KLM

chunk75

Well-Known Member
Hey, are you guys @ Ft. Pierce....

Are you losing KLM's contract? Not trying to flame, just asking.

Chunk <--15 miles North
 
i haven't heard anything about it. only heard that the contract is good for another year. other than that i have no info., i'm not so sure even if that is true.
 
I have heard that Pan Am is picking up another contract with the Chinese. Somewhere around 50 chinese students will be starting at Pan Am next February. Then Pan Am will be picking up more airplanes from Piper.

The Turk.
 
supposedly a bunch just came in tis past week. also heard that they signed the contract with China Air or something. guess they have a three week english crash course before they start
 
From what I understand, the Chinese were so impressed with the campus that they have signed a contract with PanAm to bring 100 of them here over the next year, starting January. I guess thats good to hear if you plan on instructing with PanAm, but I wonder if we'd get a pay raise for having to teach English as well.......
 
Just be very very careful with limited English flight students. I got a delightful trip down to Oklahoma City to testify because some of my Korean students kept getting in big trouble in LAX after they got hired by Asiana Airlines. I was a rats hair from a violation.

The FAA interprets private/commercial-quality English seperately entirely from ATP-quality English and will nail you if you don't read the interpretation correctly.
 
the KLM students here speak english very very well, but we've had some other foreign students come in that could barely hold a normal conversation let alone understand ATC on a busy day. little scary sometimes
 
When are the students suposed to start arriving? and is this both campuses or just FL? Is KLM a chinese airline? I always thought it was dutch.
 
KLM is Dutch. they already have a contract at the Ft. Pierce campus. they make up a good portion of the students here as well as the flying time for the school so i hear. the new talk is that one of the Chinese airlines just signed on to have Panam in Ft. Pierce train their pilots. i don't know what level of training, how many, or even if its just a Florida thing...but the word is some are already here and going through an ENglish refresher course before starting. when i find out more i'll try and post it.
 
I really wasn't referring to KLM with my comment, more or less some of the non-western Asian national students and my experience of watching the FAA sit there, ready to tear up my license about their interpretation of understanding English.
 
a bunch of guys here were talking about being really worried if they were assigned as instructors to some of the foreign students who can't speak english very well. thats a big responsibility to teach english and be pressured to teach a student to fly even if you feel they aren't able to communicate with ATC or anyone else for that matter. guess you just find a way to do it, and try and cover yer ass legally in any way you can.
 
I'll tell you one thing that I learned from a few instructors up at FSI...They said that generally speaking the foreign students came very well prepared to lessons and were highly motivated. I also agree that I always so a high level of profesionalism from them, I'd hope to get on board with a contract group.
 
the instructors here who work for the KLM branch of Panam get some pretty nice perks. not to mention a steady paycheck, days off, and somewhat regular hours. not much multi time for them, but with the extra cash they make and the time off, they could just rent the seminole with an instructor discount and build time flying the tour de Hooters.
 
Doug,

You mean that the FAA was going to hold YOU responsible because your Chinese students weren't proficient in English? If it won't take too long I'd love to hear the details.

I heard of an FAA examiner who actually went to jail because he was issuing certificates to foreign students who really couldn't speak any English at all. I won't swear to it but I think it was with Asiana Airlines as well. There were a lot of problems with their pilots and someone did some checking and noticed that every pilot they were having problems with got his certificate from the same guy.
 
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