Students see idea taking flight

The selected group of 30 year 9 students took part in the airline masterclass, themed around the aviation industry.

The initiative was created by Young Enterprise in partnership with Leeds Bradford International Airport and British Airways and is aimed to develop students’ key employability skills, including team-building and communication.

The programme, which took place on April 27, split the group of youngsters into teams, each challenged to develop their business skills by using a virtual multi-million pound budget to set up and run their own airline.

The challenge allowed the students to decide who were allocated the various roles and responsibilities involved, select destinations, create a flight plan, develop the brand, put together a budget, sell their seats to travel agents and finally to present their business plan to the panel of judges.

The day was led by Chloe Hannath from Young Enterprise, along with eight volunteers from the airline industry who shared their knowledge with the participants.

These included an aviation lecturer from Leeds University as well as three of his students - all of whom have their pilot licenses.

The winning team have been invited to Leeds University to see their three state-of-the-art flight simulators in action.