CAE is to take over the operation of Air Canada's training centres under a deal that will see a majority of the airline's flight simulators relocated to the company's facility at Toronto Pearson airport.
Air Canada will move the eight simulators at its Toronto training centre into CAE's facility, which will be expanded from four to 14 bays. Another four simulators will remain in the airline's Vancouver centre, but be operated and marketed by CAE.
Under contracts valued at C$60 million ($56.6 million) over 15 years, CAE will operate the centres and market excess capacity to third parties under a revenue-sharing agreement, while Air Canada continues to conduct its own pilot training.
Meanwhile CAE has sold an Airbus A330/A340 full-flight simulator to the US Federal Aviation Administration for training and research use. The simulator will be delivered in 2008 to the FAA aeronautical centre in Oklahoma City and networked with a CAE-supplied Boeing 737-800 simulator to perform evaluations of closely separated aircraft operations.
The simulators will also be used to examine multiple-aircraft parallel approaches, converging approaches and simultaneous aircraft operation on parallel runways.
CAE has also sold an Airbus A320 flight simulator to Air France, a 737NG to Australia's Virgin Blue and Boeing 787 maintenance trainers to Japan Airlines International.
Virgin Blue's simulator will be delivered to a training centre in Melbourne later this year. In May, the low-cost carrier ordered an Embraer 190 simulator from FlightSafety International for its Brisbane centre, jointly owned with Boeing subsidiary Alteon.
Japan Airlines ordered two 787 full-flight simulators and an integrated procedures trainer from CAE in April, and has now added a Level 5 maintenance training device and a suite of virtual maintenance trainers. The simulators will be delivered in 2008.
Source: Flight International
