India’s largest flying school, RedBird Flight Training Academy is thinking of investing $6 million in mounting training infrastructure to stay competitive with the increasing demand for pilots in the world’s fastest-growing aviation market over the coming five years.
Chairman of Tenon Group, the parent company of RedBird, Maj. (Retd) Manjit Rajain said, “We have today a budget of nearly $6 million which we have kept aside. This is our money, excluding any external financing that we may be raising from banks or other financial institutions.”
Currently, the company which has 40 aircraft and six flight training schools situated in India and one in Sri Lanka is positive of notably extending its infrastructure by the end of FY24.
Rajian said they were optimistic about the course fees shrinking further with the growth in the company’s operations scale, upholding that the cost of pilot training with RedBird was 30 per cent cheaper as compared to if a cadet went overseas.
Rajain added, “We are proud to state that we are economical. Today, we are also the largest [flight training school] in Asia on every parameter, be it the number of planes, instructors and students trained.”
According to data from the Ministry of Civil Aviation, till date, there are 36 Flying Training Organisations (FTOs) in India operating at 57 bases. In the year 2022, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) handed out a record 1,165 Commercial Pilot Licenses (CPLs) to serve to the demand of the industry.