KA AAR: GST to Be Levied on Aviation Type Rating Training Courses

The supply of aircraft-type rating training is eligible for GST Karnataka Authority for Advance Ruling (AAR) stated.

The two-member bench of M.P. Ravi Prasad and Kiran T. Reddy sees that the supply of aircraft type rating training services to commercial pilots, with the training curriculum authorized by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation for receiving the extension of aircraft type ratings on their existing licenses, can not consequence in qualification since the petitioner imparts training and problems only a course completion certificate, and hence the impugned services do not count beneath SI No. 66(a) of the Notification No. 12/2017-Central Tax (Rate) dated June 28, 2017, and thus are exigible to GST.

The petitioner is the CAE, a Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA)-Approved Training Organization (ATO) involved in the business of furnishing the type rating training on simulators for different fleets of aircraft to trainees aspiring to receive licenses and ratings from the DGCA. The flight training services imparted by the applicant (ATO) improve the skills and knowledge of trainees.

CAE furnishes classroom-based as well as cockpit-based training for the operations of aircraft. The training contains both dry and wet training. Dry training is training on the simulator where the individual functioning the training is capable to take usage time on the simulator to undertake the required simulation practices on his own concord. The dry training would be undergone by all pilots for a minimum of eight hours over a period of 6 months on a regular basis.

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A wet training is a 35-day type rating training session where the classroom, and cockpit training, are furnished through CAE’s trainers.

Within Commercial Pilot License (CPL) holders via different airlines, CAE would get involved in furnishing the dry training, who would have already type-rated for the particular aircraft.

Beneath the dry training, the airline companies would have allotted the right to use the full flight simulators for the scheduled hours through their pilot’s training beneath the directions provided by the instructor of the airline company.

The petitioner seeks an advance ruling on the problem that if the aircraft supplies type rating training services to the commercial pilots through the training curriculum permitted via the Directorate General of Civil Aviation in order to take the extension of the aircraft type ratings on their current licenses get exempted from the imposition of the CGST and Karnataka Goods and service tax.

On October 11, 2019, the petitioner would refer to circular No. 117/36/2019-GST. The circular specifies that the GST exemption applicability for the DG Shipping authorized maritime courses that would get functioned by Maritime Training Institutes of India to the effect that the Maritime Training Institutes and their training courses are authorized via the Director General of Shipping and are acknowledged beneath the provisions of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1958, read with the Merchant Shipping (standards of training, certification, and watch-keeping for seafarers) Rules, 2014, and hence the institutes are educational institutions.

Aircraft Act and the Aircraft Rules did not authorize the petitioner’s institute the conduct an examination that furnishes a qualification, AAR stated, however merely to provide the course completion certificate that is required merely as one of the enclosures to furnish the application for the Type Rating examination conducted by the DGCA. No applicability of the circular would be there to the type of rating training that is been provided through the petitioner and hence the circular on 10.11.2019 pertinent to shipping courses does not being applied.