CAE continues to grow training capabilities in India

SP’s ShowNews (SP’s): CAE continues to increase its civil aviation training presence in India. You obviously view India as an important market.

Jeff Roberts (Roberts): Yes, we certainly do. India is a vibrant aviation market, and there is great demand for pilots, maintenance technicians and other aviation professionals. We expect that demand will keep on growing over the next decade. CAE is well positioned to be the training partner for India’s airlines through our two CAE Global Academy campuses in Gondia (the National Flying Training Institute - NFTI) and Rae Bareli (Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Uran Akademi - IGRUA) plus our current type-rating training centre in Bangalore and the new centre in Delhi. Also, through our joint venture HATSOFF, a Bangalore-based helicopter training centre with the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), we are serving rotorcraft operators in the region as well.

SP’s: CAE signed a five-year contract with IndiGo Airlines to train ab initio pilot candidates. How will this programme work?

Roberts: The IndiGo Cadet Pilot Programme is through CAE’s Pilot Sourcing service by which we provide highly qualified candidates to airline customers with flight crew needs. This service helps streamline an airline's recruiting, selection and training process, and the pilot candidates can be at whatever experience levels the airline requires. In the case of IndiGo, aspiring young pilot candidates will receive their ab initio training at the CAE Global Academy, then proceed to earn their aircraft type rating at a CAE training centre such as Bangalore or Delhi. They will graduate from the programme, ready to fly as A320 First Officers.

CAE Training Centre for commercial aviation, Bengaluru

SP’s: CAE has also entered the helicopter training market in India. What are you offering to civil operators?

Roberts: We have been steadily building training resources in Bangalore at the Helicopter Academy to Train by Simulation of Flying (HATSOFF), our joint venture with HAL. We began in 2010 with a Bell 412 full-flight simulator, the first helicopter simulator certified to Level D by India’s Directorate General Civil Aviation (DGCA) as well as the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). Since then we have also installed FFSs for the Eurocopter AS365 Dauphin and the civil variant of HAL’s Dhruv.