Hong Kong's Cathay vows to instil safety and reporting culture in cadet training
Hong Kong flag carrier
Cathay Pacific Airways has vowed to instil a great sense of safety and culture of reporting in its cadet pilot training, saying these areas formed an integral part of daily operations.
The airline made the pledge on Friday as the first batch of 34 cadet pilots graduated from its training programme held partly in Hong Kong, including the inaugural in-house theoretical course by the Cathay Academy Flying Centre of Excellence.
The 30 men and four women completed the programme after about 80 weeks of training split between Cathay City's simulators, ground theory training and flight practice in the United States and Australia.
The quality of Cathay's cadet pilots came into in the spotlight last year after the company removed three cadet pilots from its training programme following three
serious blunders at the US-based training centre AeroGuard – a wingtip collision with a fixed object, a bounced landing which caused a substantial impact to the aircraft's propeller and a plane that ran off a runway.
The trainees reportedly elected to continue with their missions, but they were expected to have consulted their duty flight instructor before proceeding.
During the graduation ceremony on Friday, Captain Chris Kempis, Cathay director of flight operations, said maintaining safety was an essential part of a pilot's job.
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