Groundbreaking APATS News: Airline Partners With Airbus On New Pilots

Airbus and All Nippon Airways (ANA) have signed a flight training agreement to build the airline's next generation of pilots, expanding a partnership spanning nearly four decades.

Airbus will deliver an ab-initio pilot training programme for cadets across the ANA Group and partner airlines. The curriculum will be held at Sevenair Academy in Ponte de Sor, Portugal, taking cadets with no prior flight experience through every training phase to become licensed pilots. The inaugural cohort of 19 cadets is scheduled to begin training later this year.

By integrating the programme into the Airbus network, cadets will train under a unified curriculum based on standard Airbus flight training concepts, methodologies and learning tools from day one.

"This programme incorporates the latest safety insights and aligns directly with the Airbus philosophy of Competency-Based Training and Assessment (CBTA)," said Takeshi Tsuchida, Executive Vice President of Flight Operations at ANA. "It will equip our cadets with the essential competencies required to navigate complex operational environments and manage flight operations seamlessly."

The aviation industry will require 633,000 new pilots worldwide over the next 20 years, with 104,000 needed in the Asia-Pacific region alone, according to the Airbus Global Services Forecast.