Announcing the purchase earlier this year by the UK’s BBA Group of Tyler International School of Aviation at Texas’ Tyler Pounds Field, David McRobert, chief executive of BBA-owned British flight school Oxford Aviation Training, said, “This is an excellent step forward for all of us and I’m very excited by the potential. It represents a great platform for growth and confirms BBA’s support of training activities.” Under previous owners of Oxford there have been tentative moves for a close association between the two schools, but they were inconclusive.

Along with many other European flight schools, Oxford Aviation Training has been taking advantage of the better weather and lower overheads prevailing in the U.S., and it has been sending almost all of its students across the Atlantic to Florida and Arizona for the VFR element of their training. While the advantages for this arrangement are well documented, Oxford has so far been in no more than a relationship with the U.S. host schools, and because of this it has lacked the degree of control that it would like.

In addition to the acquisition of the Tyler School, which meets the standards of the
Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges of Technology, BBA has also purchased four hangars and a large apron. It is also constructing a new flight school that is scheduled to open early next year. In the interim, a number of Tyler flight instructors have attended an orientation course at Oxford to assimilate UK flight-training methods and some UK flight instructors are being recruited to join the Tyler team.