a qualification that must be obtained to be promoted to captain at a commercial airline.
Until now, pilots who obtained a commercial pilot license (CPL) joined commercial airlines, performed actual flight duties, met requirements such as flight time (at least 1,500 hours), and then obtained an ATPL through simple written and oral exams.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) is pushing to change the requirements to align with the United States and Europe, which provide ATPL training through ATOs. The goal is to establish ATO standards by the time the Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme (USOAP) of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), scheduled for the end of this year, is implemented.
The industry argues that if completion of ATO-related courses is required to obtain an ATPL, the expense for training completion and evaluation will be 97 million won per pilot. Currently, the expense for written and oral exams to obtain an ATPL is only in the hundreds of thousands of won.
As of last year, the number of pilots who obtained a CPL was 5,947. Of these, about 32.5% (1,935) have obtained an ATPL. The industry has argued that if all pilots without an ATPL must receive ATO training, expenses in the hundreds of billions of won will be incurred.
They also argue that while in the United States and Europe propeller-aircraft pilots obtain an ATPL to operate large jet aircraft, in Korea, pilots join airlines after obtaining a CPL, receive training, and immediately build experience operating large jet aircraft, making overlapping training at an ATO unnecessary.
ATOs are expected to begin with general subjects such as aviation law and regulations, general knowledge and characteristics of transport aircraft, flight performance and flight planning and weight and balance, aviation meteorology, navigation, and operating procedures. Practical training will also be conducted using a full flight simulator (FFS).
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) decided to allow a three-year grace period, seeing that airlines and ATOs would need time to prepare for the new system. However, some observe that the government accepted industry pushback and left room for first officers who have not yet obtained an ATPL to do so under the current method.
The government also plans to partially recognize cases where courses taken within airlines overlap with ATO courses, in response to concerns about expense burdens. However, since evaluation methods have not yet been set, it is unclear whether effective expense reductions can be achieved.
An airline captain said, "The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) is pushing to change ATO designation standards and ATPL requirements after reflecting a significant portion of on-site opinions," and added, "A principle has been set to minimize expense burdens, but with evaluation methods yet to be prepared, effective measures remain a task."