Air Transport

Europe's biggest type rating training organisation GECAT Flight Academy is expected, within the next two weeks, to take over Oxford Aviation Training (OAT), the largest ab initio flight training organisation in the continent. This is a further consolidation move by GECAT in the European pilot training market, because only in February this year, as General Electric Commercial Aviation Training, it merged with the SAS Flight Academy to create the group that is now taking over OAT.

GCAT Flight Academy describes itself as "the largest type-rating training organisation in Europe and the third largest in the world". It operates 40 commercial full-flight simulators for long-range, regional and helicopter aircraft types, and it runs training centres in Denmark, Hong Kong, Latvia, Norway, Sweden and the UK.

GCAT is a European Joint Aviation Authorities-approved type-rating training organisation and also holds China and Hong Kong approvals. Joining with Oxford enables to extend the ab initio professional pilot training capability it first acquired with the SAS Flight Academy.

OAT's managing director Anthony Petteford says: "The unique combination of our comprehensive ab initio training courses and innovative training technology from OAT Media with the extensive range of GCAT Flight Academy type-rating programmes means we are able to offer exciting and complete airline pilot training programmes - taking trainee pilots from zero experience to the right-hand seat of a modern commercial airliner - and beyond."

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