Pilot academies tying up with foreign flying schools
New Delhi: A few Indian pilot academies have started tying up with foreign flying schools so that they can cut down sharply on training time and churn out pilots for domestic carriers with greater frequency. In countries like the United States, Australia and Philippines, a commercial pilot’s licence can be obtained in just six months.
On last count, there are about a dozen or so academies all over the country which have forged such foreign tie-ups.
Delhi-based High Flyers is one of them. In the last two years, it has recruited more than 300 aspiring pilots a year and sent them for training to the Pan Am Academy in the US, one of the leading flight training institutes in the world.
Pan Am Academy has its roots in Pan American World Airways, which was the US’s leading international airline before it shut down in 1991. The institute’s massive recruitment of Indian students started in June 2005 when it tied up with High Flyers.
There are other institutes in Delhi like the Fortune Institute of Aviation, which recruits people for institutes in the Philippines and Canada, and Griffin Aviation, which recruits students for training in the Philippines.
Last year Kerala-based Ave Flying Academy sent around 30 aspirants abroad.
At the overseas institutes, the aspirants can get the commercial pilot licence (CPL) licence in 6-10 months. The fee ranges between Rs 16,000 and Rs 21,000. In some cases, this works out cheaper than getting a licence in India.
Also, aspirants get to hone their skills on better machines and infrastructure. The Pan Am Academy, for instance, has three dedicated runways which even the larger Indian airports like Delhi and Mumbai do not have.
Pan Am also gives simulator training for aircraft like the A320 and Boeing 747. Indian institutes do not have simulator training for these aircraft.
Pilot schools like High Flyers, on the other hand, conduct the tests on their own and also help students in obtaining the visa.
08/10/07 Anirban Chowdhury/Business Standard