Canada firm to acquire Indian flight training school

New Delhi, Oct 3 (UNI) Canada-based Flight Crew International (FCI) is on the verge of acquiring an Indian company to train pilots and engineers.

''It will be our first acquisition in this region,'' said FCI president Dru Narwani who is here to meet aviation industry officials to gain perspective on the industry's inherent strengths and types of challenges -- from human resources to technological.

FCI is a fully owned subsidiary of Atlantis Systems Corporation, a Toronto Stock Exchange listed company in the aerospace sector.

Atlantis' core competence is in learning systems. It designs a courseware using leading edge instructional systems design (web-based, e-learning, simulators, using cognitive learning advanced techniques) to train Canadian military pilots.

''Rather than the traditional mom and pop flying schools which have a very high breakeven point, FCI will now use Atlantis intellectual property to convert all civilian flight training into this new way of teaching,'' said Mr Narwani. ''We'll impart high-quality education using modern simulators.'' Many discussions with regulators and flight schools in Canada and India have confirmed that there is a huge untapped opportunity here, he said. No flight schools teach with this method anywhere today.

Within five years, FCI will churn out 300 pilots and 60 to 70 engineers per year, said Mr Narwani. Training of a commercial pilot in Canada takes about a year compared to three years in India. An aircraft engineers takes about four years to obtain certification.

UNI