Mr. Guy Martin (ENAC) - Jamaica Civil Aviation Authority

DGAC’s contribution
to match the needs of some airlines
in terms of pilot provisioning
ICAO NEXT GENERATION OF AVIATION PROFESSIONALS (NGAP)
AND TRAINAIR PLUS REGIONAL SYMPOSIUM
JAMAICA MONTEGO BAY 5 to 7 February 2013

Summary
• Pilot provisioning
• DGAC’s contribution
• Selection and training
• DGAC’s objectives
• Airlines’ benefits

Pilot provisioning
• Major airlines usually recruit:
– young professional pilots coming from private flight training
schools,
– experienced jet pilots from regional airlines or from general
aviation companies,
– and former military pilots.
• But some of these airlines also hire:
– State-sponsored young professional pilots.

DGAC’s contribution to the pilot provisioning
• Every year, the DGAC (French Civil Aviation Authority)
contributes to this pilot provisioning by conducting an EPL
meritocratic competitive examination followed by an ATPL
pilot training course sponsored by the French
Government
(EPL stands for and means Airline Transport Cadets).
• Thanks to this contribution to match some of the airlines
needs, the DGAC gives young people an opportunity to
embrace the airline pilot career.

ENAC is the main actor
• In fact, and for more than 50 years, the ENAC (French civil
aviation university, part of DGAC) is in charge of :
– Promoting this examination and this pilot training opportunity to
young people (through ENAC website, forums, aviation events or
fairs, conferences, visits to universities and information spread in
preparatory schools and colleges),
– Collecting and assessing the candidates’ applications,
– Conducting the selection process,
– And finally carrying out the Airline Transport Pilot training.

ENAC

ENAC in a few words
• 4 areas of activities:
– Initial training (2 000 trainees in 25 training programs)
– Continuing training (7 500 trainees in 500 refresher courses)
– Research and development
– International (150 000 students from 100 countries on 5 continents)
• A flight training school:
– 50 years of flight training experience
– 7 flight training bases
– 120 ground and flight instructors
– 17 fixed based simulators and 129 aeroplanes
– Wide range of approved pilot and instructor courses
– 1 000 pilot or flight instructor students trained per year

Selection criteria
• Requirements to take the EPL/S selection process are:
– To be an EC citizen,
– To be 17 to 23 years old,
– To have an higher scientific education level (at least 60 ECTS credits
according to the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System
standard),
– To be Class 1 medically fit.
• There are three different types of EPL Cadets:
– EPL/S as Scientific for young graduates with no previous flight experience;
this course of study is the most important in terms of number of trained
Cadets,
– EPL/U as University for young people who have already passed all their
ATPL theoretical certificates and
– EPL/P as Professional for young people who already hold a commercial pilot
license (CPL).

Selection process
• Purpose of this selection : to seek strong motivation and
potential skills to become a pilot.
– Written tests,
– Psychomotor and psycho technical tests,
– Interviews,
– Oral English language test,
– Class 1 medical check.
• As an example in 2012 : they were 1 812 EPL/S
candidates. At the end of the selection process, only 28
Cadets were selected.

Strong interest by young generation
• The number of candidates is regularly increasing (1 400
candidates ten years ago, which shows a strong interest
of young people to access a pilot career through this
training course).
• The number of Cadets (EPL/S, U and P) varies from 40 to
60 every year.

Airline Cadets training course
• The Cadets attend an Integrated ATP training course
compliant with the EASA requirements
• They take and pass the following examinations:
– ATPL theoretical certificates
– CPL skill test
– IR/ME skill test
– MCC certificate completion
• The training duration is 2 years
• The training is free of charge
• The Cadets pay for accommodation and food
• This pilot training meets high standards and is well
recognized and appreciated by major airlines

Cross-culture training
(refer to article in ICAO TRAINING REPORT Number 2 2012, pages 10 to 12)
• The ENAC is also in charge of the training of ATCO
trainees in the same facilities, which allows to deliver
common training modules for pilot and ATCO trainees
either in classrooms, briefing rooms or simulators.
• The ENAC is developing and implementing further joint
training modules to acquire a better knowledge and
understanding of the other’s job capabilities and
constraints with the purpose of continuously upgrading
flight safety and efficiency.

Joining an airline
• Coming back to our Airline Cadets, as soon as their pilot
training is completed at the ENAC, they apply for a
copilot position in any airline they wish to join.
• They undergo a selection process conducted by the
airline which is not necessarily a French one. We have
many examples of Cadets flying with European airlines
(Lufthansa, easyJet, Ryanair, ..) or even flying with airlines
outside of Europe such as Qatar Airways.
• Then, they attend a type rating course and a line training
course before acting as a standard copilot in this airline.

DGAC’s objectives 1/2
• Allow a limited number of young people from social
diversity to access this expensive state-sponsored training,
through a competitive examination and pilot training.
• Limited number of students means that there are other
students who get an ATPL through private flight training
schools.
• Establish a well-recognised standard with stringent criteria
in selection and high quality ATPL training phases.

DGAC’s objectives 2/2
• Enhance the national flight safety by :
– Providing the flight industry with the best students, recruited on the ground
of their merits, with a cross-culture training (common training with ATCOs),
– Developing new experimental training methods and tools in order to
permanently upgrade the ATPL standard,
– Sharing these methods with other flight training schools upon their
request,
– Designing new experimental pilot training programmes (MPL, etc),
– Allowing other customers (foreign and French) to benefit from
programmes’ breakthrough,
– Assisting the French Civil Aviation Authority as an expert on matters related
to flight training and safety.

Airlines’ benefits
• Get high quality young professionals ready to act
immediately as a standard copilot,
• Implement with ENAC a feedback loop of the training
results in order to adapt the syllabus if deemed
necessary,
• Get some of the best Cadets capable of evolving from
pilots to high potential managers.

To conclude, this is the way the French DGAC contributes
to the pilot provisioning to meet some of the needs of
major airlines.
Thank you very much for your attention !