Off the wire
• China sees decline in VC funding: report  • China ready to provide disaster relief to Ecuador: FM spokesperson  • Ministry investigates environmental concerns near school  • High-level meetings show good momentum of China-India ties: FM  • Pistorius to be sentenced in June  • Spotlight: Brazil's lower house green-lights presidential impeachment  • UN official arrives in Maldives to help resume key talks  • Indonesia, Philippine, Malaysia plan to conduct joint patrol  • China committed to resolving maritime disputes through negotiations: diplomat  • Bahrain arrests suspects in petrol bomb attack  
You are here: 　 Home

Airbus opens new Asia training center in Singapore

Xinhua, April 18, 2016 Adjust font size:

The new Airbus Asia Training Center (AATC), a joint venture owned 55 percent by Airbus and 45 percent by Singapore Airlines (SIA), was officially opened in Singapore on Monday.

The opening ceremony was hosted by Fabrice Bregier, president and chief executive officer of Airbus and Goh Choon Phong, chief executive officer of Singapore Airlines in the presence of S Iswaran, minister of trade and industry for the Republic of Singapore.

The 9,250 square meter facility in Singapore becomes the fourth Airbus flight crew training center worldwide, alongside Toulouse, Miami and Beijing.

The new center offers type rating and recurrent training courses for all in-production Airbus types and when fully operational, it will be Airbus' largest flight crew training facility, with eight full-flight simulators, comprising three A350 XWBs, one A380, two A330s and two A320s.

The center will also have six fixed cockpit training devices and extensive classroom facilities, with the capacity to offer courses for more than 10,000 trainees per year.

"We are extremely pleased to inaugurate, in partnership with Singapore Airlines, the latest addition to our global training network," said Bregier.

"The new center combines the expertise of our two companies to offer the highest standards of training for the growing flight crew population in the Asia-Pacific region."

"The new facility provides exceptional training on state-of-the-art equipment, ensuring that AATC is a true center of excellence in the Asia-Pacific region. With hundreds more new Airbus aircraft on firm order by the region's airlines, we are confident that AATC will go from strength to strength," added Goh.

AATC began operations in April last year and prior to the opening of the new center, it has been offering courses out of temporary facilities at the SIA Training Center near Changi Airport.

Seventeen airlines from Asia and the Pacific have already signed up to use the services of AATC, where the courses offered are identical to those at the existing Airbus flight crew training centres.

Airbus predicts that the Asia-Pacific region will lead demand for new aircraft in the coming years, with the in-service fleet growing from around 5,600 aircraft today to 14,000 over the next two decades.

This will see the active flight crew population employed by airlines in the region increase from over 65,000 to almost 170,000, generating significant demand for flight crew training services. Endit