Cabin crew schools eye IPOs, PE deals

Three firms that train cabin crew and other staff for India’s booming aviation sector are looking to sell shares as part of an initial public offering (IPO) next year to raise money to fund their expansion plans. Some of the firms are also wooing private equity (PE) funds.
Air Hostess Academy Pvt. Ltd (AHA), Frankfinn Institute of Air Hostess Training and Avalon Aviation Academy are the firms lining up IPOs. Apart from training cabin crew, these firms also train people in various aspects related to the functioning of airports and airlines, including ground handling, ticketing and customerrelationship.

Air-hostess training firms that operate at the scale Indian ones do—Frankfinn has 65 schools across the country and AHA, 32—may well be unique to the country. The rush to set up such schools in the country is reminiscent of a similar boom in the early 1990s, when firms such as NIIT and Aptech set up IT training schools all over India to feed its growing software industry. Avalon is promoted by Aptech.

Read more in The Livemint article.