Airbus is expecting more demand for A350 training at its facility in Singapore, as Asia Pacific gears up to take more deliveries of the type in the coming years.
The Airbus Asia Training Centre (AATC), has also seen its airline customers grow from 17 when it first opened last April, to 28 today, its general manager Yann Lardet tells reporters at a briefing.
New customers include AirCalin, Ethiopian Airlines, Thai Smile, Virgin Australia and WOW Air. Lardet touts the centre as being more "cost-efficient", offering rates that are 15-20% lower than other training programmes.
In anticipation of a growth in training demand, the facility will add an A350 and an A320 simulator each in 2019. The Singapore Seletar Aerospace Park facility also has two additional bays for further expansion.
When fully operational, the facility will have the capacity to offer courses to more than 10,000 trainees and deliver up to 35,000 hours of simulator training annually.
Flight Fleets Analyzer shows that Asia Pacific has 32 A350s in service, with a further 257 units on order.
The AATC is a 55:45 joint-venture agreement between Airbus and Singapore Airlines.This is Airbus's fourth training centre, with the other facilities in Toulouse, Beijing, and Miami.
Source: Cirium Dashboard
