IATA gives thumbs up to PIA Training Centre

KARACHI – The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) Training Centre has become the first aviation training centre in South Asia to be authorised by the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
The PIA Training Centre will offer IATA courses for the aviation sector in collaboration with IATA to provide quality training that will benefit the travel and cargo agencies as well as regional airlines. The IATA certified training courses offered initially will include airline marketing; finance; marketing management; ground operations; cargo; dangerous goods regulations; airline cabin crew training; etc while more courses will be added in the future.
This initiative will earn additional revenue for the national airline.
A ceremony was held at the PIA Training Centre where IATA-Pakistan head Mustafa Khan handed over the Authorised IATA Certified Training approval to PIA Deputy Managing Director Saleem Sayani. Speaking on the occasion, Sayani said the training centre has played a major role in creating aviation professionals for different airlines in the region. “We are proud to say that most of the airlines staff of the region has been trained by the PIA Training Centre since 1960,” he added.
He congratulated PIA Director Training and Development Dilawar Fareed Beg, his team and especially the Employee Training Unit for their efforts and initiative for making the PIA Training Centre an IATA authorised training centre and making it a centre of excellence and one of the best training institution of the entire region.
Congratulating the PIA on becoming an IATA training partner, the IATA country head said the PIA Training Centre was already providing training facilities to different airlines and now it will also impart training on a variety of IATA certified courses. The ceremony was attended by PIA directors and senior officials, Civil Aviation Authority executives and representatives of different travel and cargo agencies in Pakistan.
Air Cargo Agents Association of Pakistan Chairman Jamshed Qureshi, PIA Cargo General Manager Sohail Yaqoob and PIA Market Planning General Manager Tahir Niaz also spoke on the occasion. The PIA Training Centre is an internationally recognised airline training centre for conducting comprehensive training in major fields of commercial aviation with latest training aids and equipment. It has been providing training, according to the industry requirements and standards of Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority (PCAA) and International Civil Aviation Organisation ICAO, to a large number of pilots, engineers, cabin crew, passenger handling services, and marketing and sales professionals from over 30 airlines in the world.