New Zealand Airline Academy directors are on cloud nine, after being recognised at the Indian Newslink Business Awards recently.

The academy won the Best Medium Business, and the Business Excellence in International Trade with India categories, at the event, held at Auckland’s Trusts Arena last month.

Academy chief executive and director Jonathan Manuel said he was “pretty stoked” about the wins.

“We’ve been through a very difficult patch, especially in the last two years when the border was closed, because we have a business 100% reliant on international students. 

“So we don’t cater to the domestic market, because we don’t have student funding - we haven’t applied for it.”

The academy has been based at Oamaru Airport for about four-and-a-half years, and had close to 60 students, from eight different countries, completing the year-long course this year, Jonathan said.

“Slowly we are building back our numbers. We had about 83 students when we went into lockdown, so from there we almost went to zero, and then now building back numbers . . . we should be back to pre-Covid numbers by mid-next year.” 

Celebrating their wins with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern (centre) are (from left) Celroy and Sandy Mascarenhas, Beryl Jonadhan and Jonathan Manuel. PHOTO: Supplied

This was the first time the academy had entered the business awards, which had not happened the last two years, due to Covid.

It is an exciting time for the business, which has a contract to train pilots for Indian airline AirAsia India.

AirAsia is based out of Malaysia, but the Indian arm has recently been purchased by India’s largest conglomerate Tata Group, which also owns Air India and Vistara airlines.

“It’s going to be really big . . . All of a sudden, what has actually happened is, this small little flight school here in Oamaru - by the way we contribute about 20% of all the flight training that happens in New Zealand - this flight school is the only flight school which has a contract with this group. So that has suddenly put us in the spotlight.” 

The contract with AirAsia India was “ongoing” and the aviation sector in Asia (not including China) had “just blossomed”, Jonathan said.

“They have actually crossed pre-Covid levels already.” 

Recent reports from Reuters, also had Air India placing record-breaking orders for up to 500 jetliners, from Airbus and Boeing, worth tens of billions of dollars.

“So the scale is something similar to starting three new Air New Zealand airlines,” he said.

Jonathan attended the awards ceremony with his wife Beryl Jonadhan and fellow academy director and head of training Celroy Mascarenhas with his wife Sandy.

Most of the political party leaders, including Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Opposition leader Christopher Luxon were there, along with Indian High Commissioner Neeta Bhushan. 

Jonathan said the awards were recognition for his and Celroy’s work for the aviation sector in New Zealand for the last 15 years.

Judges' comments said the academy “stood out as a risk-taker, willing to push the envelope to expand its business goals”. 

“The business represented a true entrepreneurial flair and yet solid business practices and well-proven methods to expand to this growing market.”

They were described as a “rising star” in the industry.

“They are innovative and strategic and have demonstrated their ability to meet the competition head-on and win.”