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What are the Policy and Management Direction in the Air Transportation Group?
The policy of the Ministry of Transport as the primary agency responsible for policy and oversight are to propel the country’s aviation industry, promote Thailand as a manufacturing center and maintenance of aircraft in ASEAN targeting both domestic and international airlines, especially, countries in Southeast Asia with a rapidly growing aviation business. To promote Thailand to be the hub for the aviation industry, it is necessary to develop and train personnel to support the airline industry and related businesses, such as, pilots, aircraft maintenance engineers, airlines personnel, and other personnel related to aviation. These careers require a high level of technical knowledge, expertise, and experience under oversight mechanism from the government entities. One of the success factors of the development of the aerospace industry is to develop people
Opening the Aviation Policy when “Asia” is to be the World Aviation Hub
From the rapid growth of aviation transportation, especially in Asia Pacific, Civil Aviation Training Center, Thailand (CATC) is said to be the main institution in developing and training aviation personnel to work in air and ground services of the country. This is the opportunity for CATC to keep up the quality personnel development and training to meet the aviation industry demand. In this issue, TRAINER had received the honor from Mr. Arkhom Termpittayapaisith, Minister of Transport, for a special interview for the policy, vision, and direction in air transportation development with interesting points as follows:
Mr. Arkhom TermpittayapaisithMinister of Transport
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to be ready and be able to meet the needs of the aerospace industry in the future for expansion. The academic institutions need to create a body of knowledge to build students from the ground up to the university level and enable them to work in the aviation industry with the ability to meet the needs of the labor market and be able to work accordingly in a workplace. Our main policy is to promote the utilization of airports in the region to gain the existing airports’ maximum benefit by increasing the potential international airports of the country’s that serve as main gateway including Suvarnabhumi Airport, Don Muang Airport, Chiang Mai International Airport, and Phuket International Airport to accommodate more aircraft. The low-cost airlines have increased more services to provide the ease of travelling. This will be the key to increase the travelling growth.
Since January 2016, the Ministry of Transport has begun a policy to promote the use of regional state-run airports because of the relatively low utilization rate. Not until the year 2011, the low-cost airlines have started to fly to the state-run airports. By the year 2013, Thailand had a passenger growth rate of 13.7 percent. The demand for air travelling has increased rapidly due to the expansion of low cost airlines. This results in competition in the airfare, services and route offerings. Lower fares allow more people with low income to fly.
Once the aviation industry grows, more flights must be accommodated, two things have to be taken care of: the first thing is aviation personnel development and training, such as, pilot and personnel in various ground and air services and the second thing is aircraft maintenance.
What is the Policy to Promote the Development and Training of Aviation Personnel?
For policy on personnel matters, we have CATC, which presently has grown significantly. It is the main institution of the country in developing and training aviation personnel in both ground and air services for over 54 years. But as a government agency, the past performance has been plagued by several limitations that directly affect the aviation personnel development, especially pilots and aircraft mechanics, for not being able to keep up with the airline business growth. Private sector has been getting on the bandwagon and if CATC does not reconsider its strategy; then, it could lose its ground to its competitors.
In the last 4-5 years however, CATC has improved within the organization because everyone knew there had to be a change; otherwise, it would have been left behind in the changing world. In 2016 the ASEAN Economic Community
would arrive. The Ministry of Transport has negotiated a deal with several countries to increase better opportunities for our airlines and airline industry.
“For the issue of aviation technology, CATC understands itself well by initiating a change. Adopting the royal speech of His Majesty the King’s that a change has to be from within oneself and to realize its potential based on the sufficiency economy. Each year, CATC received a little government budget of more than 200 million. Compared with the development and training aviation personnel that costs considerably higher. With this limitation, CATC still shows significant improvement today. When I served as Deputy Secretary General of the Office of the National Economic and Social Development Board, I supported CATC to acquire more new aircraft because I wanted to have adequate training instrument that was up-to-date and safe. Old aircraft is dangerous. I have been supporting CATC’s personnel development and training all along.”
One other side of the policy is promoting aviation industry in aircraft maintenance. When there is a lot of aircraft, taking it out of country for small and heavy maintenance incurs more costs. The policy encourages performing maintenance locally. The Ministry of Transport has assigned the Office of Transport and Traffic Policy and Planning (OTP) to study the establishment of an industrial estate as an aircraft maintenance center. It turned out that we had the potential and the airport for aircraft maintenance center had been selected. At this point in time, there have been many interested foreign airlines who would like to be into the alliance with Thai airlines. It is a main
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policy that will promote aircraft maintenance in the region.“I think the issue of aviation personnel and aircraft
mechanic are an opportunity. The success of national development, eventually, comes down to the quality of people, not technology because the technology is only a component. Ministry of Transport policy describes that if our people cannot compete with others, do not waste time hoping to win our neighbors or any other country in the world. In all, the principle is discipline of pilot and aviation personnel.”
It is also important that we need to take the advantage of the added value to our airline industry as a result of maintenance center, which is parts production in the country. Today, Thailand has joint venture with foreign companies to export parts to major manufacturers. Countries that have raw materials with low inventory have no need to export to Europe. Instead they can have us handle it for them. The added value I’m talking about is the exploitation of free zone at the airport. If we could become the center, the under-utilized airport could be the opportunity for added value for the country’s aviation industry.
The Heartbeat of CATC to Expedite the Raising the Training Program to Compete in the Market
Currently, CATC’s training courses are in compliance with standards established by International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). However, they must be continually updated called “refresh”. New technology must be acquired; academic knowledge must be exchanged among international institutions. It is also important that organizations have to conduct research. Although, CATC has done research in the past as the capabilities allowed. From now on, questions must be raised to the universities and research institutes in CATC’s network; so they can take part of creating modernization, obtain patent of innovations, or actually be used in the aviation industry.
The flight training standards have been certified by ICAO, but I would like to have improvement on the teaching methodology for the sake of keeping face. Currently, there are students waiting in line to enter CATC for ground and flight schools, but the problem is the facility size. If the new building is built, CATC would be in the better position to develop and train aviation personnel and will be the one in the region.
“The courses are in compliance with ICAO’s standard because CATC has been assessed and certified as members of the TRAINAIR PLUS programme, which few countries are accredited to meet those standards. It is analogous to an academic
curriculum is approved by the Ministry of Education. Today CATC has taken a big step with the approval. This is not to make profit; we just want to develop and train standardized aviation personnel for the International market.”
The Opportunity to be the Hub of Air Transportation of Asia Pacific and the Changes to be Made After the Beginning AEC
Today, Thailand is the hub for traveling from the western hemisphere and the US. We are the connected center between these two parts of the world. We can witness by our tourism and travelling demand by airlines growth. We can notice for the past few years that a large number of Chinese tourists came here. Famous international airlines use Thailand as a base to load their passengers to Europe. For example, the airlines from Middle East also take advantage of our airport to pick up passengers from Asia to Europe.
In addition to the economic prosperity in the future period of 10-20 years, Asia will be the center of the global economy. In the past, the growth was relocated from Europe to America and it would be back to Asia. It is noticeable by economic forecast from aircraft order. In the future aircraft orders of 30% would be from Asia Pacific.
Not only that, AEC gives us the freedom of moving people and goods within ASEAN. To move freely, easing on rules and regulations for travelling, investment, and tax cuts will make people in the region to get in touch easier. Therefore, it is my believe that in the next 10 years, the aviation industry of Thailand will certainly and significantly grows.
Mr. Arkhom TermpittayapaisithMinister of Transport
Education
• Thailand National Defence College, Batch 46• Advanced Manager, Office of the Civil Service
Commission, Batch 35• Master of Economics, Williams College, USA• Bachelor of Economics, Thammasat University
Work Experiences
• Deputy Minister of Transport• Secretary General of the Office of the National
Economic and Social Development Board• Deputy Secretary General of the Office of the