AMERICAN and European aviation training companies are beating at the doors of Asia's airlines in the search for business.
Competition is intense, particularly in pilot training, with China a leading attraction.
It could be, however, that Japanese carrier All Nippon Airways (ANA) will come to the fore next year.
In 1992, at a cost of US$25 million, ANA opened a pilot training facility of its own, the International Flight Training Academy (IFTA) at Meadows Field Airport, in Bakersfield, California.
With restrictions on airspace in its home country, ANA, like Japan Airlines (JAL), felt in the booming 1980s that it would be a good investment to open its own pilot training facilities overseas, to supplement ground school training in Japan.
With record aircraft orders in the 1980s to meet projected demand it was felt the schools would have ample business in training its own pilots alone.