In December, the Moncton Flight College (MFC) announced the suspension of its Fredericton campus for the entirety of 2025.
St. Thomas University announced a new aviation program back in May which partners with the MFC.
Despite being “disappointed” by the suspension, STU spokesperson Jeffrey Carleton isn’t worried about the future of the university’s aviation program.
“We’re encouraged, simply because the program makes so much sense,” said Carleton. “It’s just a matter of making sure we can launch this and for the MFC in Fredericton to get their campus back to its normal operations.”
The main reason for the suspension of the MFC’s Fredericton campus was a lack of international students that were being sent to the school by their clients, which made up a large majority of their student enrolment.
The Moncton campus of the MFC focuses more on domestic students, while the Fredericton campus had previously focused on international enrolment as 90 per cent of their students were from China.
The international student cap is set to tighten more as time goes on, but Carleton isn’t worried about its potential impact on enrolment being high enough for a quick re-opening of the campus.
“We don’t anticipate that to be a problem,” he said.
The Bachelor of Arts aviation stream program is set to launch in September 2025.
MFC’s suspension will not impact the beginning of the program as the first cohort of students will have a full year of academic coursework to complete at STU before getting hands-on at the flight college.
Carleton said that the university expects the situation will be clearer by the end of 2025 or in early 2026.
Despite this announcement, Carleton said the university hasn’t seen any change in application numbers for the program over the past couple of months.
“We’ve still seen applications from domestic and international students who are interested in this program,” he said. “We had the same number of applicants up to [the suspension] and we have had the same number afterwards.”
This is due to the “very high demand” that the aviation stream program has according to Carleton.
Students who graduate from the four-year program will receive both a bachelor of arts degree and a commercial pilot license. Carleton said that this is part of the reason for the demand.
“[Employers] are very anxious for the noted caliber of students who want a university education and also want to do flight training,” he said.
Carleton said this “opens the door” for graduates to pursue careers in different areas of the flight industry.
“The program is still very, very high interest to students who want to get into the airline sector.”
