A new company partnering with Canadore College is hoping to bring five new teaching jobs along with close to a dozen students in hopes of trying to meet the demands of the fixed wing pilot industry.
The announcement of the new partnership came this morning at the Canadore Aviation Centre.
Cedric Paillard is the Ottawa Aviation Services CEO who announced the new two-year Canadore/Essential Commercial fixed wing pilot program.
He says the industry is in desperate need of pilots.
“There’s a need in Canada for about 6,000 pilots,” admitted Paillard who noted many of the baby boomer pilots are going into retirement.
“So 6,000 pilots is a lot of pilots considering that we are training only 600 Canadian students every year in all of Canada. So this program is actually designed to fast-track the students to an airline position, to sit right on the right side of the airliner right after their training.”
Paillard says the partnership with Canadore, which already offers aircraft maintenance and helicopter flight training courses, makes complete sense.
“Canadore College is a very well known college in the industry, in the maintenance side and the helicopter side. We just needed to provide our program on the fixed wing side,” he said.
“The environment is just great, the airport is just perfect for training - actually everything is a very good environment, we have the perfect airport, perfect classrooms. Airlines are going to be thrilled with what will be coming out of this.”
George Burton, the Canadore College President, hopes the new program will spike the interest in the flight program.
“We have industry partners lined up that are looking to hire and everyone who completes the program is guaranteed an interview with one of the partner airlines. We need pilots to not only support those who are retiring in the industry but the growth in aviation so it is a good news story all around. We are really pleased that Essential’s and Ottawa Aviation Services will be adding staff here in North Bay to help with the number of students we are expecting in the next while, and we are kind of going through the numbers today and we are quite optimistic about some real growth here.”
