Cebu Pac buys cabin crew training equipment

MANILA, Philippines - Budget airline Cebu Air Inc. (Cebu Pacific) spent $350,000 to buy equipment to facilitate cabin crew training on all normal and emergency door operations.

The company announced yesterday that it took delivery of an Airbus A320 Door Trainer from Dubai-based Spatial Composite Solutions and has been installed at the airline’s crew training facility in Manila.

Cebu Pacific said the features of the crew training equipment include an A320 replica fuselage, a functional passenger door, an overwing exit, a functional panel with oxygen drop out masks, and an emergency lighting system.

Cebu Pacific vice president for marketing and distribution Candice Iyog said in a statement that the company is the only airline in the Philippines to use a state-of-the-art Door Trainer for its cabin crew.

 â€œSafety has always been CEB’s primary priority. We have been working hand in hand with Spatial Composites for over a year now to develop and refine the Door Trainer’s specifications. This will provide our crew with the best and latest training opportunities through a full range of safety training scenarios,” Iyog said.

Joseph McKeever, chief executive officer of Spatial Composites, said the equipment would enable Cebu Pacific to further carry out its safety and emergency door training procedures in Manila.

“We believe this is the first A320 cabin crew training device to be installed anywhere in the Philippines. CEB has clearly raised the bar for safety training of cabin crew with this investment and set the standards for others to follow,” Mckeever stressed.

Aside from the A320 Door Trainer, the budget airline also has a joint venture with Canada-based CAE called the Philippine Academy for Aviation Training (PAAT) – an Airbus A320 type-rating and recurrent training center for pilots in the region.

Last June 25, the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) required Cebu Pacific to comply with corrective action plans after one of its aircraft veered off the runway last June resulting in the two-day closure of the Davao International Airport.

The plans include the reassessment of their accountable executives and station managers, with emphasis on operation and change in corporate culture; initiation random sampling of flight crew capabilities as regards unusual situations in the flight simulator; and the apparent existence of symptomatic culture relating to the reluctance of the flight crew to initiate a go-around procedure in situation when weather is a factor, below Minimum Descent Altitude when a balked landing is called for a decision to discontinue landing or make a go-around at low altitude when safety is involved.