Aviation India: Careers

New Delhi: Some of the fly-by-night agencies which try to dupe Indian students with promises of visas and admissions into colleges overseas have come under the scanner of the ministry of overseas Indian affairs (MOIA).
"The modus operandi in most cases is that the agencies, which are often run by Indians based overseas, put up large advertisements in Indian media and entice young Indian students with promises of visas and admissions into various courses overseas including pilot training and nursing," Vayalar Ravi, minister of overseas Indian affairs told ET.
The ministry is now trying to help some of the students who have become victims of such unscrupulous agencies including 100 Indian students who are enrolled at an institution called American School of Aviation in Atwater, California.
"These students had paid $40,000 as course fees and now find that they have been duped. They have been there for 18 months and the course which was supposed to be 10-month long is not yet finished. The NRI owners of the school are not refunding their course fees and classes have been suspended. The school authorities have not paid utility bills either and soon the students may be forced to leave the school when the utilities will be cut off," Mr Ravi said.
Besides helping the students who find themselves stranded in California through the consulate general of India in San Francisco, MOIA has also opened a 24-hour helpline to address students’ queries who wish to enrol for courses overseas.
29/06/08 Ishani Duttagupta/Economic Times

DGCA has revised the list of candidates published on 23/06/08 for for AME Licence Examination, June 2008 session. The exam is scheduled for July 2 & 3 at various centers.
Here is the links to the revised list sorted in accordance with the exam centers.
Bangalore
Mumbai
Chennai
Delhi
Kolkota
Hyderabad
Other Centres

And here is the instructions to candidates, published as yet another circular by the DGCA on 26/06/08 in yet another circular.

The list of rejected candidates can be accessed here and here.
30/06/08 DGCA

New Delhi: At Indian aviation schools, where legions of flight attendants are trained for the country’s burgeoning airline industry, the sky is not the only limit.
Women need to be at least 5 feet 3 (160cm), while men face a steeper challenge at 5 feet 7 (170cm). If students do not meet that requirement when they register at India’s Avalon Aviation School, they are relegated to ground crew duties.
However, for many, the biggest obstacle to landing a plumb job in the friendly skies is weight.
“If a person is obese, then obviously we would not take them,” said Ivy Bora, manager of the New Delhi-based campus.
The same sentiment prevails at Flying Cats, another flight attendant training facility in the city. “Your figure has to be in proportion to your height,” said a school trainer who did not wish to be named. For instance, an 18-year-old steward standing 5 feet 2 (157cm) could weigh no more than 110 pounds (50kg).
This month, the New Delhi high court sided with Indian airlines in barring five flight attendants because they exceeded the company’s weight limits – by a few kilograms.
On the surface, the Indian airline industry presents a rosy picture, with a 25 per cent annual growth in passengers, a massive push to build more airports across the country and orders for nearly 900 more planes over the next 20 years. All this, despite that only one per cent of the population has ever stepped on a plane.
At privately owned Kingfisher Airlines female flight attendants are garbed in modern, form-hugging skirts and blouses. The airline, helmed by Vijay Mallya, who owns the Kingfisher brewery, is gaining a reputation for staffing its flights with the young and curvaceous.
“They are very specific about height and weight,” said Gemma Maringmei, a senior counsellor at Avalon Aviation School. Kingfisher did not comment on the policy.
The practice is in contrast to government-owned airlines such as Air India, where hair is tied conservatively and saris are worn.
The Avalon Aviation School trains staff for about 38 airlines, ranging from Jet Airways to Emirates to Air Macao, all with varying requirements.
Age is also a key consideration for flight crew hopefuls. Aside from weighing and measuring students when they register, the school does not accept anyone over the age of 26. In some cases, if a candidate has previous airline experience, it may extend that limit to 32.
The school runs dance and swimming classes to help stave off calories. And there is a scale in the reception area.
That is not to say the Avalon school, where students learn everything from how to deal with dangerous items on the plane to applying cosmetics properly, does not prize other skills.
“Appearance is not number one,” Ms Bora said. “Attitude also matters. You have to be down to earth because you’re in the customer service industry.
29/06/08 Christian Cotroneo/The National, United Arab Emirates

Washington: More than 100 Indian students of American School of Aviation who shelled out about $40,000 each in the hope of finding jobs as pilots in India’s booming civil aviation industry, were evicted from their accommodation yesterday after officials in Merced County — where the school is located — pleaded their inability to continue water and electricity supplies to the building unless the school settled outstanding utility bills.
Officials of the Indian consulate general in San Francisco, who rushed to Merced County in response to pleas from the students, negotiated with local officials who agreed on Thursday to allow the students to stay in their accommodations for 30 more days if they shelled out $7,000 in part payment of outstanding utility bills.
The students said they initially agreed to the offer, but later went back on it after a consensus that they saw little point in throwing good money after bad and that it was better to cut their already substantial losses.
About 30 of the students have taken up an offer from “Prince” Singh, who runs the school’s day-to-day affairs, to have them enrolled in another flying school in California. They left with Singh for Sacramento yesterday, but the remaining 70-plus Indian students turned down the offer ostensibly because they have no faith in him after their bitter experience with his American School of Aviation.
“Prince” Singh, whose real name is Manpreet Singh, has been described in the local media as the husband of Reny Kozman, vice-president of the American School of Aviation.
Efforts to verify Singh’s current nationality or immigration status in the US were unsuccessful.
The school’s website displays logos of Air India, Indian, Jet Airways, IndiGo, Spicejet and Kingfisher Airlines, among others, giving the impression that these airlines in India have an association with the American School of Aviation.
But the fine print, which is often not read by unsuspecting potential students or their parents, has a disclaimer that the display of these trademarks “does not imply any affiliation with these airlines nor implies that graduation from the American School of Aviation guarantees employment by these airlines”.
However, it is understood that Kingfisher Airlines issued a letter of intent to the school to consider employing pilots who obtain their flying licences through the American School of Aviation. Sources at the school said it began charging students $6,000 to $8,000 more if they came with a reference from Kingfisher Airlines after this letter of intent.
A posting by Meghan V. Dere, manager for human resources at Kingfisher Airlines on a website on June 2, however, said: “We have terminated our contract with the American School of Aviation in January 2008.”
28/06/08 K.P. Nayar/The Telegraph

New Delhi: Several flying schools in Asia may have run into troubled weather with the Indian government planning to withdraw recognition to at least some of them following a spate of accidents and reports of mismanagement.
The government’s move comes even as the craze to become a commercial pilot propels hundreds of Indian youngsters to foreign flying schools despite the fact that over half-a-dozen accidents involving Indian students have been reported in the past couple of years.
Several Indian students have been left in the lurch after one of the most sought-after flying schools in the US shut down late last year after crashes involving Indians. Several Indian pilot aspirants have also changed their flight path after at least two Indians from a training school in the Philippines died in crashes.
The aviation ministry has received complaints (about foreign flying schools) from a large number of people, a highly placed government official told DNA. A proposal not to recognise certain flying schools in some countries has been prepared, and will be taken up with the higher authorities including the ministries concerned, he said.
Though ministry sources are not willing to comment on the exact nature of the complaints that prompted them to mull action against foreign flying schools, sources say accidents and instances of discrepancies in flight records of trainee pilots are the prime triggers. There are also reports of many foreign flying schools crunching their training period and flying hours, putting a question on the students’ capabilities.
26/06/08 Yogesh Kumar/Daily News & Analysis

In California, more than 100 Indian students training to be pilots have been left stranded after their Aviation Academy abruptly shut-down. The students have been served with an eviction notice and asked to vacate the Academy premises by Friday (June 27).
The students were reportedly a part of a Commercial Pilot Training Programme, jointly tun by Kingfisher Airlines and American School of Aviation or ASA. Students claimed they paid 46,000 dollars for the programme.
Following which the students were handed a letter of intent by Kingfisher Airlines in India offering them jobs as co-pilots on completing training with ASA and getting their CPL Licence and subsequent conversion from the DGCA.
However, the school suddenly suspended its flight training last month, claiming their school was being restructured. Students were later told the school had been shut down for defaulting in payments over fuel and insurance bills.
Mikhail Dmello, a student of the Aviation Academy expressed himself and said, "There have been a lot of false promises and we are helpless and have no where to go. We are looking forward to external support from the Indian Embassy and the Indian government. We spoke to Kingfisher and they said that they are looking into the case and are trying their level best to resolve issues."
(Here is the link to some old news stories on American School of Aviation from Aviation India archives).
26/06/08 Times Now.tv

Deland: Students at a new flight school have filed complaints about the prospect of losing thousands of dollars in tuition after the school cut back on its operations, the state attorney general's office said Wednesday.
However, Elia Golfin, owner of the Asia-USA flight school at DeLand Municipal Airport, has denied the school has gone out of business or left any of its 23 students without the training they paid for. He claimed the school is in the midst of moving some of its operations to the New Smyrna Beach Airport, but officials there said they have not leased any space to Golfin.
(The whole content of the school's website is mysteriously replaced by these sentences this week: "AsiaUSA is currently under construction.We appologize for the inconvenience. Please check back later." Here is the Google's cache of the site's home page as retrieved on 20 Jun 2008 16:51:47 GMT.- Editor, AvIndia).
WFTV in Orlando reported Tuesday a dozen students were fearful they could lose $30,000 or more apiece because the flight school appeared to have closed suddenly. Nick Landgraf, manager of DeLand airport, said the school had not officially closed but was about two to three months overdue on its rent for two buildings. He said he had seen little activity at the school for the past week or two, and its four leased training planes were gone. He said the school has been operating at DeLand for less than six months.
Golfin, who acknowledged most of his students come from India, said two or three students apparently were unhappy with the school's refund policy and had launched "vicious attacks" against the school.
Sandi Copes, spokeswoman for the attorney general's office, said the office had received two complaints from Asia-USA students but did not plan to investigate them. Instead, it was sending them on to the state Division of Consumer Services.
Terry McElroy, spokesman for the consumer division, said no paperwork had been received from the attorney general's office yet but such referrals often take two or three days. He said the division has no regulatory authority over flight schools but it could try to mediate the dispute.
Golfin said he has not cheated anyone. "The students are free to hire a lawyer and sue me," he said.
Asia-USA lacks a federal certificate for giving flight instruction to foreigners, said Kathleen Bergen, spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration. Golfin said he has a partnership with Angley College that allows him to provide the training to aliens under the college's name.
Fred DeWitt, a spokesman for Angley and a former flight school operator, said Angley has no agreement with Asia-USA.
26/06/08 Thomas S. Brown/Daytona Beach News-Journal, USA

Grand Forks, North Dakota: UND Aerospace at the University of North Dakota (UND), / announces a three-year agreement with Bharati Vidyapeeth University (BVU) in Pune, India to provide a one-year pilot training program for the BVU Aviation program. Over the three-year period, UND Aerospace will educate more than 200 students in Lumberton, North Carolina at their facility with Roberson Community College.
Students will earn a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Commercial Instrument rating and incorporate the pilot training into their BVU Aviation degree. The UND-BVU agreement foresees growth to a minimum of 80 students per year.
Don Dubuque, Director of Extension Programs, said, “We, along with our partners at Robeson Community College are excited to deliver the flight education for BVU's aviation degree program. Students will complete their academic requirements at BVU and transfer the credit hours from their flight training in the USA to BVU to meet their graduation requirements.”
UND Aerospace, which includes the Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences at the University of North Dakota and the UND Aerospace Foundation (UNDAF), is an international leader in collegiate and contract aviation education and training services flying over 90,000 hours per year in over 120 aircraft. UNDAF also has facilities in Spokane, Washington, with Spokane Falls Community College; Lumberton, North Carolina, with Robeson Community College; Phoenix, Arizona, in conjunction with Chandler-Gilbert Community College; and Crookston, Minnesota, with the University of Minnesota in addition to its home-base in Grand Forks, North Dakota. With more than 1,900 students from throughout the world, the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences is the second largest college at the University of North Dakota.
25/06/08 Helicopter Association International, USA

New Delhi: Former Miss World Diana Hayden on Friday inaugurated the Avalon Academy’s Aviation training centres in Dehra Dun, Meerut and Bijnor.
Ms Hayden, who is Avalon’s guest lecturer for training airlines personnel in various aspects, including poise and grace, also conducted a counseling session for the students at all the three cities and apprised them about the role of confidence, personality development, grooming and etiquette in shaping one into a successful aviation professional.
It does not matter, whether one hails from a small or big city, one should have the zeal to learn and work hard, stated Diana, while speaking to the enthusiastic aspirants.
Avalon Marketing Head (North), Ritesh Singh said, “Avalon is committed to bring excellence and professionalism to the realm of cabin crew and ground staff services training. By drawing on our strong training pedigree and in-depth aviation industry insights, we have put together a structured training programme which covers every aspect of a cabin crew/ground staff career.”
Stating that aviation industry is witnessing a boom and by 2010, India would have around 1.15 million jobs in this sector, Diana asserted that there are ample of job opportunities in this industry.
20/06/08 Economic Times

New Delhi/Lucknow: Lucknow is emerging as a hub for aviation training in Northern India. All top-notch institutes of this emerging industry are starting shop in Lucknow, which is catering to satellite towns in its periphery.
The city has centres such as the Frankfinn Institute of Air-hostess Training, Avalon Aviation Academy, Viinzs Academy of Air Hostess and Hospitality Training, besides almost a dozen such institutes.
Arun Rawat, center manager, Avalon Aviation Academy, told Business Standard that it's primarily air-hostess training about which enquiries were made.
If on the one hand, handsome pay packages, attractive perks and glamour are assured in aviation, it's also the hectic schedules, long flight hours and continuous pressure to smile under all circumstances make the job difficult.
"This industry requires very hard work. It becomes difficult to manage the continuous flight schedules, long flight hours and the necessity to 'wear a smile' under all circumstances," said Ritu Bogra, business development manager, Viinzs Academy.
The prime period in this industry is eight years at the maximum. "Many a time people quit since balancing marriage or other responsibilities and hectic flight schedules is difficult," said Pallavi Badhoria, center manager, Viinzs Academy.
However, industry insiders say this industry will never attain the saturation point because more airlines coming in.
Many of these training institutes are going to smaller cities and towns like Bareilly, Kanpur, Gorakhpur, Varanasi and Bijnor.
20/06/08 Shruti Srivastava/Business Standard

Mumbai: The Dubai-based Emirates airline, the largest customer of Airbus including the A380, is hoping to employ more airhostesses and staff from India, heightening competition in a market where local airlines are finding it hard to secure talent. The shortage of airhostesses has hit the Gulf air carrier and Emirates is eyeing overseas markets for trained manpower, especially from India.
According to a source, Emirates is working to hire people from different air hostess training institutes in India and is considering tie-ups or contracts with institutes and academies. The airline has formed an understanding and arrangement with Air Hostess Academy (AHA) for short listing cabin crew. This alliance guarantees airlines easy availability of skilled cabin crew, keeping in mind the acute shortage of trained human resource in this sector.
“We need more cabin crew as the airline is in heavy expansion mode in India. At present, the airline has 8,000 cabin crew and out of this, 800 are from India,” Emirates Airline’s vice-president of India & Nepal, Orhan Abbas, said. “As we are adding flights from Delhi, Mumbai and from south Indian cities, the airline needs local crew, at least one regional talent to speak that language while on board,” he said.
Experts say acute shortage of qualified aircrew continues to remain a matter of concern. A chronic shortage of pilots, engineers and airhostesses is grounding flights and stoking safety concerns around the world.
17/06/08 Mithun Roy/Economic Times

Seventeen-year-old Nikhil Prabhune is a step closer to his dream of becoming an aviator thanks to his standing 17th in the All India NDA merit list this year
The National Defence Academy, the flag bearer of courage and discipline has stood as a colossal figure with its stories of valour and chivalry as the benchmark for all who are a part and parcel of this prestigious institute.
Nikhil Jayant Prabhune, an NDA aspirant, who cracked the All India NDA merit list and stood 17th, has woven one such dream for himself, a dream of becoming a pilot.
The examination, which is conducted all through out the country, consists of written examinations, along with service selection board (SSB) and a medical test. "Once we clear these basic requirements, we are through," adds the 17-year-old, a student of the Rastriya Indian Military College (RIMC), Dehradun. An avid squash player, Nikhil who is also a trained tabla player, opines, "I am planning to join Naval Aviation. I intended to become an Airforce pilot, but because I could not get through my medicals, I have decided to become a Naval Aviator."
17/06/08 Meghalee Nath/Pune Newsline

New Delhi: After rationalising flights and routes, major domestic airlines like Kingfisher, Jet Airways and SpiceJet are introducing sharp cutbacks in staff and salaries to cope with slower passenger growth and rising aviation turbine fuel (ATF) costs.
Manpower typically accounts for 10-15 per cent of an airline's total costs.
Full-service carrier Kingfisher Airlines has decided not to renew the contracts of the 50 expatriate engineers employed by Air Deccan, the low-cost carrier with which it merged last year. The merged entity has over 800 engineers.
Expatriate engineers earn a monthly salary of Rs 2.5 lakh against around Rs 1.5 lakh for an Indian counterpart. Engineers account for around 15 per cent of manpower strength.
Meanwhile, JetLite, formerly Air Sahara, Jet Airways' fully-owned subsidiary acquired last year, has halved manpower strength from 4,500 to 2,200, closed 37 offices and cut salaries 15 per cent over the past one year. Low-cost carrier SpiceJet, which has 2,400 employees, has shelved plans to employ 200 more people following its decision to cut domestic flights from 117 to 100 a day. The carrier also plans to give three of its 18 aircraft out on "wet lease," a deal that includes pilots and cabin crew.
Airlines also said cutback options for those that are expanding operations are limited."Since we are in expansion mode, we cannot cut the number of pilots we employ. And since there is so much competition, cutting pilot salaries is out of the question," said a Kingfisher executive.
18/06/08 Anirban Chowdhury/Business Standard

In busy airports such as Delhi and Mumbai, ATCs have to handle some 40 flight movements every hour, during peak time. The pressure is so great that they're relieved of duty temporarily every one-and-a-half hours. And women have been making a dent here. Though women ATCOs in civilian airports have been around for some two decades, their percentage is small — around 8%. They are also found in the Indian Navy and were inducted there first in 1992.
So how difficult is it for a woman to handle such a high-pressure job? All women ATCOs STOI spoke to conceded it wouldn't have been possible without the support of their husbands. After all, it's a job with constant shifts, transfers and training. Some are even married to ATCOs, making it doubly difficult.
"But the challenge is worth all these hiccups," says Anita, an ATCO. None wanted to be identified for obvious reasons. "I wanted a job where I would need to apply my mind. No other job is as mentally challenging." But it's been tough for this mother of two — a 12-year-old son and a six-year-old daughter. "My husband, fortunately, has regular working hours and with his help and servants, we manage. But if I get transferred, I will have to rethink my options as my kids are small. But it's not easy to let go of a job which fetches me around Rs 30,000 a month."
Transfers happen after five years.
Some like Leena are married to ATCOs. Says her husband Kumar, "I feel proud to have such a capable wife. We both work in different shifts so that our child always has one parent at home. He has the best of both worlds. But we can't go out anywhere together without first checking our office schedules. Fortunately, we're both posted in the same stations."
Says Mahesh, an ATCO, "Women ATCOs are extremely competent, though working in shift duties can take a toll on them." The shifts, incidentally, are morning, afternoon (both six hours each) and night (12 hours).
As for whether they show their emotional side in such stressful circumstances, he says, "We ATCOs talk to pilots in standard language and rarely have normal conversations with them. It's pretty cut and dry." Adds a commander of a private airline, "Some women ATCOs are excellent. But gender doesn't matter here. But yes, I would say we male pilots behave ourselves when we talk to a woman ATCO, unlike a male one with whom there's some chance of getting into an argument." So much for woman power!
15/06/08 Shobha John/Times of India

A recently shuttered flight school is facing a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the family of a student who died last year in a midair collision.
The December crash that killed Cleon Alvares, 25, and another pilot was one in a series of three fatal accidents involving Kemper Aviation in a five-month span. The flight school west of Lantana closed after the third crash, which killed four, including Kemper's co-owner Jeff Rozelle.
Alvares' family accuses the flight school of failing to properly repair and maintain its fleet, allowing Alvares to go up in an unsafe single-engine Cessna 152, according to the Broward Circuit Court case filed last week. Alvares, an engineer from Mumbai, India, collided with a Piper Twin Comanche piloted by Harry Duckworth, 56, of Waverly, Pa., at about 2,000 feet over the Everglades near Parkland.
"The management of the school created an environment that fostered crashes like the ones that we have seen the last year," said Hyram Montero, the family's attorney.
The Federal Aviation Administration inspected Kemper's seven airplanes in February, citing the school for seven violations involving inadequate maintenance or improper record-keeping, said FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen. She described the violations as relatively minor.
Kemper corrected problems with six of the planes, while the seventh was not registered to Kemper, Bergen said. The owner of that plane surrendered its operating certificate, meaning it can no longer be flown.
The court case is the second against Kemper involving the string of fatal crashes. The only person to survive any of the crashes — Chandrashekhar Godghate — filed suit in January in Palm Beach County Circuit Court.
Godghate was a passenger in a single-engine Piper Archer that plunged onto the Quail Ridge Golf Club development west of Boynton Beach on Oct. 27, killing flight instructor Anders Selberg, 46, and pilot trainee Arjun Chhikara, 18. The plane crashed after reporting engine problems.
The third crash happened March 13 when a plane piloted by Rozelle crashed in western Martin County, killing him and three researchers who had been conducting a study on wading birds in the Lake Okeechobee area.
14/06/08 Jon Burstein and Ken Kaye/Florida Sun-Sentinel, USA

Thiruvananthapuram: The man who has been instrumental in realising the flying dreams of thousands of youngsters in the last five decades, captain TKR Nair, was a little bit disappointed when the pilot training at the Rajiv Gandhi Academy for Aviation Technology was inaugurated on Thursday.
Even though the re-launch of the academy was one of the happiest moments in the life of the 74-year-old flying instructor, the disappointment was owing to his inability to fly the plane once again at the academy. Flying licence cannot be issued for those who have completed 62 years.
Nair, hailing from Chettikulangara, is the technical committee member of the Rajiv Gandhi Academy for Aviation Technology. He is the first pilot trainee from Kerala who secured the Kerala Government’s first Free Flying Scholarship on 1956. And the veteran was felicitated at the inauguration of the pilot training on Thursday.
After completing his training from Madras Flying Club, Nair had worked as charter pilot in the club itself.
“I joined as the Chief Flying Instructor at the Kerala Aviation Training Centre in 1969. After that, I went to Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Uran Akademi (IGRUA), at Rae Bareli, following a personal intimation from the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi,” said Nair, who is also a freelance aviation consultant for various companies in the country.
When asked about the prospects of the relaunched aviation academy at Thiruvananthapuram, Nair said that good ground inspectors, class rooms, hanger units, fuel storage depots and a good library are essential for making the academy a national institute.
The newly- launched academy is presently working in a rented building near Enchakkal.
“Indian government is not fully satisfied with the pilot training conducted in foreign nations. Airline companies too are dissatisfied with the poor performance of the new-comers who have completed, as they claim, their pilot training course abroad,” Nair said.
13/06/08 Athul Lal A.G/Newindpress

Mumbai: Sahil Bhatt’s happiness knows no bounds. He has recently got a licence to co-pilot a flight. And Bhatt is the youngest person in the country to have it — he is 12.
Bhatt and 10 others got to live the life of a co-pilot, for some days though, all thanks to their school Ryan International Group of Institutions (RIGI).
As part of an Aviation and Leadership camp, 11 students and two instructors of RIGI had the opportunity to train as a co-pilot and hold the Airtime Canada Co-Pilots licence.
Sriram Natraj, 14, from Ryan International, Sanpada, showed his licence and said, “I don’t know how to drive a car and am not even eligible for a driving licence. But I have a co-pilot’s licence.
The organisation development head of RIGI, Francis Joseph, said,“The intention was to give our students a hands on experience. Just going to a counsellor will not help students make up their mind. This way, they know what they are getting into.”
The 11 students spent two weeks in Canada and were taught the language pilots use, controlling the plane, and leadership skills. “I did around 20 minutes of flying in the week.
A senior pilot from Jet Airways, however, said, “The students hold the licence to co-pilot a non commercial, one-passenger plane. To hold a legitimate commercial licence, one has to go through rigorous training. You have to have 200 hours of flying and clear two written exams.”
13/06/08 Priya Ramakrishnan/Daily News & Analysis

Bhubaneswar: The Orissa government will sign an agreement with Gujarat's Ahmedabad Aviation & Aeronautic Ltd (AAAL) in July to revive the Government Aviation Training Institute (GATI) in the state. This will be done via public-private-partnership (PPP) with the newly floated AAAL company, HBE Global Avionoutic Ltd (GAL). The project will be done under the lease-develop-operate (LDO) financing model.
Six firms evinced interest in taking over the institute following a government tender, which had been floated last year. Besides AAAL, Flytech Aviation Ltd, Secunderabad; Jupiter Aviation & Logistics (P) Ltd, Bangalaore; New Delhi-based Asia Aviation Ltd, Mesco Airlines and TouchWood Entertainment Ltd participated in the bidding process.
Established in 1947 as a flying club, GATI used to impart training for student pilot licence, private pilot licence and commercial pilot licence. Passouts from the institute were placed in Indian Airlines, Air India, Kingfisher, Reliance, Deccan Aviation, Garg Aviation, IMFA and OSL. The institute, which became non-functional from 2005-06 owing to resignation of pilots and lack of government support, has two training aircraft, spacious hanger and runway space.
According to the PPP agreement, GAL will use the available facilities of the institute on a lease basis to train students. It will develop GATI as a full-fledged commercially viable state-of-the-art aviation academy capable of providing multi-level training for commercial pilots, aircraft maintenance, ground staff and cabin crews.
11/06/08 Financial Express

Mumbai: Air India has inducted 44 new pilots, taking their strength at the state-owned carrier to 1,244. The new pilots trained at Air India’s own training school, Central Training Establishment (CTE) in Hyderabad, were inducted after they cleared the CTE tests. The airline boom in India has left the country with an acute shortage of trained pilots. Carriers were allowed to hire foreign pilots and medically fit pilots above the age of 60. According to industry estimates, of the 3,000 pilots in India, 600 are foreign pilots.
The country will need as many as 10,000 pilots by 2020 as carriers scale up their capacities. Experts feel the country will still be short of trained pilots as the gene-pool of pilots is shrinking faster than it is growing.
11/06/08 TravelBizMonitor

Jamshedpur: Fresh graduates from Frankfinn Institute of Air Hostess Training would soon land with jobs in Emirates, the leading Gulf airlines.
For, the institute has recently entered into a contract with the airlines for international placement of their students.
One of the fastest growing airlines in the world, Emirates is a respected name today with flights connecting 90 destinations in West Asia, Far East, Asia, Australasia as also North America.
“Emirates has a huge network and our students will certainly have good exposure working with the company,” Saibal Ghosh, the head of international operations and eastern region, Frankfinn Institute of Air Hostess Training, told The Telegraph from Calcutta.
With 119 centres across the country, the air hostess training academy’s eastern region alone has 11 centres and six information centres.
Placement figures available with the air hostess training academy reveal 11 students getting placed with Air Arabia Airlines, all from the eastern region, with one from Jharkhand too making it to the international airlines.
Just before the exclusive collaboration with the Gulf airline, Frankfinn had entered into an agreement with Jet Airways for recruitment of students with the leading Indian airlines.
Reports confirm that this is the first such exclusive tie-up for Emirates with an Indian air hostess training institute.
09/06/08 The Telegraph

Montreal: CAE has acquired Sabena Flight Academy for cash consideration in order to expand its ab-initio training capability and CAE Global Academy and to add new type-rating training programs in Europe.
Sabena Flight Academy (SFA) specializes in ab-initio pilot training as well as type-rating training for airlines. It operates an ab-initio flight academy equipped with approximately 40 aircraft in Mesa, Arizona, USA, and a six-simulator training centre in Brussels, Belgium. Sabena Flight Academy is a JAA- and JAR-approved Flight Training Organization with 135 employees and more than 50 years of experience in professional pilot training.
"This strategic bolt-on acquisition is another step towards developing our training network in order to better address the global pilot shortage. It is also in support of our CAE Global Academy as it will bring our capacity to train cadets to more than 1,400 a year globally. The acquisition will also enhance CAE's ability to deliver type-rating training in Europe as it adds new training programs and an extensive range of new customers to our network," says Jeff Roberts, CAE's Group President, Innovation and Civil Training and Services.
Sabena Flight Academy (SFA) is one of Europe's oldest and most respected pilot training organizations. After providing Sabena Airlines with world class pilots for more than 60 years SFA has become an independent training centre operating on two continents and training more than 400 cadet pilots per year.
CAE is a world leader in providing simulation and modelling technologies and integrated training solutions for the civil aviation industry and defence forces around the globe. With annual revenues exceeding C$1.4 billion, CAE employs more than 6,000 people at more than 75 sites and training locations in 20 countries.
09/06/08 FOXBusiness

New Delhi: As part of its plans to expand its aviation business, Punj Lloyd is preparing to set up a pilot training school in the country.
The training college may come up by the end of the current calendar year. "We are trying to set up a pilot training school in the country. If all goes well, it would be established by the end of the current year," Punj Lloyd Chairman Atul Punj told reporters here.
The college would be set up in association with domestic aircraft maintenance firm Airworks India in which Punj bought 33 per cent last year.
US-based PE Global Technology Investments had purchased another 33 per cent in Airworks at the same time. It would be a complete academy training both helicopter as well as commercial aeroplane pilots. "It will be a full blown college providing training for both types of pilots," Punj said.
The academy may come up in Hosur where Airworks has major aircraft repair and maintenance operations.
Meanwhile, Punj also has plans to scale up the maintenance and repair business. He would induct two hangers soon at the Hosur facility and has the option to take six more.
Punj Lloyd, largely known for engineering and construction work in the oil and gas sector, has also qualified to bid for the modernisation projects for the Kolkata and Chennai airports.
07/06/08 Asia Pulse Data Source via COMTEX/Trading Markets, USA

The booming aviation industry in India is fulfilling the dreams of SC/ST and middle class girls from smaller towns with a job which is full of glamour, money and a chance to see the world. The girls who had seen planes in the sky are now actually flying on the sky.
A scheduled caste girl Ranjita Kathel from Jabalpur had dreams in her eyes. Her father Jagdish Kanthel was a worker at the health department of the Jabalpur Municipal Corporation. It was difficult for him to manage the family of six.
After failure in seven interviews for different jobs, Ranjita joined an aviation institute for a one-year diploma course at Jabalpur. And finally succeeded in getting a job at Air Arabia. Today she is getting Rs ten lakh per annum as air hostess. Ranjita had everything, she was good looking, with a perfect skin, which is one of the essential requirements for an air hostess job except she was not having the money to join any professional course.
But Madhya Pradesh government came to her rescue. She was part of the first batch of air hostess training programme financed by the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan government at the local Frankfinn Aviation Institute.
Ranjita Kathel was groomed not only to face the interview but the world as well.
You could't find many places on the Madhya Pradesh map, but you can find girls from those places at the aviation institute in Bhopal now. The girls from remote places such as Seoni Malwa, Katni, Bina, Amla, Sohagpur and Sarni are grooming themselves to be in the aviation industry as air-hostesses. Girls from smaller towns are flocking to such institutes with a dream and actually fulfilling it.
Director of Frankfinn Aviation Institute Bhopal Arun Gupta said, " Middle India wants its share in aviation industry. They have the potential but they were not getting the chance earlier." He said that the institutes has tied up with Madhya Pradesh government to provide training to candidates belonging to Scheduled caste and tribe category, as part of social commitment and a challenge. He believe that Frankfinn were providing a platform to these young girls.
Aarti from Rampura in Datia district is pursuing BCA(Bachelor of Computer Application) along with Air-hostess course. Like all other girls she also wants to fly and earn a lot of money.
Sushma Khatri, daughter of a police sub-inspector is working with JET Airways for the last three months. Based in Mumbai she also wants to earn money and travel to far off places.
SS Kumre, Deputy Secretary to chief minister in Madhya Pradesh said the government will be paying Rs one lakh per student for the training.
The aviation training institutes are proving helpful in developing the personality of these young girls. They were taught each and every aspect of an air-hostess. English language course is one of the most important areas these institutes have to work on these girls, as they come from a modest background with little knowledge of English.
But what about the job placement ? "The aviation industry expects 1.15 million job openings by 2010 for aviation and related industries. Not all of them are going to get job as air-hostesses, but they have other option such in travel and tourism industry," said Frankfinn Director Arun Gupta.
Indian aviation industry is expected to grow at the rate of 20 per cent per year for the next ten years, a large number of requirements are likely to come up on the ground. Increasing number of domestic and international airlines have raised the requirements of hospitality, professionalism and of course, value for money.
07/06/08 Shuriah Niazi/Tehelka

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday upheld the policy of Indian Airlines to ground overweight air hostesses.
A bench headed by Justice A K Sikri dismissed the petition filed by some Indian Airlines air hostesses, who were grounded due to putting on weight excessive to the limit fixed by the airlines.
The court had on May 5 reserved it's judgment on a bunch of petitions of Indian Airlines' air hostesses challenging their grounding for being overweight.
The petitioners had also challenged the Airlines' circular of withdrawing permissible overweight limit of 3 kg over and above the upper limit as laid down for the cabin crew. Challenging the grounding of air hostesses due to their weight, advocate Arvind Sharma appearing for the petitioners had contended that the action was arbitrary and illegal.
"There is no connection between weight and performance of duty when one is medically fit. Weight is not a criteria of fitness," Sharma had contended. The petitioners had challenged the judgment of single bench of the High Court which had upheld the Airlines' policy of grounding overweight air hostesses. Additional Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium appearing for the Airlines' had contended that the action taken against them was justified.
"It was clearly mentioned in their contract that their job could be terminated in case they put on weight above the permissible limit and they have just been grounded on a condition that they would be allowed to fly after losing weight," Subramanium had said.
A single bench on May 31 last year had dismissed their plea, saying that "keeping in view this kind of job performance, the air hostesses are asked to battle their bulge, control their girth and keep at desired level the affluence of their body weight as per the norms".
04/06/08 Agencies/Expressindia.com

Kasane: Three pilots that once left Air Botswana for greener pastures abroad have rejoined the airline, says the airline general manager Mr Lance Brodgen.
At least three of our former pilot colleagues are back in the fold and we are hoping that more will follow in the near future, Mr Brodgen said in an interview.
Mr Brodgen said the return of the three pilots followed Air Botswanas adjustment to remuneration packages of captains with around 30 per cent.
He said the adjustment was done after looking at the current remuneration in the international and regional markets.
One of the returnee pilots, Mr Sam Bokole, who was with Kingfisher Airlines in India said the salary adjustments contributed to his return.
But they are paying us way below what I earned in India but at least they tried, he said, adding that the recent adjustment was not what they agreed upon.
At the end of the day they have to improve the status of the planes they are using and aim higher, he said.
Adjustment to remuneration packages was carefully calculated and necessary to retain and attract the appropriate pilots, Mr Brodgen added.
Mr Brodgen said Air Botswana was now offering its pilots a more equitable package, adding that in the previous financial year, Air Botswana recorded a seven per cent profit with operating margin of 10 per cent. He said the the airline focused on improving reliability and punctuality, adding that engineers also dedicated their efforts to enhance technical reliability.
Through technical reliability, the heavy costs associated with leasing third party aircraft and putting up passengers on hotels was brought down under control. We also looked at our pricing mix to ensure that pricing model was better aligned with basic economic and commercial practices, he said.
Air Botswana flies about 500 and 800 customers daily 70 per cent of them being regional traffic.
03/06/08 Republic of Botswana, Botswana

Hyderabad: City-based Central Training Institute (CTE) has become the first institute in the country to obtain the approval as a Type Rating Training Organisation (TRTO) for pilot training courses on the A320 aircraft.
The grant of approval as TRTO by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) means the CTE, Air India's premier civil aviation-related training institution, which conducts technical training classes for pilots, can also hold evaluation tests for pilots of A320 on its own, Capt C J Bhoopal, Executive Director (Training) of the CTE told PTI today. Earlier, the evaluation used to be conducted by the DGCA.
The TRTO approval came six weeks ago and the CTE has conducted the Type Rating examination for 52 pilots on the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737-800 aircraft on May 30, he said.
The six-weeks-long training programme offered by the Institute cover the entire technical aspect of the A320 -- the various systems in the aircraft like hydraulics, avionics. The course is undertaken by trainee pilots and experienced pilots who wish to converted onto the A320.
04/06/08 PTI/Economic Times

To face the crisis of acute shortage of commercial pilots, the age limit for existing pilots is being raised to 65 from 60. Private players are poaching from other airlines offering higher salaries. Also, pilots from the Defence services are being baited to join the commercial stream. All these are not sufficient to face the requirement of 18,000 pilots worldwide and 5,000 pilots in India in the coming year, laments Kumar Rajagopal, International Student Co-ordinator, Proflite Australia Flight Training Centre, Sydney, Australia. Producing qualified commercial pilots is the only solution to this, he tells Amutha Kannan.
“Though there are a number of training schools in India, they are unable to produce a high number of pilots in the stipulated time. Due to various constraints like lack of air space, runway, non-availability of aircraft and stringent Government regulations, they are able to complete the one-year course only in three years. Also, they get trained only on single-engine aircraft. For a Commercial Pilot Licence (CPL) flying a multi-engine aircraft is mandatory,” says Mr. Rajagopal. Due to the above reasons, many schools have closed down, he laments. Another major reason is, as flying instructors have become pilots, these schools have been deprived of qualified instructors.
Stating that a good school can train a candidate in eight to 12 months, he adds that those who qualify abroad can come to India and get converted as per the local norms and start off as co-pilots or second officers with a starting monthly salary of Rs. 80,000 to Rs. 1 lakh.
03/06/08 Daily Mirror, Sri Lanka