Toronto: A Winnipeg-based aviation school, which is first-choice training facility for Indian students aspiring to become pilots, will soon start its training programme in India where the aviation industry continues to soar.

Winnipeg Aviation School, which along with another local Harv's Air Pilot Training School, has trained hundreds of Indian students as pilots, is on the verge of signing memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with three Indian airports to commence pilot training.

" We have been approached by three state governments with an offer of a land lease of 20 years to start pilot training schools. Winnipeg Aviation Corporation has already been registered in India. We have also bought an aircraft for training in India and set for take-off,'' Hemant Shah, Winnipeg Aviation's managing director for Asia, told sources.

Winnipeg-based Shah, who took the two top Canadian aviation schools to India as part of an aviation mission in 2004, said: " When we saw the boom in the Indian aviation sector, I threw the idea to our Manitoba state government to seize this opportunity. So we took a huge aviation mission to India four years ago.''

The mission heaped a huge harvest immediately as Indian students made a beeline for pilot training in Winnipeg.

" The success of the first mission made me take another mission to India last year. So far, our schools have trained about 200 Indian students as pilots. They have all gone back to India and been absorbed in jobs,'' Mumbai-born Shah said.

He said the aviation sector in India will keep booming despite soaring fuel prices. " Not only airlines but also corporate houses face shortage of trained pilots there,'' he said.

Shah said there are over 380 corporate-owned airplanes in India, and they are perpetually short of trained pilots.

" Corporate houses offer a great opportunity for newly trained pilots. I always advise Indian students who train as pilots to look to corporate houses for a career. I personally know Indian corporate czars, and they always tell me they need first-rate pilots,'' said Shah who settled in Canada 35 years ago. IANS