MacroAsia, Philippine Airlines’ (PAL) aviation support affiliate, and PTC Group, a diversified crew management and training company in the Philippines, have jointly opened the First Aviation Academy (FAA), Inc., located in Subic Bay International Airport.
The PHP150 million (USD 2.9 million) facility took two years to build and features state-of-the-art-facilities including a fleet of brand-new Tecnam planes with Garmin G-1000 full glass cockpit electronic instrumentation and the Redbird MCX and TD2 G-1000 simulators. Both companies eye a total cumulative revenue of USD 17 million and produce more than 300 pilots in the first five years.
The first batch of student-pilots are starting the course this April. After a 12-month intensive training program, graduates would be generally airline-ready by then and will have completed a Private Pilot License (PPL), Instrument Rating (IR), Multi-Engine Rating (MER), Commercial Pilot License, and Airline Transport Pilot License Ground Theory. Top graduates, meanwhile, will also have a chance to become flight instructors.
There are over a dozen aviation schools in the Philippines, however, there is still a shortage of aviation professionals in the country and globally with the demand expected to soar by 800,000 in the next 20 years, according to Boeing.
(Sources: BusinessWorld, PTC Group)
