Tamworth council lands lucrative deal with Sydney Flight College

The facility at Tamworth Regional Airport has been operating at an $803,849 loss to Tamworth council for two years, but not for very much longer, after Sydney Flight College (SFC) announced it was moving in.

"This is just great news for us as a community, us as a region, and us as a council," Tamworth mayor Russell Webb said on Thursday.

"This whole facility, the training facility and the accommodation, has been sitting here for some time, underutilised. We've copped quite a bit of criticism around sections of the community on why we aren't doing something else with it."

The flight college celebrated the announcement by putting on a free, high-octane air show featuring Red Bull Air Race world champion Matt Hall.

"What the next generation of aviators needs is someone like SFC and Tamworth Regional Council combining forces to create this kind of opportunity and that's where my passion is," Mr Hall said after exiting the cockpit.

SFC's new Tamworth academy will be the facility's first long-term tenant since spring 2021, when a temporary arrangement to house international abattoir workers ended, and the first to use it for it's intended purpose since BAE departed in 2018.

Given recent years' failure to launch CAE Oxford Aviation Academy and a $30 million Virgin Australia pilot training school, SFC CEO Joseph Pilo said he'd like to reassure the local community the new academy is here for the long run.

"We've got a four-year model planned. Our first Tamworth cohort will be July 2024. We're going to start with 32 students and then we're going to expand out to 200 students over the four years," Mr Pilo said.

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After the first intake in July 2024, the SFC will bring a new cohort of students every six months, ensuring a continuously-growing boost to the local economy by bringing jobs and people to Tamworth.

"We see ourselves occupying all of the accommodation facility by 2027, and if we grow beyond that, we're hoping Mr Mayor will put his hand in his pocket and build us some more," the CEO said.

In addition, the flight college will soon begin a nine-month trial program to get used to the facility and keep a promise to have students in Tamworth by 2023.

"What we're gonna do is bring up cohorts of our Sydney students this summer so they can actually fly in the airspace and use Tamworth as a base to do navigational flights," Mr Pilo said.

Due to recent changes to flight patterns in western Sydney, the SFC has until 2026 to use their current airspace at their academy in Bankstown making the move to Tamworth an even bigger win-win for both the company and Tamworth council.

"At that point, we'll scale up in Tamworth and scale down in Sydney ... we will always have our head office in Sydney, but our flight training academy is gonna be based out here in Tamworth. That's our future," Mr Pilo said.

Due to Tamworth's low-density airspace and average of just 10 non-flying days a year, the region is looked on favourably as a place to train future pilots.

SFC president Frank Peronace said on top of all that the "world-class" facilities at Tamworth Regional Airport made the regional move a no-brainer.

"I've done some of the programs myself and they're some of the hardest exams I've done in my life. That's another reason Tamworth will be so good. Students can live on-campus, living and breathing aviation seven days a week if they want to," Mr Peronace said.

While the current agreement has SFC taking up only part of the pilot training facility in the short term, the mayor said council is working to ensure the rest of the facility will not be sitting empty in the meantime.

"We're working with other players in terms of using some of that accommodation while [SFC] isn't utilising it so it doesn't remain underutilised," Cr Webb said.

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