Funding to cover students' accommodation and food will come from “NZICPA’s balance sheet, not the council’s”. Photo / NZME
Funding to cover students' accommodation and food will come from “NZICPA’s balance sheet, not the council’s”. Photo / NZME
Twenty per cent of students at Whanganui’s international pilot academy have returned home as its fleet remains grounded due to a safety investigation.
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and NZ Qualifications Authority (NZQA) visited the NZ International Commercial Pilot Academy (NZICPA) last month after concerns were raised through anonymous reporting.
The investigation is ongoing.
Academy chief executive Gerard Glanville said the students had elected to go home for a break.
“We will co-ordinate with them to bring them back in again, as soon as we understand the implications of this inquiry,” he said.
“We’ve got a couple of consultants, who are industry-known, to make sure we are preparing our remedial plans as we anticipate the CAA is going to be talking about.
“That’s maintenance-wise, airworthiness and flight operations.”
In a statement on June 11, a CAA spokesperson said it expected to be in contact with the academy on progress in the next few days.
“We acknowledge the disruption this situation may be causing and are working to resolve it as quickly as possible, while ensuring that appropriate safety measures are in place," they said.
“No further comment will be made while the process is ongoing.”
Whanganui Mayor Andrew Tripe met with students at the academy last weekend, alongside Glanville and NZICPA board chairman Matt Doyle.
Tripe told the Chronicle that because the Whanganui District Council was the owner of the academy, he wanted to check that the students were being supported.
“It’s fair to say we are working with urgency, but it pays to understand the full situation, which is complex,” he said.
Glanville told students last month that they would not be charged for food and accommodation during the investigation, starting from May 23 to the date a student resumed flight training.
Covering those expenses would come from the academy’s balance sheet, not the council’s, Tripe said.
“At this stage, we are leaving it to them to manage through that.”
NZICPA, a council-controlled organisation, is overseen by the council’s commercial arm, Whanganui District Holdings, although Holdings is in the process of being shut down.
Mayor Andrew Tripe met with students last weekend. Photo / NZME
In 2023, the council signed off a $10.3 million package to enable NZICPA to deliver a contract with Indian airline IndiGo to train 200 students through to December next year.
Speaking to the Chronicle last November, Holdings chairwoman Carolyn van Leuven said once the academy started turning a profit, the expectation was it would start repaying the funding.
Glanville said the academy was not permitted to use that money to cover food and accommodation, with funding coming from cashflow in the business.
He said he did not know the exact amount the investigation had cost the academy so far.
Students in the IndiGo cadet programme are charged $29,400 for pastoral care (food, accommodation and travel) as part of their 15-month Commercial Pilot Licence course.
The academy had about 140 students, with 108 currently in the IndiGo programme, Glanville said.
Last month, NZQA deputy chief executive of quality assurance Eve McMahon said it was investigating the quality of training at the academy, as well as any issues relating to the Education (Pastoral Care of Tertiary and International Learners) Code of Practice 2021, which had a focus on student accommodation.
The academy operates two accommodation facilities for students – Hato Hōhepa (formerly the Nazareth Rest Home) and College Estate (the former Collegiate Motor Inn).
In a statement this week, she said NZQA was continuing to review the information it had gathered at the academy’s campus, and from students and management since.
“Next steps – and any timing – will depend on what we find," she said.
“Tertiary providers decide what accommodation arrangements, if any, they will offer learners.
“NZQA’s interest is in whether the arrangements reflect the contracts learners have agreed to. This is part of NZQA’s investigation.”
Glanville said the academy was working closely with solvency (its ability to cover financial obligations) to make sure shareholders understood the pressure on the business.
“Anything like this affects the financials of a business, no matter how you look at it,” he said.
“We don’t have income coming in, and we are covering costs at the same time.
“It’s almost like a pseudo-Covid world at the moment but, obviously, a much shorter one.”
The outbreak of Covid-19 in 2020 significantly impacted NZICPA, with student numbers down to 19 when the country’s borders were closed and the facility relying on council loans to stay afloat.
Mike Tweed is a multimedia journalist at the Whanganui Chronicle. Since starting in March 2020, he has dabbled in everything from sport to music. At present his focus is local government, primarily the Whanganui District Council.
