“Aviation Professionals 2016” – The 4th International Conference

The 4th international conference “Aviation Professionals 2016” took place on June 2-3 in Ulyanovsk Civil Aviation Institute.

Organized by ATO Events and Cluster Development Centre of Ulyanovsk region, it became one of the key events of the International Air Transport Forum 2016.

The conference gathered officials, employers and heads of higher education institutes and training centers to pool the ideas on improving quality of professional aviation specialists’ education and training in Russia.

The conference brought together more than 90 participants from airlines, training centers, airports, state higher education institutes, professional associations, and federal officials. There were representatives from Great Britain, France, Netherlands and Latvia as well as from different regions of Russia.

Oleg Storchevoy, the Deputy Head of Federal Air Transport Agency opened the conference with welcome speech. He mentioned that the study places in the aviation higher education institutes were not planned to be reduced in the near future. He pointed out that the training center of Ulyanovsk Civil Aviation Institute underwent significant changes regarding newly set simulators such as Boeing 737, Airbus A320, Sukhoi Superjet 100. He also said that “our task is to have aviation higher education institutes producing specialists on certain types of aircraft”

Margarita Yuskina, the Head of Analytical Center of Aviapersonal shared analytical study of the current state and trends of the aviation labor market in Russia, which led to a very lively discussion. The statistics from her presentation demonstrates decrease of the number of employees in the aviation industry, large surplus of pilots and a notable increase in employee’s responsibilities despite salary reduction. Meanwhile average salary in the aviation industry in Russia is still significantly higher than in other industries and even other sectors of transport industry in Russia.

Anna Pozdnyakova, the Executive Director of Aviation personnel association presented the latest information on the development of professional standards and industry qualifications. Professional standards are necessary for aviation industry in Russia in order to increase competition among institutions and their graduates and reduce expenses beared by airlines for retraining and additional training of specialists. In the near future association members are planning to present the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Russian Federation first standards “Pilot” and “Flight attendant” for approval.

Special session on improvement of the system of flight crew education and training also took place on the 1st day of the conference and included an important discussion with such experts as: Savva Faradzhev, Deputy Director of Accidents Prevention Department, Flight Instructor, Volga-Dnepr Airlines, Alexander Mekhanyuk, Head of Civil Aviation Training Center, Ulyanovsk Higher Civil Aviation School, Oleg Vasilyev, Director, Aeroflot Aviation School. They identified current problems and different approaches to improve the system and continue open dialogue between employee and institution in the future.

A number of presentations in the other part of the session were devoted to successful implementation of the flight safety management system in various airlines and were made by: Igor Nesterov, Deputy Head of flight standards department, AirBridgeCargo airlines, Savva Faradzhev, Deputy Director of Accidents Prevention Department, Flight Instructor, Volga-Dnepr Airlines, Anatoliy Guziy, Deputy Safety Management Director, Doctor of Engineering, Professor, Utair Airlines, Aleksander Mishin, Deputy Inspection Director – Head of Inspection, Utair Airlines, Oleg Omelyanenko, Head of Aviation Accidents Prevention and Flight Safety department, Volga – Dnepr Airline.

An important and interesting presentation on the modern methods of pilots and engineering staff training was made by Joёlle Barthe-Heusse from Airbus S.A. S.

Alexander Vindermuth, the Vice-President of AEVT took part in the Q&A panel on the most stressing issues of the training centers’ activity regarding qualifying requirements, typical programs and attestation order. His expertise fulfilled expectations of those participants, whose questions required an urgent and professional assistance.

Presentation on the implementation of the joint EU-Russia program named “Flight Safety and Airworthiness – a master programme” within Erasmus+ project was also highly appreciated by the conference participants. Harmonization of aviation personnel training programs and unification of qualifying requirements as a result of effective cooperation obviously shows that the specialists in this area are highly competent. The presentation was made by Leonid Fedotov, the Head of Coordination and Development of Scientific Activities Department of Ulyanovsk Civil Aviation Institute and David Campbell, The Project Coordinator for European Union (Great Britain)

The last session of the conference was devoted to successful cooperation of the Ulyanovsk Civil Aviation Institute and companies interested in their future graduates. Radik Fayzullin, The Head of Aviation Fuel Department of the Ulyanovsk Civil Aviation Institute told about preparing aviation fuel operators and cooperation with Gazproneft-Aero. His collegue, Vladimir Borisov, the Acting Head of Air Traffic Management  and Navigation Department made presentation on the civil aviation air traffic controllers training and their cooperation with the State ATM Corporation to improve the education process.

According to the feedback summary the conference participants found important to meet representatives from Flight Simulation Company (FSC) to exchange experience and identify new possibilities for the further cooperation.  FCS as well as Airbus S. A. S. successfully sponsored “Aviation professionals” conference for a number of years in a row.