1 March, 2019:Airbus will launch its own flight academy and extend its training services offering by adding “ab-initio” to its portfolio to meet the high market demand for cadet pilot training in Europe as they would require 94,000 new pilots over the next 20 years.
The Airbus Flight Academy Europe aims to train up to 200 pilot cadets annually. Any high school graduate over 18 years old can join the Airbus Pilot Cadet Training Programme. The candidates will have to take online and on-site screening tests before being eligible for training which will include 750 hours of ground school, plus 200 hours of flight training.
The candidates will be trained using a modern fleet of both single and multi-engine aircraft equipped with full digital cockpit technology as well as the latest flight simulators , the training programme will prepare students with the skills and mindset which will be necessary to become “operationally-ready pilots” focusing on the all-important development of key pilot technical and behavioural competencies.
Taking advantage of their cross-divisional synergies, the Airbus Flight Academy Europe which is based in Angoulême, France, will use Airbus standardised instructors to deliver the ab-initio Pilot Cadet Training programme approved by EASA by the end of 2018, complementing the intermediate and advanced training phases that are currently available and offered in the existing training network on 17 sites worldwide.
Airbus Flight Academy Europe, previously known as Cassidian Aviation Training Services (CATS), is a wholly owned subsidiary of Airbus.