Qatar Aeronautical Academy

Qatar Aeronautical Academy (QAA) in Doha is the Gulf's longest-established aviation college, founded in 1977 as the Civil Aviation College of the Gulf States, renamed Qatar Aeronautical College in 1996 and elevated to academy status by Amiri Decree in 2019. From a campus located between Doha International and Hamad International airports, it trains pilots, aircraft maintenance engineers, air traffic controllers, flight dispatchers and other aviation professionals for Qatar and the wider region.

Training at Qatar Aeronautical Academy

For aspiring airline pilots, QAA's centrepiece is the Qatar Airways Cadet Pilot Training Programme, which develops selected students into future first officers for the national carrier through a Multi-Crew Pilot Licence (MPL) course lasting up to eighteen months. The programme sits within Qatar Airways' nationalisation strategy and is open to Qatari nationals and applicants whose mother is a Qatari national — a fully sponsored national pathway rather than an open international cadetship — while the academy also delivers a broad catalogue of approved courses across pilot, engineering and operations disciplines.

Selection for the cadet programme is run to airline standards, with academic screening, English-language requirements including a recent IELTS score, medical certification and staged assessments before an offer is made. Competition among eligible applicants for a sponsored route into Qatar Airways is intense, and candidates who have already sharpened their performance on computer-based aptitude and psychometric tests arrive at each assessment stage with a genuine edge.