Dubai: Emirates on Monday unveiled a new pilot training facility at the Dubai Silicon Oasis (DSO), which was opened by Shaikh Ahmad Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman of Dubai Civil Aviation Authority, President and Chief Executive of Emirates Airline and Group.
Owned and operated by Emirates-CAE Flight Training (ECFT) — a 50:50 joint venture between Emirates and Canada-based CAE, the latest facility marks an investment of more than $50 million (Dh183 million) at DSO that hosts three simulators — two of Airbus A320s and one Boeing 737NG .
Completed last month in record time after a whole year in construction, the 55,000 square feet facility brings Emirates and CAE’s joint investment in the region to over Dh954 million ($260 million) in 12 years.
With the latest facility, Emirates-CAE currently operates 21 simulators including 13 located at the Emirates Aviation College in Garhoud and five in a facility in Bangalore, India.
“With this joint venture, we wanted to create a new business for Emirates as well as a centre of excellence for the aviation business in Dubai — the biggest airline hub in the Middle East,” Gary Chapman, President of Emirates Group Services and Dnata, told reporters on Monday on the sidelines of the opening of the facility. “It has been a profitable business for us from day one.”
He said, the new facility has enough space to host up to 10 simulators. “As we move forward, we will add simulators depending on how the demand grows.”
Emirates has about 4,000 pilots who periodically need to go through mandatory refresher courses, sometimes once in every six months — in some cases. ECFT meets that critical need as well as those of third party operators.
According to TechNavio, a leading technology research and advisory, the global civil aviation flight training and simulation market is expected to reach $3.92 billion by 2016. “The global civil aviation flight training and simulation market has also been witnessing increasing demand for full flight simulators,” TechNavio said in a recent report. “However, the high cost of training and simulators could pose a challenge to the growth of this market.”
All these facilities offer advanced pilot training to Emirates’ own pilots as well as used for third-party training. ECFT facilities train pilots belonging to more than 220 aircraft operators including airlines and business jet operators from 100 countries. It has a capacity to train 10,000 pilots a year.
“Demand for pilot training is growing in the region due to the growth in the overall aviation business. Almost all regional airlines are expanding with new aircraft joining their fleet on a regular basis. Therefore, the number of pilots is also growing. So, we need to expand capacity to meet the growing demand,” said Jeff Roberts, CAE Group President.
Globally, the number of deployed aircraft simulators is around 900, of which about 220 are being operated by CAE with their joint venture partners, including 21 with Emirates.
Each simulator costs between $10-15 million depending on the type of aircraft. According to a Boeing forecast, some 517,000 new pilots will need to be trained globally in the next 20 years’ time. The market for simulators and pilot training will be worth a whopping $25 billion (Dh91 billion), perhaps even more by then.
