Aerospace major Airbus on Friday announced plans to set up a pilot and maintenance training centre in the National Capital Region (NCR) of Delhi at an investment of $40 million (about ₹270 crore).

“This facility, expected to be ready by the end of next year (2017), will be fully owned by Airbus Group India and is aimed at training pilots,” said Srinivasan Dwarakanath, President, Airbus Division in India. The training will be delivered by Airbus-specialised instructors, he added.

Speaking on the sidelines of the India Aviation 2016 event here, he said: “On an average, one Airbus aircraft per week is expected to be delivered to Indian carriers over the next 10 years. The need for top quality training will be perpetual.”

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 is expected to accelerate the pace of training to help match A320neo deliveries to India, the company said. The Delhi facility will be able to train over 8,000 pilots and 2,000 maintenance engineers over 10 years.

The India centre will join its existing global network and will welcome its first pilots and engineers in 2018. The training centre will also serve some of the neighbouring countries.

The long-term vision is to equip pilots and engineers with superior flying and maintenance skills to operate contemporary and next-generation Airbus aircraft to be delivered to airlines in India, said the aerospace firm.

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