Flight training schools on the brink amid border closures, lack of pilot demand

Amid international border closures and withering demand for pilots, flight schools that haven’t already collapsed are struggling to survive.

Flight Training Adelaide has laid off dozens of staff and is cancelling insurance on aircraft mothballed by the pandemic. Picture: Brenton Edwards/AAP

With no international students and domestic demand for pilots nosediving, flight training schools are struggling to survive until borders reopen.

Already three major flight training academies in the region have called in receivers, including Soar Aviation, China Southern West Australian Flying College and L3 Harris commercial aviation.

And the future for at least two other large schools is becoming more uncertain the longer international borders remain closed.

Flight Training Adelaide chief executive Pine Pienaar said he had already let 25 per cent of his staff go, and farewelled another 28 people last Monday.

Of the school’s 72 aircraft, only 36 were in use, and Mr Pienaar was considering self-insuring the remainder for the duration of the pandemic despite the risk involved.

Although close to 200 international students wanted to enrol in the flight training school from Taiwan, Japan and India, they were unable to get to Australia because of the border closure.

“I had 450 students in the college in March last year. I had 225 beds full on site, and 130 beds full offsite,” Mr Pienaar told The Australian.

“As of this coming Monday I’ve got 15 students living in accommodation. It’s a fight for survival.”

CAE Oxford Aviation Academy in Melbourne was also facing a massive challenge to see through the pandemic, with staff numbers cut from 165 to 85.

General manager Michael Drinkall said the number of flight instructors had gone from 70 to 34, their Tamworth base had closed and there was no administration support staff left.

“It’s like being on the downward section of a rollercoaster, in fog, so you don’t know when you’re going to reach the bottom,” said Mr Drinkall.

“There are a lot of (overseas) students waiting to return but we don’t know when they will be allowed to.”

Mr Pienaar said the industry was desperate to see a map out of the COVID crisis to give them an idea of how long they would have to survive with a drastically reduced income.

“We’re currently vaccinating, what does that mean? What percentage of the population has to be vaccinated before we say ‘let’s open the borders’,” he said.

“I can cut (our staff) to the bone but if I let that capability go, I’m not going to spool that up for four years. We won’t be able to ramp up quickly when this thing kick starts, and it will kick start.”

Mr Drinkall agreed that there was considerable demand from China for flight training, with the country’s domestic aviation industry already back to pre-COVID levels.

“It’s a pretty safe country, all the airline employees have been vaccinated and have been for a while,” he said.

“We’ve got a couple of hundred students waiting to come down but we can’t get them here.” The federal government has hinted at targeted support for the aviation industry when JobKeeper ended this month, but flight training schools were still awaiting details.

Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack said the government understood it was a difficult period for the entire aviation sector, including flight training schools.

“The best way to support Australia’s pilots and future pilots is to help the aviation sector through the pandemic by getting planes back in the sky. That’s why we are investing $2.7bn to help the aviation sector,” Mr McCormack said.

“We will keep monitoring the domestic and international situation as we continue to help aviation’s return to being a profitable self-sustaining sector.”