To meet the growing demand for pilots, the Centre has decided to set up a pilot training institute at Lilabari Airport in Lakhimpur district of Assam along with five other airports under AAI across the country.

The Airports Authority of India (AAI) in its official Twitter handle said: “In order to meet growing demand for pilots, Govt. has approved Policy to set up flying training institutes at 6 #AAI Airports.”

Apart from Lilabari Airport, the other airports where the pilot training institute will come up are Belagavi Airport in Karnataka, Khajuraho Airport in Chhatarpur district of Madhya Pradesh, Jalgaon Airport in Maharashtra, Kalaburagi Airport in Karnataka and Salem Airport in Tamil Nadu.

AAI chairman Arvind Singh in a press conference recently had said the AAI identified six airports at Belgavi, Jalgaon, Kalaburagi, Khajuraho, Salem, and Lilabari to set up flying training institutes.

“This would be done on a competitive bidding basis. We have reduced concession fee and other charges to incentivize private operators to set up their shops. AAI will soon come out with a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the same,” Singh had mentioned.

In a report published by Northeast Now on November 5, 2019, the Lilabari Airport director as saying during a meeting that the AAI had requested for 25 acres of land for aviation manpower training academy at Lilabari Airport and another 84 acres for expansion of the runway and isolation bay.

The Lakhimpur deputy commissioner, who was present at the meeting, assured that 18.5 acres out of the 25 acres had been earmarked for the aviation training academy.

The deputy commissioner also informed that the allocation of 56.77 acres out of the 84 acres was under process.