The council signed a long-term deal with CAE Flight Training Australia in a closed meeting this week.

CAE has been running its training program at the airport for a number of years.

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This deal will see CAE and Virgin Australia both occupy the current facilities at Tamworth airport.

Mayor Col Murray wouldn't confirm whether Virgin had scaled back its Tamworth plans.

But he said the dual "major tenants" could see the council-owned facilities expanded in coming years.

"Those numbers are very similar to what [Virgin's] original proposition was," Cr Murray said.

"It is just they won't be the major tenant for the building, we will have two major tenants now and there will be some very minor works that council deliver on site to separate those organisations.

"I would anticipate in the next year we will be very likely to be looking at extending the accommodation."

The mayor suggested the deal would usher in the city's most prolific era of pilot training, in terms of numbers.

"We have never seen the accommodation running absolutely at 100 per cent since the facility was built in the early 90s, I would expect that would happen within the next few years," he said.

The mayor said CAE's offers training to "a number of different organisations and Asian airlines".

"I am not sure who their customers are, but the business certainly revolves, to a large extent, around those Asian students," he said.

Cr Murray said the protracted process securing the Virgin pilot training deal gave the council time to work with CAE and ensure it "didn't move somewhere else".

The negotiations with the council and Virgin "are all but finalised", Cr Murray said.

The Virgin flight school will reportedly train 500 pilots a year.

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