Moncton Flight College soars above competition
Published Monday July 6th, 2009
Aviation School trains roughly two per cent of the world's pilots and more than 15 per cent of those who take to the skies in Canada
MONCTON - Mike Tilley remembers taking many 24-hour flights home to Canada wondering if the Moncton Flight College would ever get an international aviation deal off the ground.
"It took a lot of years," said the president of CANLink Aviation. "I have probably done over 60 trips to China in the last eight years.
"There were lots of flights home that were close but no cigar. Each time you kind of went 'Geez, is it all worth it?' But you have to show up for the doors to open up."
Starting his own consulting company, it was a cold call in 2004 to Moncton Flight College principal Mike Doiron that has now led to a increase in the school's international success.
Just a few years later, the fight college has rapidly grown to train roughly two per cent of the world's pilots and more than 15 per cent of those who take to the skies in the Canadian market.
Moncton Flight College's Fredericton campus has jumped from an initial 21 students in 2007 to 180 students at last count, strictly on partnerships with Chinese airlines.
In Moncton, there are more than 150 international students in a class of more than 400 pilots in training annually. Doiron said more than 80 per cent of them come to Moncton just by word of mouth.
"What we have been working very hard on is to actually develop the province of New Brunswick into a real core of a flight training centre," he said. "They now come from all over the world.
"People in the airline industry from around the world who know of Moncton Flight College basically say 'I know someone who went there or I went there myself.'"
The college, founded in Moncton in 1929, has now trained more than 17,000 pilots.
"Florida did it years ago and the flight training world puts a lot of money into the economy there," Doiron said.
Based on the Florida model, the spinoffs for the area's economy are between two and five times the revenue generated by the flight program, according to Doiron.
"Next year, between the two campuses, we are estimating we will probably be bringing in $25 million plus into the province," he said. "You multiply that by five times in the best case scenario and that is $125 million coming to New Brunswick.
"Even though we are hearing from a lot of flight schools that they are shutting their doors we, if anything, are now busier than we have ever been."
Tilley said the stability is due to the flight college's target market.
Previously working for an IT company where his focus was the Asian pacific, Tilley knew New Brunswick could make it big in China.
In January 2005, Tilley and Doiron made their first trip to China on former prime minister Paul Martin's trade mission to Beijing and an international relationship began.
Just last November a New Brunswick trade mission netted the Moncton Flight College a contract worth $65 million to train pilots for Beihang Flight College.
"The good thing for us is that we are dealing in the Asian market and yes, things have slowed down, but they see it as a way to catch up," Tilley said. "They have had such a demand for service and new routes that they were a bit overwhelmed in getting the human resources infrastructure in place.
"We're in a good situation where we are based in New Brunswick and our clientele is in a market that is less affected by what has happened."
New Brunswick's clear skies and airport infrastructure contrast China's polluted airspace and need for rapid growth in the aviation industry.
"We have a lot of good airport infrastructure that is under utilized and is great for bringing in dozens of airplanes, trainers and lots of students for an abundance of airspace," Tilley said.
New Brunswick can also sell four-season flying as another advantage.
Chinese pilots could train in Florida and Arizona and see nothing but clear skies, or they could earn their wings through snowstorms and harsh weather conditions that they will face as a commercial pilot.
The success of the Fredericton campus was recently illustrated when the Fredericton International Airport was the busiest of NAV Canada's 52 flight service stations across the country in May, logging a total of 10,790 takeoffs or landings.
That's twice as high as the next busiest flight service station in North Bay, Ont., which logged 5,084 takeoffs and landings.
Relationships have also been fostered within the province over the last year.
Mount Allison University now offers a Bachelor of Science in Aviation, a joint program with the college and the first of its kind in Atlantic Canada.
The flight college is now working to increase efficiencies, with a plan to eye either Miramichi or Charlo Airport in the near future for further expansion.
"It's an interesting time in the industry because there was all this pent up demand post 9/11 so things were going gangbusters," Tilley said. "We have just had such rapid growth at both campuses that it is time right now to bring in some efficiencies and think about further expansion in the future."
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