OREANDA-NEWS. June 27, 2012. Air Astana, the national carrier of Kazakhstan has presented awards to the first graduates of Almaty’s Civil Aviation Academy (CAA), who passed the aircraft engineering and maintenance course under a joint programme first launched in 2011, reported the press-centre of Air Astana.  

Between October 2011 and May 2012, 12 students went through an intensive engineering programme that focused on aircraft maintenance practice and English skills. In addition, practical exercises in Air Astana’s MRO facility were supervised by experienced engineers, with the aim of acquiring skills in basic maintenance of modern western aircraft.

“In co-operation with Almaty’s Civil Aviation Academy, we’ve initiated a training programme for engineers in order to increase the level of higher education and practical experience of aviation specialists. The course programme has been designed to meet European standards for maintaining modern western aircraft. Each student had their own dedicated tutor throughout the programme, with future engineers gaining experience in activities including charging accumulators, fitting tires and non-destructive testing. All graduates successfully completing the programme have been offered positions at Air Astana,” commented Timur Yakupov, Director of Engineering of Air Astana.

“This programme is very well-timed and definitely needed. A huge advantage of the programme is the possibility to train during production, in particular this means that all theoretical knowledge is immediately supported with practical experience. In future such student will be easier to adopt to working processes. One more important fact is that this is a long term project, which lasts not for a day or runs only once, which usually happens with other companies. In this concern Air Astana takes the question of highly qualified staff deliberately and seriously,” says Dyusengaliyev Daulet, director of the Institute of the continuous education of the CAA.

Following the success of the first course, another 15 students will be enrolled in a second course next year. Air Astana and the CAA sees the development of this programme ensuring a progressive build up of qualified engineering staff in Kazakhstan to meet long term requirements as the national air transport industry grows in the future.