Pilot training organisation PTT Aviation has acquired flight training organisations at Newcastle and Durham Tees Valley Airports, months after acquiring the training facility at Leeds Bradford Airport. It now has a fleet of 30 aircraft and helicopters across the North of England.
Owned by North East-based business jet company Naljets, PTT’s aircraft include helicopters, single and twin prop planes. All three schools also have Alsim flight simulators, manufactured by Alsim.
Craig McLeod, Managing Director of Naljets and PTT, who holds both EASA and FAA Airline Transport Licenses, including EASA Instructor and Examiner authorisations, said, “With access to our expanded fleet, unrestricted airspace and a modular training programme that allows students to progress at a rate which suits them, we have something very special to offer.”
He continued, “The close proximity of each flying school gives us the flexibility and extended resource when it comes to instructor and aircraft allocation as well as providing alternative airfields to fly from in the event of bad weather or visibility and close ties with the other sites when doing cross country flights.
“Our objective is to make PTT the premier pilot training and testing facility in the UK by bringing together industry expertise, investment and a passion to succeed. We want to nurture the pilots of tomorrow and will provide aggressively structured flight training paths, getting pilots where they want to be both quickly and cost effectively. Our business jet operation at Naljets also provides PTT-trained pilots the opportunity to be involved with a flourishing global aircraft management brand.”
Launched in 1925, initially at Cramlington Airfield, by a group of First World War pilots who wanted to continue flying, Northumbria Flying School, which moved to its current base at Newcastle airport in 1935, is the oldest flying school in the country in continuous existence. The club and its reputation have attracted high profile members over the years, from Sam Smith Senior, founder of Ringtons Tea and pioneering female flyer Connie Leathart. Charlie Lutman, who trained with them after winning their one and only scholarship, was said at the time to be the youngest qualified pilot in the North aged 17.
Craig commented, “I learnt to fly at Northumbria Flying School and I have a strong emotional connection with it. I want to continue to build on its impressive history and I am honoured to have the chance to do so under the PTT brand, offering flight training in a safe and professional environment.”
