On Oxford Aviation Academy
Provider description
Oxford Flying Club was officially opened by the Mayor of Oxford in 1939. However, its life was initially rather short, and as the country prepared for war, restrictions placed on civil flying quickly curtailed its activities. Resurrected in 1947 and renamed the Oxford Aeroplane club, it gradually increased its fleet and reputation and, by 1960, had made the important transition from a club for private pilots to a fully-fledged flying school geared to the training of professional pilots.
As the parent company, Oxford Aviation, expanded, so too did the training offered by the school, and by 1961, when it merged with the Pressed Steel Co to become British Executive Air Services Ltd, Oxford was firmly established as one of the UK's leading Flight Training Schools. Dedicated ground school buildings and student residential accommodation on site were quickly provided, and the first fully integrated Commercial Pilot's Licence and Instrument Rating courses began in May 1962.
In 1963, the BEAS Flying Training Division was renamed Oxford Air Training School and the rest, so they say, is history. Forty two years later, over twenty thousand trained commercial pilots and aircraft engineers have graduated from the School and can be found flying for many of the world's leading airlines. Despite a change of name to Oxford Aviation Academy (OAA) towards the end of the last decade, the quality and reputation of the training remains as high as ever and OAA is still universally recognised as one of the world's premier Flight Training Organisations.
Our reputation has been built primarily through our training of pilots for the major airlines. In 1966, we were training 50 students a year for British European Airways and the British Overseas Airways Corporation. Others airlines, such as Swissair, Olympic Airways, All-Nippon Airways and Libyan Arab Airlines swiftly followed. By 1972 we had won contracts to train pilots for forty-six major airlines and government bodies representing sixty-two countries throughout the world.
The Queen's Awards for Enterprise are the UK's most prestigious awards for business performance. They recognise and reward outstanding achievement by UK companies.
Awarded in 1972, the then Queen's Award was presented to OAA for innovation, quality and pioneering success in the field of ab-initio airline pilot training.
We are justifiably proud of this achievement and these qualities still form the foundation of our business and training activities today.
In 1970, we also introduced a Basic Aeronautical Engineering Course, thus giving birth to the aviation engineering training side of our business which still exists today.
During the 80's and 90's, our airline contracts increased with a number of Middle and Far Eastern customers such as Air Algerie, Iraq Airways, Gulf Air and Kuwait Airways also starting to send students to Oxford. Others came from further afield, including the Republic of China, Brunei and Singapore. However, it is still our relationships with well known European airlines such as British Airways, Thomas Cook, XL.com, flybe, Air Greenland, Jet2 and bmi to name just a few - which continues to endorse our reputation today.
