Opening of centre next year expected to slash costs of Airbus simulator training
Austrian Airlines Group (AUA) is aiming to reduce its Airbus narrowbody simulator training costs by around a third when partner Lufthansa Flight Training's (LFT) new simulator centre opens in Vienna in the middle of next year.
LFT will build a simulator centre at Austrian's existing technical base in Vienna. This centre, fully owned by LFT, will complement AUA's existing training facilities in Vienna and enable the partners to provide a full package of training services from the Austrian capital. These will be grouped under the Vienna Aviation Campus banner.
The German company has formed a subsidiary – trading under the Lufthansa Flight Training Vienna name – to develop the new simulator centre, which will have four simulator bays, as well as other training facilities. It will open with two simulators in place.
LFT Vienna managing director Wolfgang Kracker says: "One will be an Airbus A320 simulator from LFT's Bremen facility. What type the second will be has not yet been decided. [But] it will be of an aircraft type commonly flown by Austrian Airlines."
AUA operates a diverse fleet including Airbus A320 family aircraft, A330s and A340s, Boeing 737s, 767s and 777s and Fokker 70/100s. LFT has simulators for all these types except the 777.
LFT board chairman Dieter Harms envisages filling the remaining two simulator bays within "two or three years" of the centre's opening. This will raise LFT's investment in the centre to €35 million ($45 million). The centre is being designed with room to expand in the future to accommodate four further simulators.
AUA estimates the new option of providing A320 simulator training, for which it requires up to 3,000 simulator hours a year, at its home base in Vienna will reduce the cost of simulator training on this type by around 30%. Further savings will be made in its training costs as additional simulators are added.
Meanwhile, Boeing's training subsidiary Alteon is to build a new aircrew training centre near Changi airport in Singapore to open in the first quarter of 2006.
GRAHAM DUNN/VIENNA
Source: Flight International
