Japanese Airline Adds Portugal-Based Airbus Ab-Initio Pilot Training Pathway

Japan & Portugal – Japanese airline All Nippon Airways (ANA) and aircraft manufacturer and training provider Airbus have signed a flight training agreement under which Airbus will deliver ab-initio pilot training for ANA Group and partner-airline cadets at Sevenair Academy in Ponte de Sor, Portugal.

• 19 cadets will form the first intake under the agreement and are scheduled to begin training before the end of 2026.
• The programme is intended for candidates with no previous flight experience and will take cadets through the ab-initio phases required to become licensed pilots. Training will be conducted at Sevenair Academy’s Ponte de Sor operation in Portugal.
• Airbus said the cadets will follow a unified curriculum based on its flight-training concepts, methodology and learning tools, incorporating Competency-Based Training and Assessment from the beginning of their training.
• Sevenair is an official member of the Airbus Flight Academy network and currently delivers the Integrated Airbus Pilot Cadet Training Programme. Its standard published Airbus ATPi pathway takes approximately 24 months and is structured across a core phase, theoretical ATPL instruction, basic single- and multi-engine flight and simulator training, followed by JOC/MCC or APS/MCC training.
• Sevenair currently reports a training fleet of 40 aircraft and five simulators. Its aircraft comprise six Cessna 150/152s, eight Tecnam P2008s, 11 Piper PA-28s, seven Diamond DA40s, three Tecnam P2006Ts and five Diamond DA42s, with 34 of its 40 aircraft equipped with glass cockpits.
• The new agreement adds another international training provider to ANA Group’s existing cadet-training network.
• ANA is simultaneously expanding its internal advanced pilot-training infrastructure in Japan. AFM previously reported the entry into service of an additional Boeing 787-9 full-flight simulator at ANA’s Tokyo training centre in 2024, bringing its L3Harris/Acron 787 device count at that point to five; a further Boeing 787 FFS was subsequently contracted for service during the second half of 2026.
• ANA’s official business statistics list 289 aircraft as of March 31, 2026. The published breakdown includes 90 Boeing 787s, 28 Boeing 777-family aircraft, 21 Boeing 767s, 39 Boeing 737-800s, eight Boeing 747-8 freighters, 46 Airbus A320-family aircraft, 29 A321-family aircraft, three A380s and 25 DHC-8-400s. 

Source: Airbus