In the current climate, in-house solutions and hard bargaining can pay dividends for training budgets.

At the best of times, the job of the chief training captain (or head of training) for a business aviation charter operator is a challenge. The task entails delivering a pilot training scheme fully fit for purpose, yet deliverable on a budget that does not cause senior management palpitations. In the current climate of recessionary cost-consciousness, that challenge is even greater. However, with a little imagination and careful planning, there are various steps operators can take to extract the maximum value from their training budgets.

London Executive Aviation (LEA), where I have led the training function for eight years, is one of the UK's largest charter operators. We presently operate a 23-strong, all-turbine fleet of business aircraft, consisting of six aircraft types, which are spread across seven bases and flown by more than 90 crew members. However, while the scale of our training programme is unusually large, many of the management issues we face are common to most operators.

Perhaps most obviously, operators should not be afraid to negotiate for better prices with external training providers. We are accustomed to our own customers driving hard bargains, but charter operators are not the only parties who have to compromise and compete in an economic downturn. Most training organisations are commercial realists and can still find an acceptable 'win-win' situation in agreeing improved terms with valued customers.

At the same time, a policy we have found delivers valuable cost savings and a better overall training outcome is developing an in-house training capability to complement our use of outside suppliers.

Although external type rating training organisations (TRTOs) offer high-quality, generic type rating courses, in-house recurrent training can often prove more cost-effective in the long term and better tailored to an operator's exact requirements. In LEA's case, we employ type rating examiners (TREs) for all the aircraft types we operate and select instructors from our flight crew for ground-based courses in areas such as first aid, customer relationship management and deicing, as well as providing aircraft technical refreshers.

This self-reliance can, of course, create its own administrative headaches. For example, keeping an overview of crew operating standards during training 'on the line' (in the normal course of operations) can be difficult, especially when aircraft and crew are dispersed across multiple bases. However, we have found technology to be an effective solution in this area, with electronic reporting enabling us to keep track of training progress.

We are presently extending electronic reporting to all training documentation, enabling the rapid updating of our central database, which in turn permits a company-wide overview of matters such as ratings, licences and air operator's certificate (AOC) requirement validity. While creating such a system may entail some investment at the outset, the expense can quickly be recouped through efficiency gains.

A deterrent to in-house recurrent training has been the high dry leasing cost of flight simulators in Europe. The US has not necessarily provided a cost-effective alternative solution, as external training providers based in the US took a long time to understand the different training requirements of the European operating environment. Lately, though, such US companies have begun providing short recurrent programmes that meet the need for six-monthly crew checks at a price that is no longer prohibitive.

The cost of simulator training remains higher in Europe than in the US, partly because of limited competition between providers. Currently, Europe-based simulators also cater for a narrower range of aircraft types than the market demands. As a result, European operators can often find it cheaper, and sometimes unavoidable, to send crews to the US for training, especially for longer courses.

The alternative to simulator-based training has been to carry out aircraft-based instruction, taking advantage of 'dead legs', when use of the aircraft is effectively 'free' to the operator. However, in an industry committed to maximum safety, it is an inescapable fact that simulators offer superior training experiences. In consequence, it seems likely the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) will come to mandate the use of simulators where available, irrespective of the cost implications. I am therefore sure all operators would loudly welcome an expansion of simulator supply in Europe and the price reductions that ought to result.

Of course, some challenges in the training area are more intractable than others, not least the time and associated administrative and training costs of complying with EASA's Part-FCL (Flight Crew Licensing) regulations. Nevertheless, by taking stock of one's bargaining position with suppliers and considering which training might be better conducted in-house, operators can find various ways in which to enhance their training while preserving their commercial viability.

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In our online guide to EBACE 2012 you can simply search for your own aircraft type and immediately find connected charter, maintenance and training organisations, with full contact details. Data comes courtesy of Europe's most comprehensive business aviation industry directory, the Handbook of Business Aviation in Europe.