Origins In 1945, immediately after
World War II, the French air-transport industry experienced rapid growth. To ensure safety and compliance with regulations, demand for qualified staff was high; there was a need to harmonise communications among sectors of the aviation industry. ENAC was founded to address this issue. Among its founders was
Max Hymans, the
secretary general of civil and commercial aviation. During the postwar years, there was a lack of unity in the civil-aviation industry due to the hasty recruitment of large numbers of people from different backgrounds. To standardize personnel, a number of training centers were created. Airfield commanders were trained in
Orly, and navigation staff were trained in
Le Bourget.
Wireless operators and
radiotelegraph technicians were also trained in Orly by the Department of Telecommunications and Signaling. Technical managers were primarily trained in engineering schools, including
Arts et Métiers and the National School of Meteorology (
École nationale de la météorologie). Designers were trained by the École spéciale des travaux aéronautiques, and
aircrew were trained by other public or private institutions. ENAC's mission was to coordinate the training of aviation personnel. In Decree No. 49-970 (7 June 1948), the rules of French public administration were codified. The regulations applying to civil-aviation officials were overhauled, affecting the technical staff in particular. Several new groups of civil servants were established: air traffic engineers, air navigation operation engineers, aerial telecommunication civil engineers, air traffic controllers, telecommunication controllers and air navigation agents. The creation of these groups was followed by a ministerial decision on 12 August 1948 which paved the way for the first recruitment by competitive examination, which was held in October 1948. On 14 April 1948, the
International Civil Aviation Organization established requirements for aircrew licensing, including a minimum number of flight hours for each category of pilot. Before adopting the name ENAC, the school was called a "service of education and internships" (
service des écoles et des stages) and was funded by the general secretariat for civil and commercial aviation. This contrasted with the tradition of French civil-service personnel being trained in grandes écoles.
Jules Moch, the Minister of Works, Transport and Tourism, unsuccessfully proposed the name "École nationale de l'aviation marchande".
Aviation-safety university in Paris ENAC was created on 28 August 1949 (Decree 49–1205) in Paris at the initiative of Secretary General of Civil Aviation
Max Hymans and
Jules Moch Aviation safety is synonymous with ENAC, since it was the rationale for the training of technicians and airmen at a single school. As noted in a report of the ''inspection générale de l'aviation civile'', "It was in the minds of the creators of the university to develop between the aircrew and the ground staff a community of ideas, reciprocal knowledge, and esteem, that are essential for the teamwork required by air transport." However, it is doubtful that the report's "community of ideas" could be only expressed by courses at the same university. Other factors were different lengths of training;
air navigation civil engineers in the telecommunications branch study for 30 months at the university; operations students are trained in 27 months; air-navigation engineers in two years, and
air traffic controllers in nine months.
First partners On 13 October 1959, the first major partner of the university was recognised; this enabled the recruitment of pilots with no previous flight experience. The previous year, the university held training sessions on an experimental basis and was responsible for teaching theory for the
airline transport pilot licence. Flight training was provided at the
Service d'exploitation de la formation aéronautique (SEFA) center at
Saint-Yan Airport (opened in 1949) until students received a
commercial pilot licence; advanced training was provided at the Air France school. ENAC also provided theoretical training for pilots of a number of airlines, and the question of cost arose. The expensive training, not paid by France, was eventually borne by private airlines. Close links also traditionally existed between civil aviation and the Air Force. After World War II, as civil aviation was developing, members of the armed forces participated in its expansion. Pilots, radio operators, navigators and mechanics came from the military to the airlines, and ENAC sought to convert military aircrews. From 1949 to 1959, the number of courses increased from six to 64 and the number of students from 49 to 800. ENAC benefited from the postwar development of aviation, and a number of students came from foreign countries or (in particular) overseas territories which later became independent. During the early 1960s, the university began to accept its first students from foreign civil-aviation authorities. Along with enrollment growth, courses were created to keep pace with new ratings. The navigation-
instructor rating was introduced in 1956, and corresponding training began. Courses were sometimes introduced to meet a need, such as a speaking-technique course for instructors that year. The first civilian engineering students were also admitted in 1956. In 1958, the airline-pilot theoretical training course began.
Transition The university underwent significant changes between 1960 and 1975. It moved to
Toulouse in 1968, where the main campus is still located. In 1970, the status of the university was changed from a department of the
DGAC to a public institution. The school was originally located on the outskirts of
Paris-Orly Airport, France's largest. Its location offered easy access to planes for navigation flights, promotional trips and other activities; leaders of nearby airlines, aircraft manufacturers and other aviation-related businesses could come to the university for lectures and conferences. control tower However, the rapid growth of traffic at Paris-Orly before the construction of
Charles de Gaulle Airport brought new challenges. Requirements for ENAC's aircraft became more stringent, and
Aéroports de Paris became increasingly reluctant to renew the university's lease. Earlier, in the mid-1950s, the possibility of moving ENAC to a new location was considered. Potential locations were cities near Paris airports; between 1954 and 1957,
Thiais,
Rungis,
Issy-les-Moulineaux,
Les Mureaux and
Le Bourget were considered. Regional decentralization became a priority, even before the publication of
Jean-François Gravier's
Paris et le désert français (
Paris and the French Desert). Plans to keep ENAC near Paris seemed increasingly doubtful, and more-distant locations began to be considered. Within a radius of the capital, cities under consideration included
Melun,
Pontoise,
Coulommiers,
Étampes,
Reims,
Évreux,
Chartres and
Orléans. A 20 May 1959 report listed the disadvantages of a location too distant from Paris, however, such as the difficulty of transporting personnel, the possible extension of courses, and increased operating costs. René Lemaire proposed moving the school to Toulouse in a 14 June 1960 report. The city's aeronautical infrastructure and long history as a university town made it an attractive location: the (
University of Toulouse, founded in 1229, is one of France's oldest universities.
École nationale supérieure d'ingénieurs de constructions aéronautiques (ENSICA) settled in
Toulouse in 1961, and
École nationale supérieure de l'aéronautique et de l'espace (SUPAERO) was going to move from Paris to the city. ENAC's transfer to Toulouse was approved by Prime Minister
Michel Debré on 15 June 1961 and confirmed by his successor,
Georges Pompidou, in a 23 July 1963 letter. Building construction on the
Rangueil campus began in April 1966, and was completed on 19 August 1968. The academic year began on 16 September of that year. Five hundred students were expected, including 325 who were beginning their training. The new students consisted of 15 air-navigation engineering students drawn largely from
École Polytechnique, 70 engineering students in air navigation from
classes préparatoires aux grandes écoles, 60 airline-pilot students, 100 air-traffic controller students, 40 electronics students, 20 commercial-pilot students and 20
flight dispatcher students.
Public administrative institution The
Commission permanente began to examine the university's ambiguous legal status, a problem since it was founded. ENAC was closely monitored by its supervisory authority. Inspection reports (published once every two years or less) were frequently critical of the school, with those published in the mid-1950s beginning to question its existence. The confidential 12 March 1952 Brancourt Controller said that the university had "a lack of curriculum", "there is ... tension with the training center of Air France", and "ENAC is a mistake". These difficulties were largely due to incompatibility between ENAC and the civil-aviation industry, which required it to provide courses for students and trainees who were not necessarily officials of the ''
Direction générale de l'aviation civile'' (DGAC, its supervisory authority) and to use a varied teaching staff. The university budget also presented a challenges after other types of income, such as non-public resources, were reduced (particularly between 1958 and 1964). In 1962, ENAC considered raising tuition, course prices and fees for non-DGAC students. The school's status required a complex approval process, however, and a status of
public administrative institution seemed more appropriate. The decision was made in the 13 April 1970 Decree No. 70-347, which took effect on 1 January 1971. ENAC established a board of directors, with René Lemaire its first president.
New missions In 1975, the number of non-civil-service engineering students began to increase. ENAC is becoming important in training civilian aerospace personnel; its primary purpose had been to train civil servants. Civilian students are not new; the first were admitted in 1956. ENAC's engineering program, focused on
electronics and information technology, has made the university a
de facto engineering
grande école. Industry-oriented university research appeared in 1984, in accordance with the higher-education law which mandates that "engineering education [...] has a research activity,
basic or
applied", organized around four areas: electronics,
automation, computers and aviation economics. The university instructs future engineers in research methods;
deductive reasoning, long favored by teachers in the
classes préparatoires aux grandes écoles and
grandes écoles, has been inferior to the
inductive reasoning characteristic of engineering research.
Mastère spécialisé programs emerged during the mid-1980s for the industrial
GIFAS (Groupement des industries françaises aéronautiques et spatiales), training foreign executives in a relatively-short time in addition to French students and professionals.
Continuing education diversified at the same time in five main areas: air-traffic control, electronics, computers,
aeronautics and languages.
International dimension The university's international dimension grew significantly during the 1990s, but was hampered by new training requirements for air-traffic controllers. ENAC participated in European projects such as EATCHIP (European Air Traffic Control Harmonization and Integration Program), and offered student-mobility programs through the
Erasmus and
Socrates programmes. The university began to welcome a growing number of foreign students, The three
grandes écoles of this network, in partnership with the DGAC and French companies such as
EADS,
Airbus,
Thales,
Eurocopter, and
Safran), founded the Institut sino-européen d'ingénierie de l'aviation (Chinese-European Aviation Engineering Institute) in
Tianjin in 2007, with master's and mastère spécialisé programs for Chinese students. During the 2000s, courses in English and activities focused on air navigation were developed. In 2009, the university and its alumni association organized the first
aeronautical literary festival in Toulouse. ENAC became an
ICAO center for training in
aviation security in December 2010. The university established new teaching facilities: the CAUTRA
air traffic control simulator, the AERSIM
aerodrome control simulator, an
Airbus A320 flight management system simulator, a static model of the
CFM 56-5B engine for the
A321, and a telecom-network laboratory. ENAC became Europe's largest aviation university on 1 January 2011, when it merged with
SEFA. In 2013, the university and DGAC introduced the
groupement d'intérêt économique DSNA Services (later
France Aviation Civile Services). In June 2025, the school created the
Toulouse School of Aviation and Aerospace Engineering in partnership with
ISAE-SUPAERO.
Directors The current director of the university is
Olivier Chansou, who succeeded former
SEFA director
Marc Houalla. Chansou, the school's eighth director, was elected on 27 November 2017. == Administration ==