A senior Australian pilot says cuts to training and resources could erode airline safety in Australia.
In a submission to an Australian senate committee Geoff Klouth, a training pilot for Qantas subsidiary Jetstar, says training hours for pilots and air crew have been cut to save costs.
He says airlines are also using more foreign crew because they are cheaper but in some instances they are so poorly trained they can not operate the mechanism for emergency escape slides.
Mr Klouth says the language skills of some crew members are too poor to communicate safety information to passengers and pilots are increasingly required to pay for their own training with variable results.
He says while standards are falling in Australia, Air New Zealand has maintained its pilot training hours.
