Airbus expands its flight training facility for North American operators

January 5, 2018: In a move to further expand its global training capacity, Airbus has acquired the strategic simulation solutions flight training center in Aurora, Colorado.

According to reports, currently the training center primarily supports Frontier Airlines which has significant room for growth. Airbus also plans to double its capacity at the facility in the next couple of years.

"It's another major step forward in our ambition to grow services around the world," said Laurent Martinez, head of services of Airbus.

"Our global services forecast predict a need for 122,000 new pilots in the Americas by 2035, representing 23 percent of the world's demand. We want our Airbus flight training facilities to be easily accessible to our customers regardless of their location, hence this latest move," said Martinez

Prior to this acquisition, Airbus provided training to the North American region primarily from its Miami, Florida-based training center. The addition of the new Aurora training center will help meet long-term growth in expanding markets throughout the Americas.

Over the past two years Airbus has expanded its training capacity for customers in the Americas with the addition of training centers in Mexico City and Campinas in Brazil.

In the global space, Airbus has expanded its training network more than threefold in barely three years%u2014growing from five locations in 2015 to 17 locations.

"We will hold steady in our ambition to provide the most state-of-the-art, top-quality training to our customers, and to continue expanding our global training capacity at its current pace," Martinez said.

Currently, the Aurora training center has two A320 Family and FAA Level D full flight simulators%u2014the highest level flight simulators to train Frontier Airlines pilots on the airline's all-Airbus fleet.

Additional simulators are expected to be added at the Aurora facility in 2018 to address anticipated increased demand for training. In addition, Airbus' innovative ACT Suite%u2014a fully comprehensive, high-fidelity course for maintenance training will also be set up within a week's notice, and will be offered in line with demand.

Airbus' modular, competency-based training services deliver a comprehensive mix of theoretical courses, hands-on practice and environment immersion using the latest technologies%u2014including virtual, augmented and mixed reality.