Qantas Group Pilot Academy

The Qantas Group Pilot Academy operates from a purpose-built campus at Toowoomba Wellcamp Airport in Queensland, with dedicated aircraft, simulators and on-site accommodation, delivered on the group's behalf by Flight Training Adelaide. It was established to widen Australia's own pilot supply rather than to rely on overseas training, and its offering has been extending upward from ab-initio flying into postgraduate aviation qualifications and a planned centre of safety research.

Training at the Qantas Group Pilot Academy

The academy's core programme takes students with little or no experience to a Diploma of Aviation and a commercial pilot licence in an airline-oriented, immersive residential environment. It is important to be clear about the commercial arrangement: there are no funded cadetships with the Qantas Group, so students pay for their own training. What the academy offers instead is a route to the front of the queue — graduates who complete all course requirements by their graduation date are invited to a Qantas Group Accelerate Assessment Centre, and successful students may be employed as pilots by QantasLink, Jetstar or Network Aviation Australia. The group has also funded scholarships worth up to $30,000 towards accommodation and living costs for female, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.

Applications are screened and assessed by Flight Training Adelaide, whose published stages are an online aviation-theory assessment, aviation-specific online psychometric and skills assessments, a core skills test and an interview. Cadets then face a second, separate selection at the Accelerate Assessment Centre when they graduate. Two assessed gates rather than one means the aptitude, psychometric and situational skills tested at airline selection matter here at both ends of the course — before it starts, and again at the point a job is decided.