Jet mulls pilot training academy at Brussels

Brussels: Jet Airways chairman Naresh Goyal is in talks with Belgian companies for setting up a hotel; running a pilot training academy and starting an MRO facility in India.
Brussels Airport has been under-utilised since 2001. Though it has a capacity to handle nearly 30 million passengers annually, the airport (now run by an Australian company) gets a traffic of just about 17 million.
On the other hand, Indian carriers face a problem of getting slots in choked Indian Metro airports. So in a mutually beneficial move, Belgium laid out the red carpet once Jet decided to make Brussels its European hub. Apart from major job creations, it also hopes to get more Indian tourists now. Goyal wants to extend this partnership to solve other infrastructure woes too.
”The Sabena Flying Academy at Brussels Airport will be used to train pilots. Every year we will select 200 science students/engineering graduates and send them for training here,” he said at the Brussels Airport earlier this week.
In addition, Jet is also talking to SN Technik of Sabena for setting up an MRO. The airline has tied up with Sabena’s successor, Brussels Airlines, for providing connectivity to 54 European cities to Jet passengers flying in from north America or India into Brussels.
22/09/07 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India