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Skies open wide for pilots from abroad
Around 145 new aircraft will be delivered this year, and these new planes alone are expected to push aircraft numbers beyond the capacity of training schools to supply new pilots. The Civil Aviation Flight University of China - the nation's major training school for commercial airline pilots based in Sichuan and Henan provinces - graduates a maximum of 600 pilots a year. Based on the delivery of new aircraft, industry experts estimate that China has needed between 1,200 and 1,600 new pilots every year since 2000, far more than the university can train. There is a particular shortage of experienced pilots qualified to hold the rank of captain - at least one pilot with the rank of captain is required on every flight, a CAAC press official said. Airlines are reluctant to comment on the shortage, but some smaller Chinese carriers had been forced to flout government policy and recruit foreign pilots as a stopgap measure to keep their aircraft flying. They include Shenzhen Airlines, Hainan Airlines, Sichuan Airlines and the country's first private operator, Okay Airways. Daniela Schmidt, a 25-year-old Swiss woman, is employed by Okay Airways as a co-pilot. Schmidt followed her Dutch boyfriend to China last year even though she did not speak or read Chinese and had never visited the country. "I didn't think I could find work in China," she said.
"But China is giving me an opportunity to fly that I wouldn't otherwise have."
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