It takes at least 18 months of training at a private flying academy before a trainee is issued a commercial pilot license, and that will make him employable by commercial airlines. Another six months of training would finally see the pilot fly a passenger aircraft.
In less than a year, 18-year-old trainee pilot Rizky Jasica could be flying a passenger airliner. "After graduation, I will apply to join a reputable Indonesian airline," she said.
However, Rizky would not have to wait until she graduates to get a job. Faced with a shortage of pilots, domestic airlines have resorted to hiring trainees while they are still in the academy.
Indonesia needs up to 800 new pilots annually as the country's aviation industry is growing at an unprecedented pace.
Captain Hassan Unang, deputy GM of the Bandung Pilot Academy, said: "Indonesian pilot schools can produce a maximum of 250 pilots a year. Normally, it is only 200."
There are about a dozen reputable private flying schools in Indonesia besides the government-run academy -- Bandung Pilot Academy, in West Java, is the latest.
Besides investing in the latest technology, the academy has to compete to get the best instructors who are highly sought after.
Endik Triwidarto, a Sukhoi-jet fighter instructor, was enticed to leave after more than 20 years in the Indonesian Air Force.
He said: "The difference is only in the uniform. The attitude, knowledge and skills remain the same. Maybe civilian flights are less complicated compared to military exercises. Not many manoeuvres compared to the military, but the basics are the same."
While waiting for these trainee pilots to graduate, local airlines have resorted to hiring foreigners to fly domestic routes. However, observers warn of the potential dangers.
Bambang Adisurya, director of the International Federation of Airline Pilots Associations, said: "They might look for cheap pilots from countries whose economy has collapsed; their airlines grounded and pilots unemployed. They are asked to fly in Indonesia. This is dangerous because they have no flying time in Indonesia. They've never seen Indonesia. That's how there have been instances of wrong landings."
There are an estimated 600 foreign pilots employed in Indonesia and experts have called for a proper endorsement system.
Chappy Hakim, a former air marshal with the Indonesian Air Force, said: "Standardisation system, endorsement licence -- that needs its own mechanism. On the other hand, businesses want everything fast. That's probably why there are sub-standard pilots."
There is also the added problem of Indonesian pilots who leave to work overseas -- most are lured by better salaries.
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Indonesia must be the best place to be now for wide-eyed aviator wannabes. Even before you attain the coveted pilot license you're already being poached by hungry airlines in the country. Just how safe is aviation in Indonesia when there is a lack of experienced pilots in the field?
A Japan Airlines Boeing 787 that left Boston for Tokyo on Thursday returned to Boston due to a possible pump problem, the company said, dismissing concerns of a new crisis for the planes.
Japan Airlines (JAL) has faced several problems with the new-generation Dreamliner plane since it resumed flying after four months of being grounded for serious battery problems.
The plane left from Boston at 12:57pm (1657 GMT) but returned to its airport of departure at around 6:00 pm.
"As a standard precautionary measure due to a maintenance message (fuel pump) indicator, JL007 bound for Tokyo-Narita decided to return to Boston Logan for check and landed safely," Carol Anderson, a US-based JAL spokeswoman, told AFP in an email.
Boston Logan International Airport said on its Twitter site that the 787 made "a precautionary return".
"Flight has landed and is taxiing to gate," it said.
JAL officials in Tokyo also confirmed the maintenance message but dismissed concerns that the return might signal a new problem for the plane.
"We decided to return for precaution... as a message showing a malfunction of a fuel pump at the right engine appeared in the cockpit," said a JAL spokesman.
Even if the pump was faulty, there was no safety risk as the engine has the function to suck fuel as a back-up option, he said.
"There's no emergency at all in this case. We just wanted to be on the safe side," the official said, adding "this has nothing to do with the battery system".
Last week, another 787 used by Ethiopian Airlines caught fire at London's Heathrow airport.
JAL and another Japanese airline ANA, which has the biggest fleet of the craft, have experienced around a dozen minor complaints with the 787 since it was allowed to resume flying after being grounded between January and April.
After months of investigations, US authorities in April formally approved Boeing's battery fix and Japanese regulators followed suit.
The battery supplier, Japan's GS Yuasa, has voiced confidence that the system will never cause similar problems again.
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Fuel pump not working, plane returning as a precautionary measure, nothing to worry about. Maintenance issues will have to be ironed out. Every small little part of this plane is giving the airlines headaches.
British authorities recommended on Thursday that distress beacons onboard all Boeing Dreamliners be disabled, after identifying the devices as the likely cause of a fire on a 787 at London's Heathrow airport.
The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) said that detailed analysis of the Honeywell emergency location transmitter system on the new generation plane "has shown some indications of disruption to the battery cells".
"It is not clear, however, whether the combustion in the area of the ELT was initiated by a release of energy within the batteries or by an external mechanism such as an electrical short," it said.
Pending further investigations, it recommended all Honeywell transmitters be removed from the Dreamliners and urged aviation regulators to review lithium-powered devices installed in other types of aircraft.
In a statement, Boeing said it supported the recommendations, "which we think are reasonable precautionary measures to take as the investigation proceeds".
Nobody was hurt when the fire broke out last Friday on an empty Ethiopian Airlines plane parked at Heathrow airport.
But the incident was a blow to Boeing, which withdrew from service its entire fleet of Dreamliners earlier this year due to separate concerns that lithium-ion batteries on board could cause fires.
A total of 68 Dreamliners have so far been delivered, and the AAIB recommended to the US Federal Aviation Administration that the transmitter systems in all of them be disabled.
It also recommended that the FAA and other regulatory authorities "conduct a safety review of installations of lithium-powered emergency locator transmitter systems in other aircraft types and, where appropriate, initiate airworthiness action".
-- 'We are confident the 787 is safe' --
The AAIB's report does not mean the Dreamliner fleet need be grounded.
All planes carrying passengers in the United States are required to have a distress beacon, and the devices are widely used around the globe.
But under US rules, operators can fly with inoperative transmitters for up to 90 days while they await replacement or repairs. Similar regulations apply in Europe and other parts of the world.
Boeing said it was working "proactively" to respond to the recommendations, and the report did not appear to worry investors. Boeing's shares in New York gained 2.84 percent to 107.7 dollars at 1605 GMT.
"We are confident the 787 is safe and we stand behind its overall integrity," the company said.
US authority the Federal Aviation Administration later issued a statement vowing a thorough review.
"Safety is our top priority," it said. "We are currently reviewing the AAIB's report and recommendations to determine the appropriate action.
"We will work closely with the AAIB, as well as Boeing and Honeywell, as the investigation into the cause continues," it added.
Thomson Airways, the first British airline to operate the Dreamliner, said it would remove the transmitters from its aircraft but would continue operating 787 flights.
"This is not a Boeing 787 technical issue, but an ELT issue which is manufactured by Honeywell," it said in a statement.
The AAIB said Honeywell Aerospace has produced about 6,000 transmitters of the type found on the 787, and the Heathrow fire was the only incident of its kind.
The US based company, which sent experts to London following the blaze, said it would support the recommendations.
"The investigation continues, and it's premature to jump to conclusions. Temporarily addressing the ELTs on Boeing 787s as a precautionary measure is prudent," a spokesman said.
The Dreamliner, which makes extensive use of lighter, carbon-based composite materials that reduce fuel consumption, came into service in September 2011.
Boeing issued a global grounding order in January after lithium-ion batteries overheated on two different jets.
The US aviation giant has not been able to identify the root cause of the earlier problems, much to its embarrassment, but it said its modifications would prevent the problems recurring.
However, the planes have been dogged by problems since they began flying once again in April, with a string of flights worldwide cancelled or diverted due to mechanical issues.
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Honeywell beacons the culprit? Another temporary measure then, to remove the ELTs and then wait and see what happens next.
The Philippines expects to be removed from a US air safety blacklist this year, opening a lucrative market for its carriers, an aviation regulator said Thursday.
John Andrews, deputy director-general of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP), said he was very confident the upgrade would occur following a similar decision by the European Union last week.
"We're going to make it. (It's) as simple as that," Andrews told AFP in an interview.
The US Federal Aviation Administration said in 2008 that the Philippines was failing to comply with international safety standards, and banned its airlines from expanding services to the United States.
The European Union banned all Philippine carriers from flying to Europe in 2010 for similar reasons.
Reforms put in place since then, including a law creating a new aviation regulator, the CAAP, allowed the Philippines to satisfy the concerns of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in February.
This led to the EU's decision last week to allow Philippine Airlines to begin flying into its airspace. The EU said it was reviewing the case of other Filipino carriers.
Andrews said he expected US aviation regulators to make similar findings when it carried out an audit before the end of the year.
He said Filipino regulators had addressed safety concerns by physically tracking down every aircraft registered in the Philippines and getting their owners to submit documentation.
This was to make sure the CAAP stopped the illegal practice of cannibalising old aircraft to supply parts for planes of the same make that were still flying, he said.
He said the CAAP also had to update records on the air-worthiness of all civilian aircraft serving Philippine airspace.
Andrews said the law that created the CAAP, also in 2008, allowed it to offer higher salaries than other government agencies to its air safety inspectors.
This was important so the inspectors, now being paid more than triple their 2008 salaries, could resist bribes to certify all aircraft as air-worthy.
Andrews said that apart from Philippine Airlines, other local carriers such as Cebu Pacific wanted to fly to the United States.
"They will all compete because it's a rich market," he said.
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After the EU, PAL is hoping the US will also clear it to fly into their airspace when the audit is being carried out later this year. The next step for them is probably to purchase more aircraft to meet this surge in demand.
In the history of Indonesia's aviation industry, Jakarta has never developed its own capability to fully investigate air accidents on its territory. However, that changed three years ago with a modest laboratory.
Indonesia took a major step in air accident investigation by setting up its own flight recorder laboratory. It now has the capabilities to retrieve, read and analyse flight data from what is commonly known as the "black box".
The Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT) sent a handful of technicians overseas for training. Now, it has the expertise to retrieve flight data from all types of aircraft operating in Indonesia.
Andreas RH, a flight recorder technician, said: "We can now handle data from all types of aircraft operating in Indonesia. There's no need to send information overseas like before."
Fortunately though, Andreas has fewer black boxes to analyse this year, compared to last year.
In 2011, there were 32 air accidents. In 2012, that figure fell to 27.
It is a significant improvement, especially since the number of flights jumped last year. The rate of aviation accidents now stands at 1.43 per 100,000 flight hours.
Tatang Kurniadi, chairman of Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee, said: "For example, in 2007, our total flight time nationally was around 500,000 hours. Now it is more than 1.8 million hours. So if we compare the rate of accidents, it has dropped dramatically."
Still, Mr Tatang points out that the number of accidents remains at an average of 23 annually. He attributes this to a combination of factors.
He said: "It's a combination of new airports, new aircraft and new pilots flying the routes. These need attention."
Chappy Hakim, a former air marshall who chaired the special task force in 2007 on Indonesia's aviation safety, said business interests are compromising safety standards.
Mr Chappy said: "There are runways with restrictions. There are numerous reasons why a Boeing 737 cannot be fully-loaded or carry full capacity. It means there are restrictions. You can operate but with restrictions. But who are monitoring the restrictions?"
Indonesia has made tangible progress in the last five years to improve the standards of its aviation industry. That has led the European Union to lift its ban on a number of Indonesian airlines, including the national carrier Garuda.
However, there is still a lot of work to be done before Indonesia can reach international standards of safety.
Mr Chappy added: "We have progressed in many aspects but we have not yet improved on all the findings that ICAO reported in 2007. Up until this year, I don't think we will be able to move up from category two to category one."
Indonesia will need to hurry to get its aviation sector ready to meet the challenges of 2015 -- that is when the ASEAN open skies agreement will be implemented, which will see even more flights in and out of the country.
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Open skies agreement in 2015, will Indonesia be ready for it? This is a tough call to make.
Asiana said Wednesday it had decided not to file a lawsuit against a US television station which aired false and offensive names for the pilots involved in a fatal crash.
The South Korean airline had earlier said it was planning a defamation lawsuit against Fox network affiliate KTVU news Channel 2 in Oakland over its coverage of the crash in San Francisco earlier this month.
The TV station identified the pilots of the Asiana Boeing 777 as "Sum Ting Wong," "Wi Tu Lo," "Ho Lee Fuk," and "Bang Ding Ow."
KTVU cited the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) as its source, but quickly realized the mistake and apologised.
Asiana also said it would sue the NTSB but on Monday backtracked, and on Wednesday it withdrew the same threat against KTVU.
"Asiana decided not to proceed with the suit," the airline said, citing an apology by the station.
Three people died when Asiana Airlines Flight 214 from Shanghai via Seoul crashed while landing at San Francisco International Airport on July 6 and more than 180 were injured.
The jet clipped a sea wall with its tail as it came in to land at the US airport and skidded out of control before catching fire.
Two teenage Chinese girls died at the scene and another girl, also Chinese, died from her injuries.
Four pilots have been quizzed by US aviation officials over the deadly crash.
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Sigh of relief for the TV station. One less thing to be preoccupied about for the airline. This is an honest mistake.
European aerospace giant EADS may decide to change its name to Airbus, its better-known plane-making subsidiary, by the end of July to simplify and strengthen the brand, a source said on Wednesday.
But executives are torn over how useful a name-change would be for the group, which makes helicopters, missiles, drones and satellites.
The Airbus commercial plane division accounts for more than half of annual sales.
The issue highlights the big risks and opportunities involved in choosing, or changing, the name of a company or brand.
"This topic is in more-than-serious discussions. It's very probable that the name change will happen," said a source close to the situation, who declined to be named.
"In any case, it should be on the agenda at the board meeting validating half-year results," the source added.
EADS is due to publish these results on July 31, and the board meeting will take place beforehand.
The name change would mean that Airbus -- maker of the A380 double-decker superjumbo airliner and an arch-rival of Boeing -- would now group both military and civilian products.
EADS was created in 2000 by a merger of leading German, French and Spanish aerospace companies.
The name change has been on the cards for a long time, since it was believed that EADS, standing for the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company, suffered from weak brand recognition.
But a hugely-publicised failed attempt by EADS and Britain's BAE Systems to merge last year has boosted recognition of the EADS name, causing some executives to question any potential name change.
"When EADS wasn't known, it (a name change) was of real interest, it would definitely have been added-value for the group," said one top executive, who refused to be named.
"But today, studies show that EADS is known, people know what EADS is particularly since the aborted merger with BAE Systems last year."
Others believe that naming the whole group Airbus could lead to a slight loss of identity for the plane-making division.
According to French economic daily La Tribune, EADS chief Tom Enders has set up a working group to study the technical and judicial implications of a name change.
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A good change perhaps? It is true that everyone recognises Airbus, but when probed with EADS, they start scratching their heads. It's going to be cute though, to have the name "Airbus" when you're also manufacturing flying machines for the military.
