Japan’s Civil Aviation College Students Grounded by Lack of Flight Training Availability

By Kazuki Koike / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

7:00 JST, December 5, 2025

Widespread delays in flight training at the Civil Aviation College in Miyazaki City has resulted in about 140 students — double the number of annual graduates — being forced to stand by and wait for an average of more than one year, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.

The college has been increasingly unable to keep up with flight training demand since its annual admission capacity was raised by 50% in 2018 academic year.

The college, an independent administrative agency and the only public institution in Japan that trains commercial pilots, intends to alleviate the problem through such steps as allowing students to undergo flight training overseas.

The college’s situation is especially serious given the urgent need to train more pilots ahead of an expected mass retirement at major domestic airlines in or around 2030.

According to the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry, as of the end of August, 146 students had to pause their training midway through the flight training program or before the start of an academic program that teaches subjects such as aircraft flight control systems.

Seventy-three students graduated from the college in the previous academic year, so the number of students on standby is double the number of annual graduates. Although these students face no increase in tuition fees, they must cover their own living expenses while they wait to return to the college.

Students who complete flight training, the academic program and other requirements at the college can acquire a commercial pilot license or other qualifications after two years. Of the 7,274 pilots flying aircraft for Japan’s major domestic airlines as of January 2024, 2,454 had graduated from the college.

The length of time students are forced to wait at home is also steadily increasing and reached an average of 475 days in the past academic year.

Students spend stints of five to seven months training at each of the three campuses — the main campus in Miyazaki City and branch campuses in Sendai and Obihiro, Hokkaido.

The students on standby leave the college dormitories and study by themselves. Consequently, it has become normal for students to take significantly longer than the conventional two years to graduate.

One major factor behind these delays has been the expansion of the college’s annual student enrollment.

The government has set a goal of increasing the annual number of foreign visitors to 60 million in 2030. To help achieve the target, the college’s annual enrollment capacity was increased from 72 students to 108 students from the 2018 academic year.

Although the college has attempted to provide sufficient training equipment and instructors, delays in training have become chronic due to the increasingly complex management of the training schedule due to more students.

One impact of the prolonged wait is the delay in students finding jobs.

In April, the transport ministry established an expert committee charged with devising measures to combat the problem.

Flight training has, in principle, been conducted only on weekdays. The committee has proposed steps such as holding training on weekends, if weather permits, and considering conducting training at facilities with multiple runways in other countries such as the United States and Australia.

The college reportedly aims to eliminate the delays during the 2028 academic year.

“We’ll move forward with effective countermeasures,” said Yasuo Ishii, head of the Aviation Safety and Security Department at the ministry’s Civil Aviation Bureau.