Flying Training Organization

In 2010, about 79 million people traveled to/from/or within India. By 2017 that doubled to 158 million. International Air Transport Association estimates that the country will experience 300 million passengers’ departures through a movement of 6 million aircraft by the calendar year 2030. This is expected to reach 520 million by 2037. The total air cargo handled reached 3.56MMT by 2017 and is expected to cross 11.4 MMT by the year 2032.

According to a study done by Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation, the pilot strength in the country in the year 2017 was at about 8000 and was estimated to reach about 22000 by the year 2028. Considering the retirement and migration of pilots, the demand over this decade, is expected to be about 18000. The number of Flying Training Organisations (FTOs) in India is too less, due to acute shortage of infrastructure in the country for training pilots. The current supply of the trained pilots in the country is stands at about 600 per year and the gap is addressed by pilots who are trained in foreign countries.

As part of the Govt of India’s Aatmanirbhar Bharat policy in September 2020, the Centre came up with a liberalised Flying Training Organisation (FTO) policy to increase the number of locally trained pilots. There is a need to establish atleast 20 new FTOs in the country to support the demand.

In this regard, it is proposed to enable FTOs to operate from the airstrips at Tamil Nadu where the air traffic and infrastructure are conducive. This proposal is the part of Tamil Nadu Defence Industrial Corridor (TNDIC), which envisages contributing significantly to manufacturing and service needs of the Aerospace and Defence industry of the country.