Aviation India: Careers

Mumbai: Nearly 550 candidates interviewed by Air India in April for the post of trainee cabin crew are virtually languishing. The airline has still not made public the results or sent any formal communiqué to them.
Air India had first advertised for recruiting trainee cabin crew last August for its Airbus 320 aircraft. The first round of interviews was held in October in four regional centres, which comprised group discussions and personality assessment test. The results were declared on October 13, said an airline source.
While Air India maintained that it would get back “immediately” to the candidates on the next round of interviews and medical tests, they were only intimated in April this year. The interviews were then held between April 17 and 20 but there has been complete silence since, said a source.
It is hardly difficult to pinpoint the reason for this delay, which is merely a fallout of the airline’s current liquidity crunch. The irony is that despite its 31,000 bulging workforce, it is facing a shortage of cabin crew in its domestic and some short-haul international operations, undertaken by IC coded flights (the former Indian Airlines).
A trainee cabin crew in the airline earns approximately Rs 28,000 a month (inclusive of variable flying allowance) along with benefits such as provident fund, gratuity, pension, medical facilities, and free or concessional air travel.
Over the last few months, Air India has barely been meeting the mandatory crew requirements set by the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation. Typically, an Airbus 320, which has a minimum requirement of four crew members, needs a (crew) complement of at least six. However, the airline has confined this to the basic four onboard.
29/07/09 Varada Bhat/Business Line

The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to enhance the skills and knowledge of Indian civil aviation personnel to support the development of Indian aviation in Geneva today.
The MoU was signed by Shri Madhavan Nambiar, Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation and Mr.Giovanni Bisignani, Director General and CEO of IATA. India is an important player in the aviation industry. It is a growth market for international aviation, and has a leadership role to play in global aviation issues. Talent development will be critical for India to address the ever-changing priorities of Indian aviation and on international issues.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation and IATA have agreed to:
• Address the training needs for Indian civil aviation officials: This MoU addresses the training needs of senior officials and negotiators of the Indian Civil Aviation Administration through a customized training plan. The identified officials will be provided the latest in aviation information, international contact and networking opportunities at the global learning centers of the IATA Training Development Institute (ITDI). The training plan is aimed to elevate the skills level and assist in providing informed leadership in a time of worldwide challenge and change in aviation.
• Invest in building skill foundations of Indian DGCA personnel: This MoU addresses the training requirements of officials from the Indian DGCA in the domains of Safety Management, Regulatory compliance, Airport operations, Air Navigation Systems Management, Dangerous Goods Regulation, Security Management and other managerial disciplines. The training can also be administered onsite at DGCA classrooms by IATA faculty, to enable administering training to a large group of personnel.
• Cooperate to bring world-class IATA training disciplines to India: IATA will explore areas for cooperation with NIAMAR, National Institute of Aviation Management and Research, New Delhi, which is a training arm of the Airport Authority of India (AAI). IATA and NIAMAR will build upon their existing working relationship, to explore additional new global programmes that could be brought to and held in the NIMAR Delhi campus.
• Explore any cost offsets that might be made available from the IATA Airline Training Fund (IATF) in line with its priorities, especially for training in Safety Management Systems and other related disciplines.
The Ministry of Civil Aviation and IATA have further agreed to explore the areas of cooperation noted above at once. However, this MOU does not impose any binding legal obligations on either organization. When and if the parties to this MOU reach agreement on specific programmes for training Indian civil aviation officials, improving skill foundations of Indian GSCA personnel, partnering to bring IATA training disciplines to India, or any other training or development programmes of mutual interest, they will stipulate the respective rights and obligations of both organizations in definitive contracts governing those activities.
The term of the MOU is for one year, and can be extended further based on mutual agreement.
29/07/09 Press Information Bureau

Melbourne: Indian students, aspiring to be pilots have been left in the lurch by a Sydney-based aviation college as their dreams of acquiring commercial pilot license remained unfulfilled, even after paying thousands of dollars.
This latest scam has also came to light due to the exposures by ABC TV channel programme aired yesterday.
In the expose, the channel showed migration and education agents duping Indian students of Aerospace Aviation College in Sydney that provides commercial pilot training.
With the civil aviation sector booming in India, there is a big demand for pilots in the country and thousands of students have flocked to foreign shores to get a qualified pilot license.
The programme alleged that the college exploited international students besides ill treating Indian students.
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See Also:
Attack over flying school
Indian students take aim at Australian flying school
No take off for flying school case
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Students who have signed up for a commercial pilots' license course that cost USD 43,500, Aerospace Aviation College must deliver 200 hours of flying over 52 weeks.
Many students alleged that they did not receive enough flying hours due to lack of facilities and unavailability of instructors.
A student of the Aerospace Aviation college, Surendra Egalapati alleged he only received 130 hours over an 18 month period.
Former student Scott Alex said he was disturbed by the way the college was treating Indian students.
Interestingly, after breaking the scam on the TV programme, there were raids at the office of Indian migration agent, who according to Australian police was involved in providing fake documents to students. But there were no report of any follow up against Aerospace Aviation that is run by Australian couple Sue and Zane Davis.
The programme interviewed the mother of a student who alleged that after paying the entire fee of 43,000 Australian dollars, the college stopped imparting training and her son had to return back with an unfulfilled dream.
However, Sue Davis of the Aerospace Aviation refuted all the allegations and said: "We welcome having overseas students with us. They all bring delightful experience with them and we enjoy their time. May I add that our student of the year for the last two years has actually been a Indian students."
28/07/09 Sudhir Kumar/SamyLive


Here is the full transcription of 'Four Corners' sent us by the Indian student participated in the ABC programme :

STUDENT PROTESTERS: We want justice, we want justice
WENDY CARLISLE: In late May and early June, Australians were astonished to see thousands of Indian students protesting on the streets of Melbourne and Sydney. Their complaints - muggings and bashings and police indifference.
INDIAN MAN: He got beaten by three guys.
(Indian man demonstrating wounds)
INDIAN MAN 2: In front of all the policemen. And still they are assuring that they will give us security. What kind of security?
WENDY CARLISLE: Coverage in India bordered on hysterical.
(Excerpt of footage from Indian News)
INDIAN MAN 3: My parents are calling please every half hour. Please come back. If nothing is happening, come back.
INDIAN NEWS REPORTER: So what will it take for Mr Kevin Rudd to finally wake up?
KEVIN RUDD, PRIME MINISTER: Our Indian community has been such a vital contributor to our culture, to our life, to our food, to our music. My kids love Bollywood, you know, Bollywood is a thing with all of our kids, they just love it. So we actually have this deep affection for your country and for your culture and I always say this too, imagine if we never had Indian food in our Australia, we would be sentenced to 100 years of English cuisine.
(End of Excerpt)
WENDY CARLISLE: There's more at stake than being rescued from a century of bad British food. India is one of the main buyers of Australian education - after coal and iron ore, it's our third biggest export earner. But Australia's education exports face much deeper problems than safety issues, there's now a rising clamour over dodgy courses, student rip-offs and an education system that's turned into a visa factory.
PUSHPINDER KAUR, STUDENT'S MOTHER: It is a fraud, it is we were shown so many rosy pictures about the school, actually it is not what it was really, what it really is, it is only, it was just a scam.
WENDY CARLISLE: If there is one principle that governs the export of Australian education, it is now simply money.
BOB BIRRELL, MONASH UNIVERSITY: Well, basically they've been bedazzled by the dollars.
WENDY CARLISLE: On Four Corners tonight, the dirty secret behind Australia's other education revolution.
(On Screen Text: Holy Cash Cows, Reporter: Wendy Carlisle)
(On Screen Text: Crash Landing)
(On Screen Text: Hyderabad, India)
WENDY CARLISLE: Last year 75,000 Indian students came to Australia to buy an education, and the possibility of a new and more prosperous life.
(On Screen Text: 9 July 2009)
Pushpinder Kaur and her son - aspiring pilot Prabmeet Singh - are preparing to meet with a high level delegation of Australian bureaucrats, police and academics. For Prabmeet Singh studying in Australia was a deeply unhappy experience and there is much unfinished business.
(Excerpt of footage of Pushpinder Kaur and Prabmeet Singh driving in a car)
PRABMEET SINGH, STUDENT: Let's hope we can find some help this time.
PUSHPINDER KAUR, STUDENT'S MOTHER: You went to get wings but your wings are clipped actually.
(End of Excerpt)
WENDY CARLISLE: The highly publicised Australian delegation has been rushed to India. It's an exercise in damage control.
(Excerpt of footage from delegation meeting)
COLIN WALTERS, FEDERAL DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION: The education system of Australia has no time for racism in any form and absolutely condemns attacks on students, attacks on Indians.
(End of Excerpt)
WENDY CARLISLE: But safety isn't what many of these parents have come to complain about. Pushpinder Kaur says a Sydney flying school has taken their money, left their family broke and her son with no pilots licence.
(Excerpt continued)
PUSHPINDER KAUR, STUDENT'S MOTHER: The first instalment we had to pay in advance that is for about $3,500, the total is about $43,000, and when the whole of the amount has been credited to the account of the aviation school there, which is known as Aerospace, and the chief flying instructor's name is Sue Davis and she has taken the whole of the amount and after that she has stopped imparting any training or given any training flying hours to the students there.
My son and one of the other students is here, right before this honourable delegation. And they have come back, and their careers are ruined and we have lost all that money which we have sent there.
COLIN WALTERS, FEDERAL DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION: We will take the depositions back and we will have a look, we will talk to the authorities in New South Wales and we will also look at our own legislation and see if there is any further possibility of intervening in that case.
(End of Excerpt)
WENDY CARLISLE: Pushpinder Kaur has heard all this before.
(Excerpt continued)
PUSHPINDER KAUR, STUDENT'S MOTHER: I'd just like to advise the honourable Australian members that already we have taken this matter up with the state regulatory bodies like VETAB (Vocational Education and Training Accreditation Board) and DEEWR (Department of Education, Employment and Workplace relations), but nothing has been done so far.
COLIN WALTERS, FEDERAL DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION: Righto. Well we'll certainly take that back with us and see if there is anymore we can do. Thank you very much.
PUSHPINDER KAUR, STUDENT'S MOTHER: Thank you.
(End of Excerpt)
PRABMEET SINGH, STUDENT: It feels really sad, really bad, because I had gone there to fulfil my dream to become a pilot. But you know all my dreams have been shattered.
WENDY CARLISLE: If Prabmeet Singh's dreams have been shattered, back in Australia his friend Surendra Egalapati is still trying to keep his dream of becoming a pilot alive.
SURENDRA EGALAPATI, STUDENT: I was very passionate about flying. I liked flying to fly, so I started this career in 07.
WENDY CARLISLE: Like Prabmeet Singh the school Surendra Egalapati chose was Aerospace Aviation run by Sue Davis.
SUE DAVIS, AEROSPACE AVIATION: We welcome having overseas students with us. They all bring delightful experience with them and we enjoy their time. May I add that our student of the year for the last two years has actually been a different Indian student.
WENDY CARLISLE: Surendra Egalapati is now at a different flying school. But within months of starting at Aerospace Aviation things started to go wrong.
SURENDRA EGALAPATI, STUDENT: I started complaining in the month of October. First I went to the Indian High commission, I complained there and they had a meeting with them and Sue Davis has assured that this is not going to repeat again. And the same thing, they have Indian high commission has told me that and after that the same thing is again repeating and repeating.
(Excerpt of footage of meeting between Indian students)
INDIAN STUDENT: All we guys are doing is refund what is not used from the college.
(End of Excerpt)
WENDY CARLISLE: Soon he discovered other students in the class of 2007 were having similar problems.
VISHAL SARAWAT, STUDENT: There were not enough planes not even, not enough instructors. I was like flying with around 21 instructors you know.
WENDY CARLISLE: Twenty-one instructors?
VISHAL SARAWAT, STUDENT: Instructors for this and like, it was like there was no responsibility in the school's part, like it was like I have to beg to instructors to give me flight, like "give me flight, I want to fly, I want to fly".
MUKESH PINDORIA, STUDENT: The rest of the time, well, go to school and you were told to sit under a tree with some plastic chairs around to hoping that someone does not show up and you get that flight.
WENDY CARLISLE: Sit under a tree?
MUKESH PINDORIA, STUDENT: Yes.
WENDY CARLISLE: Can you describe that for me? What was the scene?
MUKESH PINDORIA, STUDENT: Well, it's just under a tree. You don't have any other facilities. You're just standing, even if it rains, you have to be out there. I mean there is no any other facilities inside where you can accommodate all the students.
WENDY CARLISLE: So how many would there be of you sitting under the tree at any one time?
MUKESH PINDORIA, STUDENT: Any one time, you might find 20, 25 students sitting under a tree.
WENDY CARLISLE: Scott Alex is a former student at Aerospace Aviation. He also quit the school over not getting his flying hours and was disturbed by what he saw.
SCOTT ALEX, STUDENT: It was definitely derogatory the way they spoke to them, the way they treated them.
WENDY CARLISLE: Can you give me an example?
SCOTT ALEX, STUDENT: Instructors or management?
WENDY CARLISLE: Take your pick.
SCOTT ALEX, STUDENT: Um okay instructors hating flying with curry eating Indian stinking yellow so on, and management, I know of a case where the operations manager actually pushed around a student who was complaining, so they just basically raised their voice and in the Indian culture you don't raise your voice, it's very rude. You especially don't swear.
WENDY CARLISLE: The students had signed up for a commercial pilots' licence course. Costing $43,500, Aerospace Aviation was to deliver 200 hours of flying over 52 weeks. But in Surendra Egalapati's case, he only received 130 hours over an 18 month period. A story it seems, repeated throughout the school
KAPIL RAJ, STUDENT: In the matter of four or five months I could only get 17.9 hours of flying.
YASWANTH MUDUNURI, STUDENT: I got only 50.9 hours of flying.
ARUN KUMER, STUDENT: I did 46 hours in 16 months.
VISHAL SARAWAT, STUDENT: I will use the word wasted my time, 16 months being there, like achieving nothing over there.
SUE DAVIS, AEROSPACE AVIATION: Aviation requires a commitment. We provide the facilities, the aircraft, the highly qualified trainers, but it must be matched by the student's desire to reach a safety standard. I won't back down from that. I take that most seriously, as a delegate of CASA (Civil Aviation Safety Authority) that these students must meet the requirements.
We have provided everything that those students need to get through the course. The students need to provide the diligence, the dedication and the commitment.
WENDY CARLISLE: So are the students lying? Why would the students do this?
SUE DAVIS, AEROSPACE AVIATION: I think students when they're away from home perhaps don't meet up to their parents' expectations. As a mother myself, I understand when our children let us down. And it's a young man's issue that they have to now face up to the fact that they haven't provided the diligence that they require to get through the course.
(Excerpt of footage of reconstruction - students going to DEEWR headquarters)
WENDY CARLISLE: By October last year so many of Aerospace Aviation's students were complaining, that DEEWR - the Federal Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations - invited them down to their Sydney headquarters to hear their stories. Twenty-six Indian students turned up, as well as Scott Alex.
(End of Excerpt)
SCOTT ALEX, STUDENT: They said to me, we're too nervous, we want you to come with us. So I did. And when they asked what's happening, everybody was quiet. And then I said one thing, one point like "you have to pay $5,000 a month whether you fly or not, that's a bit wrong", and then everybody just started talking. So I just went there for moral support I guess you could say.
WENDY CARLISLE: And with the department, the officers, did they give any undertakings to actually fix the problems? What did they say that they were going to do?
SCOTT ALEX, STUDENT: Oh yeah, they were shocked, they were shocked and appalled with everything we said, yeah.
WENDY CARLISLE: But if the officials from DEEWR were shocked by what they were hearing - they were slow in reacting. The students felt their complaints had disappeared into a bureaucratic black hole.
SURENDRA EGALAPATI, STUDENT: I don't think so they're running an investigation. I do the, if they do an investigation it could take hardly two months or one month, not more than that. But it has been some six to seven months till now.
WENDY CARLISLE: And you've heard nothing?
SURENDRA EGALAPATI, STUDENT: And we, we didn't heard anything from them.
WENDY CARLISLE: After eight months of waiting for the Department's response they gave up and took a dramatic step to recover their money.
MUKESH PINDORIA, STUDENT: Well if someone would have listened to us we complained to the school first, and then we went to the Department of Education. We went to Department of Immigration too and Department of Education and Employment and Workplace Relations, but no one listened to us and now we have ended up here in the Supreme Court of New South Wales.
WENDY CARLISLE: Eight of the Class of 2007 filed a statutory demand notice on Aerospace Aviation calling for the refund of $157,000 or the company would be wound up. Last month it went to the New South Wales Supreme Court where the students were in for a nasty surprise.
(On Screen Graphic - Sue Davis' Affidavit)
WENDY CARLISLE: In her affidavit, Sue Davis included a five page report from DEEWR - which appears to be an investigation into the students who launched the legal action.
Surprisingly, this document didn't address the detail of the students' complaints nor did it examine their side of the argument, but nevertheless concluded "it would seem the students complaints have little or no foundation".
WENDY CARLISLE (to Sue Davis): I'm just trying to understand why DEEWR would only be investigating or making a finding on the students in this document which were the ones that appeared before the Supreme Court.
SUE DAVIS, AEROSPACE AVIATION: Well I'm sorry, you'd have to ask DEEWR that.
WENDY CARLISLE: Is it coincidence?
SUE DAVIS, AEROSPACE AVIATION: You'd have to ask DEEWR that. I can't answer for DEEWR.
WENDY CARLISLE: So how did this document end up before the Supreme Court? We asked the Department of Education to explain just why it conducted an apparently one sided investigation on behalf of Aerospace Aviation into the Indian students.
(On Screen Graphic - written statement from Department of Education)
WENDY CARLISLE: In a written statement, the Department told four corners "for privacy reasons it would be inappropriate to discuss individual cases".
The Department's conduct raises fundamental questions about the integrity of the Government's investigations into student's complaints. Four Corners requested an interview with Education Minister Julia Gillard but she declined.
KARL KONRAD, AUST. IMMIGRATION LAW SERVICES: It seems to me that the protection of the school and the business interests of the school overrides the protection of the student or the student's right to know, or any other Australian citizen's right to know as far as I can see.
WENDY CARLISLE: But you got the Deputy Prime Minister saying she is committed to ensuring quality in the education that we provide international students. Do you question that commitment?
KARL KONRAD, AUST. IMMIGRATION LAW SERVICES: I openly question that commitment because the quality of their investigations would have to be regarded with anybody, with any investigation experience as a joke.
WENDY CARLISLE: But for Surendra Egalapati, the greatest surprise was yet to come. In her affidavit, Sue Davis makes the claim that his plane had strayed out of the training zone and into Sydney controlled airspace on July 29, 2007.
WENDY CARLISLE (to Surendra Egalapati): It says on 29th of July that you penetrated Sydney airspace. Did you this?
SURENDRA EGALAPATI, STUDENT: I didn't do this. I started my flying from August 21st, 07. The proof is my log book. This is my logbook. And my first flight is August 21, here at 07. This is a false evidence, I don't know what evidence she is going to show, but I can, this is my proof.
WENDY CARLISLE (to Sue Davis): Did you swear a false affidavit in order to smear the character of Surendra?
SUE DAVIS, AEROSPACE AVIATION: I did not swear any false affidavits at all, the documentation was before the courts. Mr Surendra did not advise us that there were problems that he could see, we understand that the paperwork was correct.
WENDY CARLISLE: This is your document, that you have submitted before the Supreme Court.
SUE DAVIS, AEROSPACE AVIATION: That's correct.
WENDY CARLISLE: That you swear is true.
SUE DAVIS, AEROSPACE AVIATION: And Mr Surendra has a copy of that.
WENDY CARLISLE: Sue Davis has now told Four Corners she made an error in her affidavit.
Earlier this month the students' case against Aerospace Aviation was set aside here in the Supreme Court, the court found the students had pursued the wrong legal route against the flying school and ordered them to pay costs which could amount to tens of thousands of dollars.
And now, in what must seem a cruel twist to the students, the New South Wales Government has found that the flying school has been using unqualified flying instructors - an offence so serious it risks losing its registration.
VISHAL SARAWAT, STUDENT: Obviously I'm very angry. I've like taken a loan. It's a big loan and I paid the money to the school. I came here for a purpose, which is like I haven't got anything, I haven't got the my commercial pilot licence.
WENDY CARLISLE: The experiences of the Indian students at aerospace aviation are not an isolated example. Karl Konrad, a Sydney migration agent, has been trying to raise the issue.
KARL KONRAD, AUST. IMMIGRATION LAW SERVICES: I mean for years I've been writing about dodgy education providers in Sydney and nobody cares. I've even sent my newsletters about them to the Commonwealth Government and didn't, don't even get a response.
Nobody comes and asks me you know what's going on in Sydney because they don't really care, but certainly since the international students have come out, it's brought up yes their safety issues, but there's all these other issues which have been going on that nobody has cared about.

Melbourne: Australia on Tuesday promised a zero tolerance approach on dealing with alleged migration and education scams after a TV channel expose claimed that many foreign students, including Indians, were being "duped" of thousands of dollars by dubious agents and colleges.
The 'Four Corners' programme of ABC News reported on Monday night that hundreds of private colleges in Australia were offering courses such as hairdressing and cooking, luring Indian students with false promises of permanent residency.
The channel, which conducted a sting operation, also claimed that a number of migration agents were offering "fake" work experience certificates to students.
An Indian journalist working undercover with ABC to expose the alleged scams was threatened and hit by an unidentified man over the weekend, an incident which has sparked an outrage in India.
Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said the scams of ripping off foreign students would be looked into by immigration and education authorities and dealt with "no tolerance".
The report also claimed Indian students aspiring to be pilots have been left in the lurch by a Sydney-based aviation college as their dreams of acquiring commercial pilot license remained unfulfilled even after paying thousands of dollars.
The expose were the latest to hit Australia's $14.2 billion international student sector — the nation's third largest export earner — after 22 racially motivated attacks on Indian students in Melbourne and Sydney in over a month.
Migration Institute of Australia (MIA), a professional association of migration service providers, today strongly urged the government to improve the existing regulation framework which it said was not good enough.
28/07/09 PTI/The Hindu

Faced with huge losses in the first quarter, the country’s largest private carrier by market value, Jet Airways will complete the process of replacing expat pilots with Indian pilots by the end of the current fiscal.
Last November, Jet had discontinued the service of 32 foreign pilots. The company has a total of 1,100 pilots out of which 250 are expats.
The contracts of nearly three dozen expat pilots will expire in October while some more will run out in December with the rest by March next year. The objective of the exercise is to control costs.
Foreign pilots charge a huge salary premium over Indian pilots. A foreign pilot, on an average, is paid a monthly salary of Rs 5 lakh plus an accommodation allowance of Rs 2 lakh. Indian pilots, on the other hand, draw around Rs 3.6 lakh a month. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation had earlier said all domestic airlines should have only Indian pilots by July 2010.
Jet has already reduced capacity by 20% on domestic routes and by half on international routes in the last two quarters. Capacity is a measure determined by number of operational aircraft and seats occupied in an airline. Analysts say Jet will not need too many pilots after capacities have been reduced. “Laying off foreign pilots will help the company in controlling costs and stay afloat,” said an analyst with a domestic brokerage firm.
Earlier, the airline has issued termination notices to 43 cabin crew on probation. It has also terminated contracts of 110 employees, of which 60 had superannuated and the rest were probationary cabin crew staff.
21/07/09 Mithun Roy/Economic Times

India’s aviation sector has been witnessing tremendous growth for the past few years. The helicopter sector has grown at the rate of 10 – 12 % per annum. Between 2007 till date 26 new helicopters have entered Indian skies. As on date there are more than 250 civil registered helicopters in India and it is expected that more than 300 new helicopters will be added by year 2012. The helicopter industry is facing operational bottlenecks due to insufficient skilled manpower. There are issues like lack of training schools providing industry specific ab-initio and refresher training. Pawan Hans is expanding its fleet by acquiring new helicopters and actively pursuing the diversification in the MRO business in coming years. In order to support its fleet expansion and MRO activities, Pawan Hans need to augment its skilled manpower. In addition there will be overall demand for trained and skilled manpower in the aviation industry in India.
To meet the growing demand for skilled manpower, Pawan Hans is setting up state of the art basic aircraft maintenance training institute at Mumbai as part of the existing training school. Pawan Hans runs a DGCA approved training school to keep the skills of its personnel updated. Till now only helicopter type rating courses and refresher courses on the helicopter type were being conducted.
Currently there are 68 DGCA approved institutes in India imparting the basic aircraft maintenance engineering training and numbers of these institutes approach Pawan Hans for on Job training of their students as they do not have requisite facilities for the same. Pawan Hans has added advantage of providing on Job Training within its own maintenance set up. Maintenance infrastructure and workshop facilities are available at Mumbai and can provide comprehensive Training.
The institute has been named as Pawan Hans Helicopters Training Institute (PHTI). The PHTI will provide the DGCA approved Basic Aircraft Maintenance Engineering Licence preparatory course for purpose of acquiring AME Licence as per aircraft rule 61 and CAR guidelines in this regard. PHTI has already obtained no objection certificate from DGCA to start the institute. DGCA will be shortly issuing the approval certificate for which process is underway.
The first batch of 30 students in mechanical stream will be inducted from current academic year. In mechanical stream courses will be conducted to cover airframe and engines of aircrafts. From second year onwards, PHTI is planning to increase student strength to 60 with the inclusion of 30 students in Avionic stream. In Avionic stream the course will be conducted to cover the electrical, radio and instrument systems of aircrafts. The course duration will be 3 years including 6 months on job training within Pawan Hans’s world class state-of-art facilities.
PHHL is an approved Maintenance Centre to carry out servicing of Dauphin series helicopters and is part of Eurocopter Network of Authorized Maintenance Centre (AMC) worldwide to carry out the servicing in India and other South East Asian Countries.
21/07/09 Press Information Bureau

Mumbai: Air India is being weighed down by a bulging workforce. Ironically, it is also facing a cabin crew shortage for domestic, and some short-haul international operations, undertaken by IC coded flights (the former Indian Airlines).
Over the last few months, the airline has just been meeting the mandatory crew requirements set by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation. Typically, an Airbus 320, which has a minimum requirement of four crew members, needs a (crew) complement of at least six. However, Air India has confined this to four onboard.
“The last round of recruitments was done around two years back and the number of flights has increased since then,” an airline official said. Moreover, Air India has kept 150 recruitments on hold due to its liquidity crunch.
Typically, cabin crew members earn additional allowances based on the number of flying hours, for working on late shifts or for flying overseas.
Someone with over three to five years of experience gets paid an additional Rs 600 for each hour of flying. If such people have logged around five hours of flying during the day, they would be paid Rs 3,000 as additional allowance. Apart from this, there is a daily allowance of $45 on international flights, along with perks such as accommodation.
21/07/09 Varada Bhat/Business Line

University of Petroleum and Energy Studies (UPES) Dehradun, through the Centre for Aviation Studies (CAS), Gurgaon has launched E-MBA (Aviation Management) a Post Graduate degree program (distance learning) and PG Diploma in (Aviation Studies) (part time) specifically designed and administered for the aviation personals, interested in upgrading their educational qualifications with the intent of not only moving up the value chain, but also to contribute towards the aviation industry.
CAS has visualized that in the future, the aviation industry will continue to become leaner, thinner, aggressively competitive and multi tasked and multi skilled. The team of professionals manning this industry will be forced to compete within themselves and logically the winner will be the one who is pre-equipped for this, and the time for that is NOW.
The structure of these programs ensures that the professional obtain these qualifications and are awarded the degree/diploma at the same time ensuring no disruption in their study or work schedule.
On behalf of the Centre for Aviation Studies - University of Petroleum & Energy Studies, we extend an invitation to all personals of Aviation industry to join our E-MBA (Aviation Management) or PG Diploma in (Aviation Studies) and empower themselves professionally to manage the industry of the future.
For details, contact Ms Chetna Phutela, mobile: 9911355120 email casenquiry@upes.ac.in.
17/07/09 PRESS RELEASE/Centre for Aviation Studies

The Indian consul general in Sydney has slammed Australian education authorities for their slow response to complaints from Indian students against a flying school caught out using under-qualified instructors.
The education watchdog has threatened to deregister Aerospace Aviation at Bankstown in southwest Sydney after finding a "critical" breach of standards regulating the teaching of overseas students.
Consul general Gautam Roy said yesterday the tardy response of state and federal education departments had caused several students to return to India and others to be lumped with debt from a failed legal action against the school. Five Indian students, who complained the school did not provide adequate resources for them to complete their courses on time, have been forced home to start paying off loans for their unfinished courses.
More than 20 Indian students from the school reported their complaints to the federal Education Department in a face-to-face meeting on October 17. The complaints were referred to the Vocational Education and Training Accreditation Board, which took until May to audit the school. The audit found Aerospace Aviation instructors did not have qualifications required by the Australian Quality Training Framework.
The students also contacted the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority and the NSW Office of Fair Trading.
After getting little joy from the authorities, nine of the students attempted to recover pre-paid school fees from Aerospace by issuing the school with a statutory demand in March.
NSW Supreme Court judge Richard White threw the claim out of court last week, saying the avenue taken by the students to seek the refunds was not the correct one, as statutory demands were for the recovery of established debts, not "disputed demands". The students will have to pay the legal costs for Aerospace Aviation.
"I am sure they would not have gone to court if they had got some kind of reassurance from the authorities who are supposed to look into the affairs of the education providers," Mr Roy said yesterday.
14/07/09 Angus Hohenboken/The Australian, Australia

Rochester, MN: AirPloyment.com launched its Aviation Resume Services for Aviation professionals. Focusing primarily on the Indian and American Aviation markets, this new service allows AirPloyment users to submit their resume to be distributed in a resume book worldwide. “It is something that has been needed in the industry for a long time. Aircraft get listed in directories and are distributed to companies worldwide, so we are doing that with our professionals. We’re getting back to basics, and putting it back on paper. Over 1000 companies in the USA and 126 in India will receive this resume directory. I guarantee that this will increase your chances at getting a good job”, said AirPloyment CEO Neil Khosla. With the aviation industry being in such a terrible shape, many are leaving their first passion for secondary jobs. AirPloyment, LLC is projecting 2,000-3,000 individuals to submit their resume for this service.
13/07/09 PR.com

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has directed the Directorate General of Civil Aviation to give its views on the requirement that pilots have to give six-month notice to an airline before leaving.
A Division Bench headed by Chief Justice A P Shah has directed India's aviation regulatory body DGCA to clarify its stand on the circular issued by it in September 2005, directing the pilots to give the mandatory six-month notice.
"What is your stand (on) this ... There is (an) assumption that a large number of pilots are going to be affected," the Bench said.
The court's direction came in response to a petition filed by Jet Airways, which challenged the order of a single-member bench, which had in May 2009 allowed pilot Captain Randeep Pratap Singh Panag to leave the company.
12/07/09 PTI/The Hindu

Little did former air hostess Kakoly Kamath Chaliha conjure that she would get back her job, albeit in a different cast. And that too in her hometown Guwahati. She is now a faculty at an air hostess training institute in the city where she teaches soft skills, professional grooming as well as inflight cabin crew training.
She takes delight in cultivating youngsters to do what she used to do before she had quit her job as an air hostess to get married and settle down in Guwahati. When she had joined Air India in 1988, there was of course no such training institutes.
Nothing is more satisfying for her than flying with her ex-students as a passenger. Chaliha has seen her students metamorphose into poised, elegant and genteel aviation professionals. Enthusiastic youngsters from remote parts of the region now ‘dream of flying high’ and are ready to shell out Rs 1-1.5 lakh for a year-long training.
Guwahati is host to over a dozen such institutes which is a huge number by the city's standards. But they cater to all the seven northeastern states. Jettwings Air hostess training institute have set up a branch in Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya. Frankfinn started five years back in Guwahati but its only in the past 1- 2 years that there has been a mushroom growth of so many institutes. And they have all propped up in the past 4-5years with fancy names like Griffins, Flying Cats, Avalon, Sky Academy, Horizon, Jobra Academy, Jettwings, AHA, Frankfinn and Kingfisher. Some of them are franchises of parent companies and some are local brands.
This trend is in tune with the growth in the private airlines and the need for trained manpower all over the country. Connectivity in the region has augmented with the setting up of airports in almost all the state capitals of the region. Suddenly it seems like a golden opportunity for many students who always wanted to get into such professions but did not know how to get there.
The recession did have an impact on the student intake. Initially these institutes started off with an average of 30 per batch. But now the number has come down and on an average a batch now starts with 18-20 students. Banks too are reluctant to sanction loans to pursue these courses after reading about lay-offs and freeze in appointments by airline companies. The fee structure varies from Rs 80,000 to Rs 1.4 lakh excluding other miscellaneous expenses like fooding and lodging. Many institutes also try to lure students by giving fee discounts.
With a heady cocktail of glamour, money and a job guarantee, most of the institutes invite a Bollywood celebrity to initiate the institute. Recently former Miss World Diana Hayden was in the city to inaugurate one such institute which even promises ‘50 percent of the fees back if the student does not get a job’.
The aggressive marketing teams from the different institutes try to take admissions to the doorsteps of the students. They lure students by holding free seminars in the different colleges with impressive audio-visual presentations on the future and illuminating prospects of the aviation industry. The eligibility is class 12 and there is no cut-off percentage.
In times of recession, jobs in the aviation industry are hard to come by. Hence, the courses in these institutes are designed in such a way that it has the three elements of aviation, hospitality and customer service management. Though the students come with the dream of becoming an air hostess or a flight steward, they are gradually made to realize that they can always glide over to the other sectors like hotel and tourism. They are taught about the huge scale of operations in hotels and cruise liners which require the same kind of skills.
However, many feel that most of these institutes are not delivering what they are promising though the price of the courses vary from Rs 80,000 to Rs 1.4 lakh per annum.
A survey on 10 such air hostess training institutes were conducted by the Institute of Hotel Management, Catering Technology and Applied Technology under the Union Ministry of Tourism. The survey found that with the sprout in such institutes, the supply is more than the demand. As a result, absorption is in low-paid jobs.
Every new trend has its pros and cons. Its true that the sprout in air hostess training institutes in Guwahati have opened up new vistas to the youth of the region.
11/07/09 Teresa Rehman/Tehelka

Sydney: A Sydney flying school was using unqualified trainers to teach large numbers of Indian students in a "critical" breach of standards, the State Government's education watchdog says.
The school - run by a husband-and-wife team - is facing deregistration after initially failing to answer questions about using trainers who do not have appropriate qualifications and its dealings with overseas students over hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition fees.
Nine Indian students have come forward to claim Sue and Zane Davis's company, Aerospace Aviation at Bankstown, did not deliver the training promised, leaving them without qualifications and out of pocket.
The NSW Government's Vocational Education and Training Accreditation Board has served the school with a number of non-compliance orders after an audit of its operations. A spokesman, Liam Thorpe, said its audit was conducted in response to the student complaints.
"[The board] audited Aerospace Aviation and identified a range of non-compliances with national quality standards for the delivery of vocational courses to international students," Mr Thorpe said. "Of these, the use of trainers who do not have the qualifications required by the Australian Quality Training Framework was considered to be a critical non-compliance that required action."
Pushpinder Kaur, from Hyderabad, said her husband Inderjeet Singh died after the family had to re-mortgage their home to send their son Prabmeet Singh to Australia for tuition.
While the aviation school had nothing to do with his death, she believes her husband's heart attack was brought on by the stress of dealing with the school.
Prabmeet Singh had enrolled to attend over a 52-week period to October 2008. The family said they paid fees amounting to $43,500 in eight monthly instalments for tuition and 200 hours of flying to obtain a commercial pilot's licence.
Mrs Kaur alleges her son was able to obtain only 97 hours of flying to February 2009, and the school asked for more money from them.
Last week the students' first legal attempt to recover their fees failed in the NSW Supreme Court. They were told that their statutory demand was the incorrect legal avenue for seeking a refund.
11/07/09 Heath Gilmore/The Sydney Morning Herald/brisbane times, Australia

Mumbai: Cockpit4u Aviation Services, Germany-based training institute for pilots, sees potential for its 'Train-the-trainer' course in the Indian market. Currently, the company trains more than 200 pilots per year and also plans to introduce its other courses in India. It aims to work with the Indian carriers for training their pilots. It is also in the process of approaching different flying clubs in the country to initiate its courses to them.
The company is also planning to set up a training centre in Bangalore and is considering the Aero Park project to be set up by Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) for the same. However, the plans are in the initial stages presently.
11/07/09 Dheera Majumder/TravelBizMonitor

Kochi: With an aim to meeting the demand for trained personnel in aviation sector, Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL) here has started an academy.
"The academy would offer career oriented courses from September," CIAL Academy director T S Gopi told PTI here on Thursday.
CIAL has established the institute as part of its social commitment to increase human resources with its expertise in the field of aviation and management, he said.
Various certificate courses, advanced diploma courses and undergraduate and post graduate courses offered at the academy would help to enhance practical knowledge and develop technical skills of youths, he said.
The academy also plans to promote industry oriented education through the industry-institution collaborative model, he said.
The six month courses offered were airport ramp handling, rescue and fire fighting and security and intelligence. The one year advanced diploma programmes consisted of airport operations management, aviation rescue, fire fighting and safety, air cargo management, security management, retail management and relationship management.
Admission process for the courses was on and the last date for receiving applications was fixed for July 31.
09/07/09 PTI/The Hindu

Sydney: A group of Indian students has failed in its first attempt to recover money from a Sydney flying school they claim failed to provide them with resources necessary to complete their flight training on time.
The nine trainee pilots have alleged Aerospace Aviation at Bankstown in Sydney did not have enough teachers or aircraft to complete their training on time, and have sought more than $150,000 in refunds on prepaid course fees.
A Supreme Court judge yesterday set aside a statutory demand issued to Aerospace Aviation by the students and ordered them to pay the court costs of the school, saying the demand was "entirely misconceived".
Justice Richard White said the avenue taken by the students to seek refunds was not the correct one, as statutory demands were for the recovery of established debts, not "disputed demands".
It is understood the statutory demand was filed on the advice of a non-practising lawyer who offered his services to the students for free, not their current solicitor Gnana Karam.
A counter-claim by Aerospace Aviation, filed in the Supreme Court, alleges the students owe the school outstanding fees. The flight school has denied the students' claims that the training facility lacks resources, arguing the students failed to meet their study commitments.
Justice White added that the inclusion of multiple claims in the students' demand was also problematic.
The students, four of whom are back in India because they cannot afford to pay for training at alternative flying schools in Australia, are yet to decide whether to take further legal action.
09/07/09 Angus Hohenboken/The Australian, Australia

LSA manufacturer Flight Design has recently entered the Indian market, and the largest flight school in India, Academy of Carver Aviation Pvt. Ltd., has become a Flight Design Pilot Center and the distributor for India.
"The new LSA airplanes are very attractive for flight schools," said Matthias Betsch, CEO of Flight Design. Especially in the emerging market of India, flight schools need to expand and to contain costs even when supplying the largest airlines with pilots.
The Flight Design CT series offers low acquisition and operation cost, but they must also be reliable for instructional use hour after hour, day after day. Betsch noted India has unusual proof of the CT's reliability. "A flight around the world in a CT by two pilots from the Indian Air Force has shown the reliability and performance of the airplane," he reported. Academy of Carver Aviation Pvt. Ltd agrees.
"The CTLS is mature, third-generation light airplane ... which is easy to run and to service even in the geographical and metrological conditions of India," observed Academy of Carver Aviation Pvt. Ltd. CEO, Marc Carvalho. "The performance, range, view and interior space make the CTLS superior to standard GA airplanes therefore we expect a significant number of private pilots buying Flight Designs and our instructors have never seen or experienced a more comfortable work place."
As in many countries of the world, avgas has limited availability in India. Therefore the use of automobile fuel can increase the utility of the airplane substantially. The Rotax 912 engine in the CT can use either fuel, even mixed in any ratio. Academy of Carver Aviation Pvt. Ltd. plans to replace the fleet of GA basic training airplanes in the next 18 month by Flight Design models and will open one more flight school in India by end of the 2009.
09/07/09 Aero-News.Net

Decreased violence in India’s Kashmir region is shifting attention to other pursuits. For example, some young women are shedding their veils and flocking to the region’s flight attendant school to make their dreams come true.
Men and women are studying to become flight attendants at the Viinzs Aviation Training Institute.
[Samiya Ayub, Air Hostess Trainee]:
"We only became aware of this new possibility when this institute opened, and we got really excited about joining. Now we have this chance to show the world that we can also become something in life. Just like the British and the Americans who can make a name for themselves, so we also have an opportunity to make a name and show the world that we are capable of something."
The training covers personal hygiene, make-up, language courses in English and French, and practical training such as ticketing and serving food and beverages.
Indians consider an airline job to be glamorous, and flight attendants can bump into celebrities, jet-set to exotic locations, and attend fancy parties.
Sabiya, one of the aspiring air hostesses, says it will help her become independent.
[Sabiya, Air Hostess Trainee]:
"This profession gives us everything. It will enable us to stand on our feet, we will get good salaries and we will meet good people. I would be able to support my family through this job. What else does one need?”
[Shahida Bazaz, Srinagar Aviation Training Institute]:
Viinzs purposely set up its college in a quiet location away from downtown Srinagar to avoid becoming a target of controversy, especially since their trainees wear Western-style uniforms.
Female trainees must lead a dual life.
The moment they step out of the school's walls, they must be covered head-to-toe in the traditional burqa.
08/07/09 NDTV.com

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court Monday issued notice to Air India on the plea of 68 young pilots who have alleged foul play by the airline in its recruitment process.
The pilots allege that Alliance Air, the low cost wing of Air India, has withheld the results of the job interview they had taken over 10 months ago.
Justice Siddharth Mridul issued notice to Air India and Alliance Air asking them to file a detailed affidavit explaining why they are not declaring the result. The court has posted the matter for further hearing Aug 10.
The young pilots, who have spent lakhs of rupees in obtaining commercial pilot licences, had filed a petition in the court last week.
In their petition, filed through advocate Praneet Ranjan, the pilots alleged that the selection process for trainee pilots is not correct. They had appeared in the airline’s selection test and interview in 2008, but were not informed of the results. Instead, the airline put out another advertisement for the same posts in June this year.The pilots claim the new advertisement is an eyewash and the airline is trying to make backdoor entries of certain pilots from other airlines.
The petitioner also pleaded that the court put a stay on the advertisement. However, the court refused, saying that it is too early.The dispute started in April 2008, when Air India invited applications for trainee pilots in Alliance Air.
06/07/09 IANS/Thaindian.com, Thailand

Hyderabad: Wings Aviation Private Limited (WAPL), Hyderabad, today announced the launch of Airbus A320 Course, in collaboration with Advance Aircraft Training Limited, UK.
This is for the first time in India that a non-airliner training academy is offering this course.
Hitherto, only airlines had imparted this course as part of in-service training, CMD, WAPL, Y Prabhakar Reddy told media persons here.
Reddy said already KLM, the Dutch Airlines and King Fisher had admitted their employees while we expect many more airlines to take advantage of this training course. The Airbus A320 is a level III ICAO standard, Airbus A318/319/320/321 with IAE or CFM engine course. The course comprises 35 days theoretical and 10 days practical training.
06/07/09 Press Trust of India/Business Standard

New Delhi: Unhappy with the selection process of Air India, 68 young pilots have moved the Delhi High Court against the airline, alleging foul play in its recruitment procedure.The young pilots, who have spent millions of rupees in obtaining commercial pilot licences, filed a petition in the court Friday.
They have alleged that Alliance Air, the low cost wing of Air India, has withheld the results of the job interview they had taken over 10 months ago. The petition is to be heard Monday.
In their petition, filed through advocate Praneet Ranjan, the pilots alleged that the selection process for trainee pilots is not correct. The pilots had appeared in the airline's selection test and interview in 2008, but were not informed of the results. Instead, the airline put out another advertisement for the same posts in June this year. The pilots claim the new advertisement is an eyewash and the airline is trying to make backdoor entries of certain pilots from other airlines.
"They (private airline pilots) do not have the required type-rating of the aircraft for which the airline has advertised. They are being recruited and given an opportunity to obtain type-rating certificate of the advertised aircraft at the cost of the airline," the petition stated. The pilots say that if Air India had told them earlier that it wanted to hire "type-rated pilots" then they would have readily undergone the required training.
The dispute started in April 2008, when Air India invited applications for trainee pilots in Alliance Air.
04/07/09 IANS/Times of India

DGCA has revised the list of candidates admitted for AME Licence Examination (Jun2009-Regular Session). The examinations are on 7 & 8 July, 2009.

The revised list for various centers:

• Bangalore
• Chennai
• Kolkata
• Hyderabad
• Mumbai
• New Delhi
• Others

03/07/09 DGCA

Little has been resolved a year after American School of Aviation hastily closed amid a growing stack of unpaid bills, leaving about 100 aspiring pilots without their wings.Gemini Flight Service, which sold the flight school gasoline, still hasn't received the $56,000 it's owed.
Merced County may go to trial this year to collect $700,000 in past and future rent due under the five-year lease it had with ASA.
Students, mostly from India, were left without training and their tuition money when American School of Aviation closed a year ago at Castle.
And dozens of students, who filed suit because they were left without flying certificates or tuition refunds, are still seeking closure.
"I'm still frustrated," former ASA student Nigel Dsouza said Wednesday. "I hope we get some money."
Dsouza, 19, had been at the school for three months before it folded in June 2008. He went back to India for a month, returning to San Jose to complete his training. He's 15 days shy of his commercial license.
American School of Aviation opened at Castle Commerce Center in 2005, using the former Air Force base's barracks as dorms.
The students accuse ASA's owner Manpreet "Prince" Singh of using tuition from new students to pay past bills to keep the business solvent, according to court filings.
Collectively, the 100 students, mainly Indians studying in the United States on visas, lost about $4 million. Despite the allegations of misconduct, FBI spokesman Steven Dupre said last week that the bureau has declined to open an investigation for a variety of reasons, though he declined to elaborate. Merced County District Attorney Larry Morse II had asked the FBI to consider a probe because his office couldn't handle the forensic accounting needed to build a case.
Singh has maintained that ASA employees in India made off with some of the business' cash and that rising fuel prices further burdened the school to the point where it had to close.
He declined to comment in an e-mail.
After ASA shut down, students filed a lawsuit in an effort to recoup the $40,000 they each paid in tuition. The one case was stalled, court records show, because the students have been unable to serve Singh with the civil complaint. A deputy and a private service company have been unable to find him.
At a hearing last week in Merced County Superior Court, the attorneys were granted permission to notice the case in a legal journal so it could proceed.
02/07/09 Scott Jason/Merced Sun-Star, USA

The University of Petroleum & Energy Studies, Gurgaon (UPES) through the Center for Aviation Studies (CAS) is launching a B Sc (Aviation Studies) degree program specifically designed and administered for the Airline Pilot who is interested in upgrading his educational qualification with the intent of not only moving up the value chain and do an MBA/PG/Ph D or compete with similarly qualified aviation professionals but without cockpit experience.
CAS visualizes that in the future, the aviation industry will continue to become leaner, thinner, aggressively competitive and multi tasked and multi skilled. The team of professionals manning this industry will be forced to compete within themselves and logically the winner will be the one who is pre – equipped for this. And the time for that is NOW.
CAS believes that at one point of time senior pilots, in addition to flying duties, will also like to shoulder additional managerial responsibilities. CAS also is convinced that these senior pilots are inherently better equipped to handle these managerial and corporate responsibilities as compared to those without any flying experience.
To actualize this potential in pilots and to hone their skills and knowledge, the CAS now offers a B Sc (Aviation Studies) degree. This degree is recognized by the UGC and allows the student pilot to pursue further higher studies in India or abroad within the formal Indian University education system. This degree permits full credit transfer of the subjects learnt at the Ground School, the Flying School, the DGCA exams, the RT exam and also gives due weightage to work experience. The modular structure of this degree program permits lateral entry at all levels and ensures that the pilot works for and is awarded this degree in the shortest possible time while at the same time ensuring no disruption in his study or work schedule.
UPES is an equal opportunity University and strives to support its students in all ways. Therefore, the degree structure enunciated above is vibrant, open and dynamic and UPES will constantly endeavor to keep its programs student friendly and hassle free.
For details, contact: PK Gupta, Adjunct Professor & Program Director. E-Mail: pkgupta@upes.ac.in Cell: 0-9810331188
30/06/09 PRESS RELEASE/University of Petroleum & Energy Studies, Gurgaon

Thiruvananthapuram: Want to cash in on the boom in the aviation industry and do a course that can definitely take you up? The aircraft maintenance engineering (mechanical stream), aircraft maintenance engineering (avionics stream) and aeronautical engineering are the three courses offered by the Regional Institute of Aviation based at Perunthanni in the city.
Aircraft maintenance engineering course leads to the AME licence from the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), Government of India, for maintaining aeroplanes. The aircraft maintenance engineers have to maintain the aircraft in airworthy condition and have to issue certificates of airworthiness before flight. The airworthiness of essential systems like airframe, engine, instruments and radio navigation systems also have to be certified.
The students get work at various airlines, maintenance divisions of aero-engine manufacturers and approved aircraft maintenance organisations.
The eligibility for the course is 10+2 or equivalent pass with 50 percent marks in physics and mathematics or a three-year engineering diploma in any stream with aggregate 50 percent marks. The age limit at the time of admission should not be less than 17 years.
The degree course in aeronautical engineering offered by the institute has been recognised as equivalent to BTech in aeronautical engineering by the Indian Government.
30/06/09 ExpressBuzz