Airbus has announced the creation of a pilot and maintenance training centre in the National Capital Region of Delhi, to support the county’s need for new Airbus pilots. According to Airbus’ latest global market forecast, India requires over 1,600 passenger and freighter aircraft over the next 20 years, with an accompanying demand for new pilots and maintenance engineers.

This investment in a training centre is in line with the country’s “Skill India” programme launched in 2015 by the Indian Government to develop a wide range of advanced competencies.

The centre will be fully owned by Airbus Group India with training to be delivered by Airbus’ specialised training instructors. The centre will be built in a modular concept in order to accommodate four A320 full-flight simulators, with potential to expand.

Airbus has been providing maintenance training from its existing centre in Bangalore since 2007, and has so far trained over 2,750 maintenance engineers. The new centre will accelerate the pace of training to help match A320neo deliveries to India. Staffed by Airbus trainers, the new pilot training centre will have the capacity to train over 8,000 pilots and 2,000 maintenance engineers over 10 years from 2018 onwards.

Airbus has shortlisted suitable sites near the airport area of Delhi, and hopes to finalise agreements for land, construction and simulator installation in 2017. Airbus operates similar centres in the Americas, Europe and Asia.