PETALING JAYA, Feb 24 — Malaysia Airlines Berhad (MAB) said it is fully prepared and ready to handle the transportation of Covid-19 vaccines.
MAB Academy head of training Captain Rohaizan Mohd Rashid said the airlines’ 1,174 pilots and 2,409 cabin crew members have been provided hands on and virtual training to ensure they met the requirements set by the Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia (CAAM), especially in maintaining their licence validity.
He said crew members are required to have up to 23 qualifications as part of licensing requirements.
“Basically we are 100 per cent ready to fly vaccines into Malaysia anytime required from all over the world,” he said in a media briefing on ‘Malaysia Airlines Keeping Pilots proficient during the Covid-19 Pandemic’, today.
However, he said there is no specific training required to handle the vaccine transportation apart from routine trainings, except about being aware and kept informed of the temperature needed for particular vaccines.
He said MAB Academy has developed an online training module covering both regulatory and non-regulatory trainings while maintaining the highest training standards, delivered by certified in-house trainers.
“We are also looking into developing Virtual Reality and Animations training to facilitate the training programme without having the physical simulator mock up area for pilot and for the cabin crew; they do not have to come to the academy for a mock up of an aircraft to be trained in,” he said.
The academy is looking into setting up this training programme by the third quarter of this year.
“With suitable equipments including 3D goggles, they could imagine themselves in an aircraft, switching on buttons that interactively react to what they press,” he said, adding that the animation training could save costs compared to the actual simulator training.
He said the new development is under progress and further discussion will be made with CAAM as well as for its approval, in line with the move to digitalise the trainings in MAB Academy.
Rohaizan said the academy also planned to market the training programme if successful, to any other airlines in Malaysia and worldwide.
On training prospects, he foresees better future for the aviation industry with the newly started vaccination rollout and company’s successful level of restructuring.
Hopefully, he said, the academy would grow with other operators coming in for training purposes, depending on the effectiveness of the vaccination programme in worldwide. — Bernama
