Aviation training schools fly high in smaller towns

Kolkata: The country’s leading aviation training institutes are increasingly stepping up focus on B and C category cities as youngsters from small-town India aspire to high-flying careers in the booming aviation industry. Players like Avalon, Frankfinn, Air Hostess Academy (AHA) and Excellence Aviation Academy (EAA) are all looking to penetrate deeper into these markets, which they expect should contribute significantly to their topline.
The logic is to bridge the projected demand-supply talent gap by selling the dream of a ‘glamorous’ airline job. This comes at a time when the civil aviation ministry has estimated that the airline industry will create some 40 lakh jobs over the next 10 years. Of this, about 40,000 cabin crew will be required by 2010-11 itself.
AHA is, in fact, planning to launch a different model for B and C category cities. AHA’s director-founder Sapna Gupta said the institute intends to offer a pre-training programme for these markets through separate centres.
As a strategy, Frankfinn claims to have focused on smaller towns from the beginning. Of its 78 current centres, nearly 40-45 are in B towns and around 15 in C category towns.
Others, too, are gearing up. EAA, promoted by Parvez Damania of the erstwhile Damania Airways fame, is also finalising the roll out of 22 centres in smaller markets.
03/07/07 Sreeradha D Basu & Writankar Mukherjee/Economic times