Originally Posted by
EXPAT1
They will come from inside China. At my airline we upgrade from off the street young college graduates with zero hours to B-737 Captain in 4 years. The ExPats are a short term fix and will NOT be needed in 4-5 years at many Chinese airlines. The largest aviation college is in China. China produces the most ATP rated pilots now than any other country. High speed trains and better public transportation are also slowing airline domestic growth in certain markets. The medical standards will never lower in China as this is the prime tool utilized to screen their own population of 1.3 Billion. If you can pass the Chinese First Class medical you have a chance, if not move on to the next rodeo. China is not a career option. It is a great place to come and earn the big bucks to pay off your house, pay the kids college fund, build up a est egg and save for retirement but not a long term career option. Come here with an open mind and the intention of staying 1 or 2 contracts, basically 3-6 years then move on.
I have been in China for about six months now and am less convinced in China's ability to supply its own pilots than I was before. There are two main reasons for this:
First is that China's airspace is just not set up for flight training. There is no such thing as Un-controlled airspace. Most flight plans to be approved by the military. There are cases when it can take weeks for a training flight plan to be approved. China cannot sufficiently train the pilots it needs now and the room for growth in air travel is virtually limitless...IF the military begins to open more airspace for civilian traffic.
Which brings me to point number 2. Most of the cities I fly into have airports with 6 to 10 gates. Just for fun I will look up how big the city is and am often shocked to see that I am in a city of five million people. 10 gates to serve 5 million people?! That is about the same size as the Miami/Ft Lauderdale/West Palm beach area. Can you imagine the entirety of southeast Florida only being served by ten gates? How about Phoenix being served by 6 gates? That is what you have with China's aviation infrastructure. Beijing Capital has has built two big terminals in the past fifteen years, terminal 2 in 1999 and terminal 3, which when built was the largest terminal in the world, in 2008. The airport is already at near max capacity and China is in the process of building another huge airport on the south side of the city. Chengdu more than doubled its terminal space and added another runway less than four years ago and is now planning to build a new airport that will be twice the size of the one it now has.
Aviation growth in China has a long ways to go. Really the only two things stopping it are ability to get pilots and military control of the airspace.