NFTI: Rising to the Top, and How

The Flying Engineer visited the National Flying Training Institute (NFTI) at Gondia, a CAE Global Academy, between 16 and 18 January 2012. He spent three days on the campus and airside, saw the facilities and spoke to instructors, faculty and students. This version compared NFTI with IGRUA and asked why NFTI had risen to the top. A separate article was planned for the Airbuz issue for the India Aviation 2012 show in Hyderabad.

Why IndiGo built a pilot pipeline

Indian aviation was going through a rough time, with damage to its reputation for safety and hiring. IndiGo was the one airline doing well. In March 2012 it had 51 Airbus A320s, the largest fleet of the type in India. It flew a single type with 180 economy seats and ran its flights and its promises to staff by the minute.

What it could not control was pilot quality. A few captains were found to hold fake Airline Transport Pilot Licences, and one made a landing in Goa in early 2011 with no flare, nose wheel first. In June 2011 IndiGo signed a five year contract with CAE to train ab initio cadets. It was the first Indian airline to have a cadet pilot programme with a specific flight school. IndiGo picks the applicants, has some control over training at NFTI and tracks each cadet. This relationship moved NFTI past IGRUA at Rae Bareli, Uttar Pradesh, which had been the top school.

What makes a flight school good

The author ranked three things, in order: the fleet, the instructors and the facilities.

The fleet

An aircraft that is too advanced, too fast, or hard to control slows a student down. One that is too simple is not worth training on. The Cessna 172 and the Diamond DA-40 are both respected single engine trainers. The author rated the DA-40 slightly better: it is built from composites, so it is lighter, faster and climbs better. It has a variable pitch propeller, and both have a Garmin G1000 glass cockpit like a modern airliner.

The instructors

Indian Air Force instructors bring thousands of hours and unmatched training. But they come from rules, procedures and radio calls that differ from civil flying. Civil instructors may have less experience but teach only civil rules and procedures.

The facilities

Airline flying is instrument flying, so a school needs unlimited ILS and VOR access. A simulator allows around 12 approaches an hour, against 4 to 5 in the aircraft, and covers emergencies and procedures without time, weather or availability limits. Controlled airspace, a qualified air traffic controller and good maintenance also matter.

NFTI against IGRUA

These two had the right ingredients. Both flew DA-40 single engine and DA-42 twin aircraft with matching cockpits. Both had DA-40 and DA-42 simulators, good ground schools, VOR and ILS aids, Class D airspace and Jeppesen approach charts. IGRUA had mainly retired Air Force instructors, though civil instructors were growing in number. Both are CAE Global Academies, two of 11 worldwide and two of only three in Asia. The author saw no apparent difference between them.

Cost and placement

Training cost about INR 30 lakh. The difference was in jobs. IGRUA had existed for 25 years and mostly supplied Indian Airlines and Air India, which picked students on campus. It produced about 40 pilots a year then and over 100 later. Air India's poor finances had stopped its hiring, and even people with offer letters were waiting, so the author called placement bleak.

NFTI, three years old, placed students mainly with IndiGo in two ways.

• The cadet pilot programme: the entrance test costs INR 5,000. The CPL course takes up to 17 months with a monthly stipend of INR 15,000. The A320 type rating then pays INR 25,000 a month. After that the cadet joins as a trainee first officer on INR 75,000 a month, which roughly doubles once released as a first officer. The cost is about INR 30 lakh for the CPL and INR 15 lakh for the type rating. With the stipend, the fee drops by about INR 3.3 lakh, and a job is almost certain.
• The ordinary CPL course, followed by an application to IndiGo through the CAE type rating programme. The fees are the same, payable in instalments, and the type rating costs INR 15 lakh, but the job is less certain.

A third route was Qatar Airways. NFTI cadets with a CPL and cleared ATPL papers could be called to Qatar for interview, with the airline paying for the A320 type rating. This is cheaper but needs more effort. There were rumours that Qatar would start a cadet programme with NFTI, paying part of the CPL cost and all of the type rating, with tougher selection.

Conclusion

Thanks to CAE's standards, NFTI and IGRUA stood almost level in training. IGRUA had produced fine pilots for 25 years, but recent graduates struggled to find jobs. NFTI was young but had strong ties with IndiGo and Qatar. The author saw cadet programmes as a win for the student, the school and the airline. The original showed two DA-40s, VT-FGJ from IGRUA and VT-NFB from NFTI, on a taxiway.

A reader asked for a date on the article so others could judge how current it was. Several other readers added comments.