GOLD COAST, Australia — In the middle of a busy day at Gold Coast Logistics in this remote coastal town, a small group of about 20 pilots were discussing the need for better piloting training in the gold Coast Logistic Region.
They were speaking on a Wednesday morning at a meeting of the pilot training association.
“I’ve got a lot of people coming through my office who want to fly the [gold Coast] Airliner,” said Dave Stenman, the association’s president.
Stenman is one of the pilots who took to the skies with his family when he was 13 years old, after their plane was damaged in a thunderstorm near the coast.
The family is now flying the Airliner every month.
“We’re trying to get the training to get us ready to fly again.
It’s been so tough.
I’m not sure we’ll get it done again, so we need to make some changes,” Stenmants father, Tom, said.
I don’t think I’ll ever fly a helicopter again, but I have a lot more respect for what the pilots are doing.
“The Airliner is a new, unmanned commercial airline operated by AGL that will take off and land from the Gold Coast airport in Melbourne, carrying about 30 people and a cargo of about 4,000 kilograms of goods.
The pilot training program for pilots in Australia is still in its infancy, but the association has a pilot program director and two pilots who are in their late 20s.
It has the largest number of pilots in the world and the largest fleet of commercial aircraft in the country, with more than 2,000 aircraft.
The association is also seeking new pilots.
More than 500 pilots are in training and are flying in Australia now, but Stenmans father said that is not enough to get them on the commercial side of the economy.
We need to get more pilots, we need a whole fleet of pilots, he said.”
The first thing we need is a pilot school, a pilot academy, we can get the people that we need.
And I think that’s going to happen very soon,” he said, as the pilots took turns explaining how to use the aircraft safely.
When the Airliners first arrived in Australia, they were given a pilot’s certificate but had to take a two-month test before they could fly.
Since then, more than half of the planes flown have passed the two-week test.
The Airliners are not just flying in the skies of Australia, but in the middle east and in the South Pacific.
Many airlines have started to fly more frequently in the region, especially smaller regional carriers like Australian Airlines and Emirates.
Australian Airlines said in January it will fly twice a week from Melbourne to Dubai, from January 2019 to April 2020.
British Airways is expected to begin flying from Sydney’s Sydney Airport in 2019.
But pilots like Tom Stenmas, who have flown with British Airways and Emirates, said the pilots were not getting the training they needed.”
I think they’re really disappointed in that, they’re not getting trained.
And it’s just not fair, especially for a young kid to have to take two-and-a-half weeks to do a test,” Stena said.
In the long run, pilots like Stenma hope the Airliers can help bring more foreign pilots to Australia, as well as more Australian-based pilots who may be able to do the job better.
And Stenmann, who is now 25, said he was not surprised by the news.”
It’s a good idea.
It makes sense to me, it makes sense for Australia, it’s a great thing,” he told ABC News Australia.
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