India Aviation 2016, an international exhibition of civil aviation industry, in Hyderabad was thrown open to the general public on Saturday as the trade and business segment of the event concluded with several big ticket announcements, agreements and deals.
As thousands of visitors, braving very harsh summer, lined up under the open sky to have a look at the impressive display of more than 30 huge and small aircraft ranging from huge A350-900 twin isle, Boeing 787 and 777 to much smaller Dornier and Embraer made aircraft and helicopters, the experts were busy counting the gains for the civil aviation sector in India.
In one more positive fallout for India from the event, France-based Airbus Industries has announced plans to set up a pilot training centre in Delhi with an investment of $ 40 million in the first phase. The Centre will also impart maintenance training.
Srinivasan Dwarkanath, president, Airbus Division in India said that the centre will be fully owned by the company and employ its own specialized instructors for training.
The centre envisages training 8,000 pilots and 2,000 engineers over the next ten years as the paucity of trained manpower was identified as one of the biggest impediments in the growth of civil aviation industry in the country.
Airbus already has a training centre at Bengaluru since 2007 where it has trained 2,750 maintenance engineers. Airbus officials said that increasing this capacity was very much necessary as Airbus will be delivering an average one aircraft per week to India.