Pilot Training in Sri Lanka

CAASL pages and the DGCA conversion CAR read on 17 September 2026. Sources below.

Who regulates flying training in Sri Lanka

CAASL is the licensing authority in Sri Lanka, the way DGCA is in India. A Sri Lankan licence is issued by CAASL, under Sri Lankan law, and is a foreign licence as far as India is concerned.

That sounds obvious and it is where most of the confusion starts. A school in Colombo is regulated by Colombo, not by Delhi. Nothing it does can make its graduates Indian licence holders, and nothing it promises about DGCA is within its power to promise. What it can do is train you to a standard CAASL accepts, and CAASL can license you. What happens after that is between you and DGCA.

The organisations CAASL lists

CAASL publishes a page titled “Current Status of Flying Training Organizations”. It was last updated on 5 February 2025 and names 7 organisations, each linked to its own status document dated January 2025.

We have no relationship with any of them, we are not comparing them, and we will not tell you which to pick. The list is here so you can start from the regulator’s page instead of an advertisement.

What a Sri Lankan CPL requires

CAASL publishes its own requirements. This is that list as it stood on 23 December 2022.

• –Age not less than 18 years
• –A CAASL Class 1 medical certificate
• –A course completion letter from a CAASL-approved flying school, as required by Implementing Standard 72
• –A CPL or ATPL theory examination completion result sheet issued by CAASL
• –Flying experience as required by Implementing Standard 72, Appendix 3
• –Flight instruction as required by Implementing Standard 72
• –English Language Proficiency at Level 4 or higher
• –A skill test report

CAASL Implementing Standard 72 and the Personnel Licensing Procedures Manual, SLCAP 3010. The application is made through the CAASL computerised licensing system, then in person at the Training Organisation and Personnel Licensing section with the original logbook and documents. CAASL appoints the flight examiner; the skill test report goes back to the Director for processing.

One structural difference worth knowing. A flight crew licence issued under Implementing Standard 72 is perpetual. Class and type ratings are separate: one year, except a single-pilot single-engine class rating, which is two years, unless the type certificate data sheet says otherwise.

CAASL sets the flying-experience requirement in Implementing Standard 72, Appendix 3. We have not read that appendix and so publish no Sri Lankan hour figure here. The number that decides an Indian career is the Indian one, and that is in Schedule II.

Turning it into an Indian licence

This is the section the page exists for. The requirements come from Civil Aviation Requirement, Section 7 — Flight Crew Standards, Training and Licensing, Series 'G', Part I, Issue II dated 01 July 2019, Revision 4 dated 9 September 2019 — Requirements for issue of Indian licences and aircraft ratings to pilots holding licences and aircraft ratings issued by Contracting States — issued under Rules 41 and 133A of the Aircraft Rules, 1937.

First, the general bar

• –Age, as laid down in the relevant section of Schedule II of the Aircraft Rules, 1937
• –Educational qualifications, as laid down in Schedule II
• –Medical fitness — the Indian medical assessment of the appropriate class
• –Flying experience and competency, as laid down in Schedule II

Then the examinations, by licence

Note what the first row does not say. A Commercial Pilot Licence conversion is two papers, not the full Indian paper set of 5. That is a real and material difference, and it is one of the few genuine advantages of holding a foreign licence — which makes it all the more worth stating accurately rather than burying under “DGCA recognised”.

Then the skill test

The applicant demonstrates competency in a skill test on the type of aircraft the application relates to, to the satisfaction of a DGCA-approved examiner in India.

Then the radio certificate, which is a separate ministry

• –A Certificate of Proficiency from the Ministry of Communications, under the Indian Wireless and Telegraphy Rules, 1954, for operating radio telephony apparatus on board an aircraft
• –On that basis, DGCA issues a Flight Radio Telephone Operator licence under Section ‘Y’ of Schedule II
• –A Signals (Practical) examination for the interpretation of signals, to the prescribed syllabus

And the paperwork rules nobody mentions

DGCA may verify the authenticity and validity of the documents with the aeronautical authority of the issuing State and with the training institute where the training was done.

A licence or rating obtained on incorrect information or false documents is liable to be cancelled, and the applicant is subject to action under the Aircraft Act, 1934, the Aircraft Rules, 1937 and the Indian Penal Code, 1860. The foreign licensing authority may be informed.

The application goes to DGCA, marked for the attention of the Director, Training and Licensing, with the documents required under Schedule II and this CAR. Fees are those prescribed in Rule 48 of the Aircraft Rules, 1937. We do not publish a figure here because we have not read the current schedule.

The currency rule on your foreign rating

The rating on the foreign licence has to be current for the type the conversion application relates to. DGCA defines current as one of two things:

• –At least 10 hours as pilot-in-command in the 24 months before the date of application — fifty per cent of co-pilot or dual time may be counted towards those 10 hours
• –Or a flight review, check ride, flight test or skill test on the type in the same 24 months

The practical consequence is a sequencing decision, and it is the single most valuable thing on this page: plan the Indian steps around the 24-month window on the rating, not the other way round.

The hours question, answered from the Indian side

Schedule II of the Aircraft Rules, 1937 requires 200 hours for a Commercial Pilot Licence, broken down as follows.

Which is why the right question to a school abroad is never “how many hours do I get” but “how many hours against Schedule II, and where do I fly the balance”. A quote built to another country’s minimum is a quote with a second invoice hiding behind it.

What stays the same wherever you train

Four things do not care which country you fly in, and all four can be started from Delhi before you go anywhere.

There is also a prior question worth asking honestly before any of this: whether to train abroad at all. DGCA lists 41 approved flying training organisations in India as on 30 March 2026 and ranks them on published parameters, so the throughput argument for going abroad is testable from your desk.

What to ask before you pay anyone

The question is not whether Sri Lanka has flying schools. It does, and CAASL regulates them. The question is what a Sri Lankan licence is worth to someone who intends to fly for an Indian airline, and the answer is that it is a starting point for an Indian licence application, not a substitute for one.

1. Which regulator issues the licence at the end of the course, and in which country?
2. What are the total flying hours in the quote, and how do they compare with Schedule II of the Indian Aircraft Rules?
3. If the hours fall short of Schedule II, where will the balance be flown, and at what rate?
4. Is the instrument rating included, and on what aircraft weight category?
5. Is the multi-engine endorsement included?
6. What is refundable, on what notice, and under which country’s law is the contract enforceable?
7. What visa does the training require, and what happens to it if the course overruns?
8. Who pays for the conversion steps back in India, and are they in the quote at all?

Two quotes are only comparable once both have answered all eight. A lower headline number with the instrument rating billed separately, the hours set to another country’s minimum and the conversion steps left out entirely is not a lower number.

What we do, and what we do not

An earlier version of this page said the opposite in several places, in the usual vocabulary: training described as recognised for conversion, career outcomes we are in no position to promise, and financial help nobody could confirm. None of it was sourced and the first of them was simply wrong about what the regulation says, so all of it is gone. If you were here before and planned around it, the conversion section above is what you actually needed to read.

Sources

Read on 17 September 2026. Read from a PDF of the DGCA-issued document. Check DGCA's CAR index for a revision later than Rev. 4 before relying on it.

• –CAR Section 7, Series 'G', Part I, Issue II 01 July 2019, Rev. 4 dated 9 September 2019 — Requirements for issue of Indian licences and aircraft ratings to pilots holding licences issued by Contracting States (DGCA)
• –Aircraft Rules, 1937 — rule 41 and Schedule II (DGCA)
• –Civil Aviation Authority of Sri Lanka — Current Status of Flying Training Organizations, page last updated 5 February 2025
• –Civil Aviation Authority of Sri Lanka — Commercial Pilot Licence (CPL) requirements, last updated 23 December 2022
• –Civil Aviation Authority of Sri Lanka — frequently asked questions on personnel licences
• –Civil Aviation Authority of Sri Lanka — Training and Maintenance Organizations