HIGH COST OF FLYING TRAINING IN MALAYSIA

I have been asked by a parent why doing pilot  training in Malaysia is much more expensive than in Australia or USA since everybody knows the cost of living there is three to four times higher than Malaysia. Apparently, this parent wants his son to get an pilot license  and find out the cost here is about RM260,000.00 and in USA or Australia the cost is just about RM 180,000.00. Training takes about 10  months in Australia and 14 months in Malaysia.

Good question I thought.  Being both a helicopter and fixed wing pilot before and also the founder of Aviation Management College, a private college producing diplomas in aviation management starting in  2007 with 2 students to 350 students now, I believe I could provide the answers to this question. By the way folks, our diploma fee is RM 16,500 for two and half years!  

The existing of flying schools in Malaysia is approved under the Civil Aviation Act 1969 (Act 3) and its subsidiary regulations which is Malaysia Civil Aviation Regulations 1996 (MCAR). It gives the power to the Director General of DCA the authority to decide on the terms and criteria to start  up a flying school (also known as Approved Flight Training School -AFTO).

The DCA has then deemed it fit to insist on a stringent requirements to start up a flying school such as follows:-

1. Flying school must be set up at an approved civil airport which is usually busy with other airlines operating and land is scarce and expensive;
2. School must have all the required job position personnel such as Principal, CFI, CGI, and  ground and flight instructors with certain years of work experience and holders must approved by DCA;
3. Classes must not be more than 20 students and table size be certain sizes resulting in big classrooms required;
4. Flying must be 200 hours of which 160 hours must be dual with instructors.
5. Student must take 6 local papers and 8 UK CA papers (total 14) and must undergo 1000 contact hours on classes.  

Now compare this with an Australia set up:

1. Australia allows flying school in to operate in secondary non ATC airports where the cost is lower and this allowing school not to be bogged down by waiting time for other airlines to take off and landings
2. School can operate with two persons acting as principal, CGI and CFI and instructors all at the same time;
3, class rooms just a standard sizes;
4. Flying is just 160 hour with 70 solo (flying solo is cheaper than dual with instructor)
5. Students just sit 8 local papers all CBT  (cheaper exam costs and less teaching and faster results

In Australia, with a population of 22 million, much lower than Malaysia's 28 million, it has about 90 odd flying schools.  Mind you Australia only has 12 civil registered airports at major cities compared to Malaysia 24's.  But it has more than 200 fixed based operators small airports which flying schools are allowed to operate. So why do Australia have 90 flying schools compared to Malaysia's 3 (used to be 8 before but 5 have closed down)?. The answer is simply the lower entry barrier allowed by the Australian government to set a flying school and many foreign students allowed to study there.

The other reason is the high prices of aircraft imported into Malaysia even for the used ones. there are many aircraft owners in Australia which make the market for these used aircraft becomes affordable thereby allowing the flying schools to have lower leasing or amortization rates.

The solution?  The government must allow the flying schools to operate from self- sustained airfields that would allow the operating costs of the school to be economical and allow foreign students to study here. .

The flying school should be allowed to provide the basic ATC fire fighting facilities on it own. It should also not insist of having a full scale organizational structure before the school can afford it. Any bachelor degree graduate can teach the ground school.

If the operator is a pilot he could also act as the principal, chief flying instructor and ground school instructor if he wants to. This would save tons of money and I don't think it would affect quality. especially if the school just have a few students. All these could be done without jeopardising the safety aspects. This is akin to JPJ allowing a one-man show to start a driving school with shared facilities with the bigger players in Malaysia.
 
The government should lower the barrier for import aircraft such as compulsory factory visit by the DCA so that more aircraft can be brought in to Malaysia at lower costs and making Malaysia a hub for aircraft assembly.  Having affordable flying schools is the road to our aviation industry growth.