Simaero to invest €200 million to set up flight simulator facilities in India, calls for doubling pilot training capacity

Khushbeg Jattana, General Manager - India, Simaero along with Mehmet Akif Nacar, CEO, Havelsan at the signing ceremony in New Delhi

French aviation training company Simaero said India will need to double its flight simulator training centres by 2030 to cater to the growing demand for pilots as domestic airlines are set to take delivery of over 1,000 new aircraft over the next decade.

"India will need 30 additional narrow-body flight simulators and 10 additional wide-body flight simulators to meet the demand to train 10,000 flight-ready pilots by 2030," Khushbeg Jattana, general manager of Simaero India told Moneycontrol.

He added that currently there are around 33 narrow body simulators operational in India. Simaero India will open its first flight simulator training centre in Gurugram by March 2025. The company aims to train 6,000 pilots annually by 2027 when the facility will have eight flight simulators.

Simaero plans to invest around 200 million euros in India to set up the facility in New Delhi and another two facilities in the future with four flight simulators each. One A320 NEO full-flight simulator can cover close to 6,000 hours of flight crew training, Jattana said.

"In the first phase of investment, Simaero will invest 100 million euros to set up an eight-bay flight simulator facility in Delhi, with four Airbus A320 simulators, two ATR 72-600 simulators and two Boeing 737 simulators," Jattana told Moneycontrol. He added that Simaero will not only look at providing pilot training for all domestic airlines in India but will also explore partnerships to train pilots for other South Asian airlines as well.

Mehmet Akif Nacar, chief executive officer and president of Turkish simulator manufacturer Havelsan, concurred.

"Most of the pilots being trained for Indian airlines are currently trained abroad. With the growing demand for pilots in the coming years, the country will have to explore plans to add FTOs (Flying Training Organisation) and ATOs (Approved Training Organisation) in the country," Nacar said.

For its first simulator in India, Simaero has partnered with Turkish manufacturer Havelsan.

Flying demand

Aviation consultancy firm Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) has estimated that India will need an additional 10,900 pilots by the end of 2029-30. While the exact numbers of engineers, crew, and other skilled and unskilled personnel required are not available, it is reasonable to assume that the final figure will be several thousand.

Earlier this year Boeing had estimated that India will need 31,000 pilots in the next 20 years, or nearly 1,500 pilots every year.

Jattana and Nacar also said that India has the potential to be a major pilot training centre in Southeast Asia if the country sets up the infrastructure in the next few years. Indian companies also have the capability to manufacture simulators indigenously, they said.

"India has the potential to not only train pilots for domestic airlines but also for airlines around Southeast Asia, I estimate that it will be cheaper to train pilots in India when compared to Singapore, Dubai and Malaysia if capacity is created in the country," Jattana told Moneycontrol.

Tata venture

In January 2024 Tata Sons announced that it would set up a 600,000-square-feet aviation academy in Gurugram, the largest in South Asia. The academy, a joint venture between Tata-owned Air India and Airbus, aims to train more than 50,000 aviation professionals, including pilots, cabin crew, ground handling personnel, engineers and security staff over the next few years.

Advanced training of pilots in two simulator units with over 20 full flight simulator bays is in the offing. The academy will feature simulators of the Airbus A320 Family, A350, Boeing 777, Boeing 787, and Boeing 737 family to begin with.