Having established a firm foothold in the airline training market, Miami-based Pan Am International Flight Academy (PAIFA) is now planning a "massive" expansion into the business aviation training field.

Company president and chief executive Pedro Sors declined to go into detail, but said his goal is to provide a "kinder, gentler" alternative to the training programs offered by his major competitors.

"This is a service business and you have to take care of the customer," he said in a interview with Show News. "We're going to bring a fresh approach to the marketplace, an alternative to the traditional FlightSafety/Simuflite training activity. There is a void in the business jet training industry, and everyone is looking for an option."
Toward this goal, PAIFA plans to tailor its training programs to meet specific customer needs and situations, as opposed to the costly, highly-structured programs offered by the two largest training companies. A major focus will be single-pilot owner/operators, customers that have been a focus of Orlando-based PAIFA subsidiary SimCom since its inception ten years ago.

SimCom has just signed an exclusive contract with The New Piper Aircraft Company for recurrent and transition training in five of the company's piston aircraft models, and the two companies will also partner in the development of pilot and maintenance training courses for the Malibu Meridian turboprop.

SimCom will also make a Cessna Citation II simulator available for training in Orlando this spring. Courses will be available for Citation 500, 550, 550S and 560-series training, including type ratings and recurrency.

PAIFA has also created a Cessna Caravan training program in Memphis, TN, as part of a long-term agreement with Federal Express. Sors says PAIFA will become the exclusive provider of Caravan and Ayres Loadmaster training for FexEx Feeder affiliates.

Additionally, PAIFA has agreed to market excess simulator time for Northwest Airlines' training arm, a deal that grants it access to a number of airline training clients. "Effectively, we have purchased our largest competitor," Sors says.

Founded in 1993 at the former Pan American International Airlines training facility in Miami, PAIFA was acquired by J.W. Childs--a Boston-based investment group--in July 1998. PAIFA has been on the acquisition trail of late, with the purchases of training providers SimCom in Orlando; Dulles, Virginia-based Reflectone and Westwind Aviation Academy in Phoenix, AZ.

PAIFA has 225 full-time employees at its various operations, and around 300 part-timers. Sors claims annual revenues in the $20 million-range, stating that the company is "highly profitable."