Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) now offers short executive education programme to professionals. The programme is launched in collaboration with the Lavasa Corporation.

The three-day residential programme for the airline industry professionals is to be conducted in Lavasa, near Pune. The programme called "Airport and Airline Systems: Planning, Design and Management" is guided by MIT professors Richard de Neufville who is professor of engineering systems along with Peter P Belobaba who is the principal research scientist at the International Centre for Air Transportation, department of aeronautics and astronautics in the premier Institute.

More than 25 senior executives and government officials from the Indian aviation sector have enrolled in the MIT course.

Union Minister for Civil Aviation Praful Patel stated that the country will have 40 new airports over the next decade with passenger volumes going up three times to 300 million.

Bhaskar Pant, executive director at MIT's Office of Professional Education said "This is the first professional course MIT has offered in India. We hope to bring courses in other areas of transportation and other science and technology areas, too."

He clarified that the programme is not exclusive with Lavasa and expressed "This is a pilot programme. The success of this course will determine what we do in the future. We are confident that we will continue to offer more courses in India."

The course is to focus on the issues like the planning, design and development of airport infrastructure and airline services while also aiming to cover the various aspects of air traffic control, airport capacity, the fundamentals of airline economics, planning and operations, according to the professor leading the course.

The professor also pointed out that the forecasts on the industry cannot be completely relied upon on the face of changing government regulations, new airlines and technological changes.

MIT launched the international outreach initiative last year by organizing courses in Tokyo and Singapore on solar energy and technologies for the diagnosis and treatment of disease.