Kiwi flight school partnership for Vietnam — Exporter Magazine

During the recent New Zealand Trade Mission in Vietnam, Eagle Flight Training Limited and The Aviation School of New Zealand signed a Business Cooperation Agreement with Aerospace Engineering Services JSC (AESC), to open a flight school at Chulai Airport, Quang Nam province, Vietnam. 

The Flight School project, which carries the Eagle Flight Training brand, will strengthen the presence of the New Zealand flight training industry in Vietnam and foster a partnership between aviation regulators of both countries.

“A nation of 92 million can’t afford any longer to continue development of its own aviation industry without an opportunity to train and examine new pilots within the same airspace where domestic airlines operate,” says Alexander Zapisetskiy, CEO of Eagle Flight Training.

At the moment, apart from Viet Flight Training JSC (BayViet), which provides quality aviation ground training in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam has no civilian flight training operation in the country. There is a lack of suitably qualified flight instructing and flight examining personnel from junior to senior levels in general aviation. All Vietnamese student pilots have to go abroad to receive flight training experience which is associated with extra cost and variations in quality.

Eagle Flight Training will allow cost effective, New Zealand quality training for Vietnamese students within the country and set up a supply of well trained instructors and flight examiners available to the general aviation industry of Vietnam in the future. Aerospace Engineering Services will be responsible for aircraft maintenance and aviation technicians training. 

This project has an ambitious target to train more than 300 pilot students a year by 2020, with the plan of training students to Private Pilot Licence level in Vietnam, after which students fly to New Zealand and complete their Commercial Pilot Training. 

“It will be a highly diverse operation with a mixture of flight instructors and managers from New Zealand and Vietnam. This project will require strong support from aviation authority of both countries, New Zealand Qualification Authority and Education New Zealand. We also expect collaboration with BayViet, domestic airlines, Ministries of Transport and Education of Vietnam”. 

“Our mission in Vietnam is to replicate the successful model of pilot training demonstrated in New Zealand. It is a unique and challenging opportunity for myself and my team to substantially grow the Eagle Flight Training operation and to contribute to the economies of New Zealand and Vietnam”, says Zapisetskiy.