WATS 2025 Day 2 Quicklook: LATAM & Caribbean Training Leaders Debrief

Halldale events have matured beyond educating and informing the community about developments across the civil aviation training enterprise. 

The Day 2 LATAM & Caribbean Training Leaders session is another effort to gather like-minded professionals to discuss topics of mutual interest. Envisioned outcomes from hosting workshops and meetings concurrent with our live events include establishing networks and conceptually influencing regulators, associations and other stakeholders on topics of common interest generated in the events.

Jaime Escobar, Head of Aviation Training at ALTA, provided the author with a summary of progress being made within this leadership forum to further expand safety, training and the community’s workforce development in the region.

The Girls with Goals program was the first agenda items for this Day 2 meeting.

The Day 2 session first reviewed the quickening pace of activities for the program which provides scholarships funded by voluntary contributions from airlines, companies and individuals. “This is geared toward young ladies finishing the last year of their technical studies to become aviation technicians,” the ALTA executive explained.

ALTA guides the activities of the Girls with Goals program.

Twenty-six international companies and five airlines support the program. Most of these supporters are ALTA members.

Girls with Goals, launched six months ago, has 13 young ladies enrolled in four different institutions, three in Columbia, one in Coast Rica. “Hopefully, by the end of this year we will have between 30-40 individuals enrolled. We will also have additional institutions supporting the program.” The number of training organizations enrolling Girls with Goals students is expected to increase to six.

The Girls with Goals program further collaborates with the Latin American Civil Aviation Commission (LACAC).

Any mention of the increased demand for aviation technicians through the next decade should certainly include Latin America and the Caribbean. “We see that for example, there is going to be new MRO in Barranquilla, Columbia. And of course, we have Coopesa in San Jose, Costa Rica which is the largest in the region. They need at least 300 mechanics every three years. The demand for maintenance technicians in this region is going to be huge. And the idea, in part, is to promote many more girls to join this program.”

Meeting Challenges Present in Other Regions

The author again noted the common training-related themes present throughout many different regions around the globe.

In another instance, the Training Leaders discussed topics related to how to transition students directly to the airlines – establishing what the airlines need and how schools should prepare students to become airline employees. “There are different models. Copa Airlines has its own flight school. However, only 50% of their demand is met with this flight school. Viva is going to start its own flight school and has partnered with a local school to provide them with pilots. Avianca has partnered with several schools to provide them with pilots. The airline will complete the prospective pilots’ final training requirements.”

And taking a page out of a topic generated in a WATS 2925 Day 2 Ab Initio session, the Training Leaders discussed how to more effectively finance flight school students. “Even in our countries it is very expensive – less than the US – but still very expensive,” Escobar said.

The Day 2 session closed out with a discussion on the harmonization of pilot licenses and flight schools among the region’s nations. “This is an issue we need to work on with legislators in different nations, and ICAO and its office in Lima, with our goal of having a license issued by an academy or other flight school accepted within Latin American and Caribbean countries. This is a very hot topic,” the ALTA executive concluded.