Malaysian airline on hiring spree
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Malindo Air is set to at least halve Malaysia's problem of unemployed pilots.
The country’s newest low-cost airline and its partner Lion Air will absorb all the 600-odd pilots who turned up for the walk-in interview at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport last week, and might take more with further interviews, according to Malindo Air chief executive officer Chandran Ramamuthy.
“We will take all of them [who turned up last week] and more pilots, provided they meet all our requirements, which include them passing our entrance examinations and meeting Department of Civil Aviation regulations,” he said.
He added that Malindo would take some of the pilots and the others would be absorbed by Indonesia’s Lion Air, that country’s largest privately owned airline, controlling 50 per cent of the domestic air market.
Those hired will have to undertake an aircraft-type rating, and payment for the training would be through bank loans and other sources of funding, Chandran said.
Malindo, launched last September, is a joint venture between Malaysia’s Nadi Sdn Bhd and Indonesia’s PT Lion Grup, which controls Lion Air. Nadi has a 51-per-cent stake in Malindo, with PT Lion Grup holding the remaining equity.
Malaysia has 1,174 unemployed pilots, many of whom cannot repay the bank loans they took to obtain the commercial pilot licence, which costs an average of 250,000 ringgit (about Bt2.5 million).
