HYDERABAD: The Airport Authority of India (AAI) collaborated with a French Aviation University to improve the skills of its navigation service professionals. Under the joint project, both the organisations will offer a one-year training course for navigation professionals in India.
The AAI recently entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the French Aviation University, ‘Ecole Nationalle de l’Aviation Civile (ENAC) and launched the ‘Advanced Masters Course in Air Navigation Service Provider Management’ at the Civil Aviation Training College at Begumpet airport here on Monday.
The first batch of 50 Air Navigation Services (ANS) professionals will go through training for 6 months after which they will do an internship for another six months. The masters diploma is recognised by the French ‘Conference des Grandes Ecoles’ and it will be issued to all the professional in the batch in March 2016.
The one-year masters diploma course will train the AAI managers to face the current and future Indian air navigation challenges to ensure safe and efficient operations, said V Somasundaram, member of Air Navigation Services (ANS).
According to the International Aviation Institute, the Asia Pacific region requires around 3,50,000 pilots in the coming 20 years. But India produces only 350-400 pilots every year. With the current pace, India will stand far behind to meet the required manpower in aviation, said Arun Mishra, regional director, International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). He also predicted that around 25,000 new aircraft are set to enter the airspace of Asia Pacific region in the next 20 years.
Mishra felt that the aviation industry failed to attract the young talent of India. Hence he called upon the officials to spread awareness of the opportunities that aviation offers to the young students. Referring to the future requirement of manpower in the aviation field, he said, in 2013, around 3.1 billion passengers used the aviation services in the Asia Pacific region. The number is expected to go up to 6.4 billion by 2016. This growth shows the huge opportunities in this field, he added.