176 pilots offered jobs at Malindo Air

• Malindo Air has hired 176 pilots out of the more than 1,000 unemployed pilots in the country
• Air Asia and Malaysian Airlines (MAS) to follow suit

Malindo Air, a joint venture between Malaysia's National Aerospace and Defense Industries and Lion Air of Indonesia, has signed 176 pilots, many of them from the pool of the 1,000 unemployed pilots. The signing ceremony was held at Marriot Hotel in Putrajaya, yesterday.

By 2018, Malindo hopes to hire 550 pilots, which will halve the number of unemployed pilots.  Most of these unemployed pilots are graduates who have too few flying hours to meet the basic recruitment guideline.

Since air travel is becoming better, AirAsia and MAS are expected to absorb some of the 1,000 unemployed pilots.

Malaysia has 5 flying schools that churn out about 300 graduates annually. The Department of Civil Aviation is freezing all new applications for flying schools while the current schools need to get the department’s approval on student intake.

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