High achiever?

“Airlines and students from China, India, South East Asia and the Middle East are happy and comfortable with training in Australia, making GFS a great platform from which OAA can bring the highest standards of pilot training to those markets,” said OAA Group chief executive officer Brian Simpson. “We intend to utilise our existing capabilities in that region and combine them with GFS to offer fully integrated training and supply solutions to airlines. ” UK based OAA carries a strong legacy, tracing its history back to the Oxford Flying Club, based in Oxford, England, which started in 1939, and has provided flying training services to a host of students around the world, including the Royal Family.

Then called Oxford Aviation Training, the flying school was sold to GCAT Flight Academy (which was itself formed from the merger of SAS Flight Academy and GE Commercial Aviation Training) in 2007, and saw the Oxford name applied to a wider range of businesses, offering pilot training through from ab initio right up to type ratings on almost all commercial aircraft types.

OAA continues to operate major ab initio training schools in Oxford and Phoenix, Arizona, providing training for a number of airlines, self funding students and military pilots. It also operates eight simulator centres around the world for type ratings training, and recently took over Irish company Parc Aviation, which provides contract flightcrew to airlines and aircraft lessors around the world.

According to OAA ab initio divisional managing director Anthony Petteford, the company has had a long desire to break into the Australian flying training market, which has always enjoyed a strong reputation with airlines around the world, and had been investigating other possible acquisitions before starting negotiations to buy out GFS earlier this year.

“We’re really pleased with what Ross has built up over the years at GFS, and we’re really looking forward to building on his knowledge, experience and relationships,” Petteford told Australian Aviation.

Carrington said that whilst GFS had built a successful reputation as an independent flying school, becoming part of the OAA group would certainly help strengthen the organisation further.

“Being part of a larger, worldwide leader in ab initio training will bring major benefits to our operations in Melbourne, mostly through being able to access the wider services that OAA bring to the table,” said Carrington.

GFS similarly has had an impressive legacy as a leading flying training school, providing flying training services for a number of airlines since 1988, when it conducted conversion courses for flight engineers on behalf of Ansett Australia. It operates from Moorabbin and Point Cook airports near Melbourne.

Today, GFS is focused on providing ab initio training for commercial airline pilots for a number of international airlines, including the Qantas Group’s cadet and traineeship programs, as well as for Chinese and other Asian airlines. Last year, it graduated approximately 330 cadets.

It is also the provider of flying training services for Swinburne and RMIT universities, and was among the first to pioneer combined flight training and tertiary studies in Australia.

Since the late 1990s, GFS has operated a relatively new fleet of current generation Cessna aircraft for its ab initio training.

“We’re the only airline training school in Australia with a full fleet of glass cockpit aircraft,” said Carrington. “This has made us really attractive to the airlines, as it means from day one their pilots are getting used to the look and feel of a modern airliner cockpit. ” In May, GFS also added a new Hawker Beechcraft King Air C90GTi, which is used for multi-engine and turbine endorsements.

Also, with its Rockwell Collins Pro Line 21 avionics suite, the aircraft is a major part of the school’s recently developed – and increasingly well recognised – Instrument Rating and Multi-Crew Cooperation (MCC) courses.

Carrington explained that the customisation which GFS can offer in the MCC course has been a major point of interest from the airlines. “We start training the pilots in their airline’s standard operating procedures from the first flight lesson, which obviously cuts down more expensive training time later on in the course,” said Carrington, pointing out that it was already part of the QantasLink pilot traineeship course.

Petteford said that this course at GFS has already attracted the attention of some of OAA’s major clients from Europe and elsewhere around the world.

“We are working with a major UK airline that is going to send a number of trainee pilots down to Melbourne to embark upon a pioneering course of Multi-crew Pilots Licence (MPL) training at GFS and we believe that this is only the start of it,” said Petteford.

Longer term, Petteford and Carrington expect the MPL course to become an increasingly popular method of training airline pilots, which OAA hopes will be a major growth stream for the company, and is likely to lead to a major increase in the number of international student pilots GFS takes on.

Petteford also said that OAA is planning to campaign CASA to change its approach to pilot training to allow for more simulator time to be included in the syllabus for commercial pilots. This would bring it more in line with the European approach, which would put Australian flying schools in the vanguard of flying training.

For GFS, it will allow the school to further utilise its synthetic training aids, and will bring it into line with OAA’s approach to ab initio training elsewhere.

OAA has applied for GFS to receive European Aviation Safety Authority endorsement to offer Joint Aviation Regulations (JAR) courses, which would allow European students to complete their ab initio training in Melbourne, making GFS one of the few schools in Australia to offer a JAR course.

Over time, the GFS name will also make way for new ‘OAA Melbourne’ branding, but Carrington said that it was a small price to pay for the benefits it will bring as it expands its operations in line with OAA’s global growth strategy.

“We will be able to offer students the ability to start their training with us, and continue their training right up to the point where they take the right hand seat of a commercial aircraft,” Carrington said.

While the company will continue to focus on providing training for Australian and Asian airlines, Carrington is also looking forward to the added exposure that GFS will get to the North African and Middle-East airlines, some of which are already interested in conducting their pilot training in Melbourne.

“It’s certainly going to add to the cultural mix we already have, which should provide a great environment for both our students and staff alike,” he said.

Petteford added that OAA hoped to use its presence in Australia to grow its publishing arm, Oxford Media, which has also been busy developing a range of interactive, computer based training aids.

“Through Oxford Media, we have a major presence in producing training materials and syllabi for flying training, which we now hope to introduce to both ours and other flying schools in Australia,” said Petteford.

Petteford and Carrington are also looking forward to growing the Melbourne operation, which over time will require the company to expand its fleet, facilities and staff numbers. OAA already plans to build its capacity to allow GFS to graduate over 500 pilots each year.

“In time, we’re going to have to look at another training base to handle the amount of students we expect to see coming to Melbourne,” said Carrington, who suggested that another location in Victoria was most likely.

Carrington, who has been running GFS since 1983, will also play a part in developing the wider global ab initio operations of OAA thanks to his years of experience and relationships he has developed with airlines in the Asia Pacific. He will also continue to lead the management of the Melbourne operation.

“It’s a busy time, and it looks like it will only get busier,” said Carrington. “There are also some challenges, but I think that overall we’ve handled challenges well and we will continue to grow the business and offer a high quality of training for our customers. ” “Overall, we see Melbourne as a strategic part of our business and I think with the reputation Ross has built and OAA’s strength as a global flight training organisation that it will be a major success story for us,” said Petteford.

“We are working with a major UK airline that is going to send a number of trainee pilots down to Melbourne to embark upon a pioneering course of Multi-crew Pilots Licence (MPL) training at GFS and we believe that this is only the start of it,” said Petteford.