Medicine Hat College, located in southeastern Alberta, has teamed up with Super T Aviation Academy to offer a certificate program in Aviation Management. After signing a memorandum of understanding over a year ago, the two institutions began work on the development of the curriculum. The first student intake is planned for this coming September.

“It’s been a long road, we’ve been working with the College for some time,” said COPA member Super. “We’re very pleased that this has finally come through.” Super T will handle the flight training, while the college will provide 10 courses that address topics such as management, mathematics and meteorology.

Students will finish the program with what is referred to as a ‘frozen ATPL’, which means that graduates will have written and passed all examinations up to and including those for the Airline Transport Pilot Licence (ATPL), with a total of approximately 176 hours of flight time plus an additional 83 hours of training on an Alsim flight simulator. The ATPL cannot be granted until a pilot has logged a minimum of 750 hours of flight.

“We’re going to go and take a look at the academic side of the whole partnership, and give them some really good academic back bone to support them as they go forward into the aviation industry,” said Dean of Trades and Technologies Dennis Beaudoin.

Over a decade ago the college offered similar courses, however is wasn’t a credit course at the time. “What we’ve decided to do is to re-focus it, make it a credit course,” said Beaudoin. “So, now this is going to be a certificate that’s going to be recognized.”

The college is recommending that students plan for a program length of between 18 and 24 months.