Air India has announced it will set up its own flying training school in Maharashtra. This comes as the airline is looking to hire more and more pilots as it expands its fleet.
Air India’s Flying Training School
Air India will set up South Asia’s largest
Flying Training Organisation (FTO) at Amravati in Maharashtra as part of an initiative by the
Maharashtra Airport Development Company (MADC). The DGCA-licensed FTO at Amravati’s Belora airport will be operational by the first quarter of financial year 2026 and will target
to graduate 180 commercial pilots every year.
The Air India FTO will be the first of its kind by any airline in the country. It will have a fleet of 31 single-engine aircraft and 3 twin-engine aircraft for training. The airline has been awarded a tender by MADC to operate this FTO for a period of 30 years.
The FTO at Amravati will be a significant step towards making Indian aviation more self-reliant and offering more opportunities to the youth in India to fulfill their ambitions of flying as pilots. The young pilots coming out of this FTO will fuel Air India’s ambition of becoming a world-class airline, as it moves ahead in its transformation journey.
Campbell Wilson, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Air India said.
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Air India will develop a training institute over 10 acres, with digitally enabled classrooms, hostels at par with global academies, a digitized operations center, and its own maintenance facility.
The FTO will be operational by Q1 FY26 and offer aspiring pilots an opportunity to undergo training with world-class curricula at par with best-in-class global schools. We are delighted to be playing a part in building the aviation infrastructure India needs as one of the world’s fastest-growing aviation
Sunil Bhaskaran, Director, Aviation Academy, Air India said.
markets and to support the government’s vision for an Atmanirbhar Bharat.
Earlier this year, Air India announced its new
Training Academy, spread over 600,000 square feet, the largest in South Asia, in Gurugram.
Meanwhile, Air India recently unveiled new seats for its Airbus A320neo fleet.
Featured image by JetPhotos
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