Start the smart way
Once you have decided to initiate your Pilot Training, choosing a flight training venue is a primary question for an aspirant. This blog is not about ranking or telling you which is the best one. However, we will try to give you a perspective that you may consider while making a decision for a flight training venue.
Where you want to finally fly with your CPL?
Indian Flying training market
Advantage of pilot training abroad
Cost Vs Training quality
Conclusion
Where do you want to fly with your CPL?
Most of the aspirants of CPL in India wish to fly for India based Airlines. Only a small fraction of aspirants look for options of flying with foreign Airlines in initial years of commercial flying. Indian Civil Aviation market is much younger compared to many larger and developed nations . The same is visible in cockpit as mean age of cockpit crew is much lower. This means early start of career in Airline and better long-term prospects.
Indian Flying Training Market
Govt flight schools and flying clubs used to exist mostly post-independence and till India came with open sky policy in 90’s. Private Flight training institutes came mostly after that. However, with lack of adequate infrastructure on most of airfields and inexperience of the regulators, these training institutes were not able to perform as per global standards. 2005 onwards, few Pilot training schools structured themselves to meet the changing demands of the industry. The gap in the supply of Pilot training has been majorly fulfilled by foreign flight schools. However, many Indian Flight training organizations are now able to impart fair training standards. We cannot deny that a mindset among participating agencies in Civil Aviation still do not consider flight training as an essential component of Aviation leading to slower processes.
Advantage of Pilot Training Abroad
Indian students head to multiple countries for their flying training including US, Canada, Australia, New-Zealand, South Asian countries and so on. Developed countries offer better facilities including good airport infrastructure and aircraft availability for training. The same often result in faster training with fair training standards. However, paper required and conversion process to Indian License takes bit of time including flying at Indian Flight Schools and documentation. Flight training in some of these countries works out cheaper as well. However, stay and logistics will mostly compensate for the saving
Cost Vs Training Quality
There is not much difference between total cost of training in India and outside India. However, with respect to the quality of training. It depends on which country and which flight school you are opting. Not all flight schools abroad are promising. At the same time, in India now, some of the flight schools offer fair standards of training.
Conclusion
There is no one answer to the question. It really depends on which flight school in which country you choose to get trained. Also, one needs to budget the cost of travel, stay and documentation involved in training overseas.
In the interview we had with Capt. Shane (Industry leading Flight instructor & Examiner), he expressed his opinion on this. You can listen to his answer below. For his detailed answer please refer to complete interview available at YouTube here.
*OFLY objective is to disseminate fair and genuine information regarding Aviation. We do not represent any specific flight school. Author of this blog is an Indian Licensed Pilot and keen observer of Indian aviation market. He has flown with multiple flying training schools of India. He enjoys mentoring people who wish to be a commercial / hobby Pilot. He can be approached at info@jagaviation.in for consultation.
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