Boeing Training and Professional Services has commissioned a 737 Max 8 full-flight simulator at its Singapore campus, which will be joined by a 787-9 simulator in November.
The additional two simulators join five others at the facility – two 787-8 sims, two 737NG sims and one 777-300 sim – making it Boeing's largest simulator centre in Asia-Pacific.
Speaking to reporters during a media briefing, Patrick Curtin, Boeing Singapore's head of campus operations, said the 2007-built facility was expecting a similar degree of demand from the region's carriers for widebody and narrowbody pilot training.
"The 787 has been selling really well, and there is not much difference between demand for widebody and single-aisle training," he says.
When queried, Boeing declined to provide figures on the expected annual number of pilots that it can train from the Singapore facility.
The campus serves 90 airline customers across its flight, maintenance and cabin-crew courses. They include Biman Bangladesh, Korean Air, and Scoot, while SilkAir, which will take its first of 37 Max 8s in November, is a major customer for the new simulator, Curtin adds.
He says Boeing could expand its Singapore campus to to add more simulators in future if demand requires it, but for now the company is focusing on "optimising" the resources it already has.
Boeing's latest pilot and technician outlook predicts that Asia-Pacific will require 253,000 new pilots, 256,000 new technicians and 308,000 new cabin crew by 2036. This will account for nearly 40% of the total global demand forecast.
Source: Cirium Dashboard
