Qantas announced that it is opening a multimillion-dollar purpose-built flight crew training center in Sydney as it prepares to resume and run new routes with the return of international travel.
The Australian carrier said that the flight training site will be located at St. Peters near Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport (SYD) and will provide training for up to 4,500 new and current Qantas and Jetstar pilots and cabin crew each year from early 2024.
The announcement came seven months after Qantas opened its latest pilot training facility with simulators at Brisbane Airport in early 2022.
Qantas said that the Sydney flight training site can house up to eight full motion flight simulators, including for the Airbus A350 and A320 family of aircraft.
The facility will also have fixed flight training devices, emergency procedures equipment with aircraft cabin mock-up, and classroom and training facilities.
Full-motion simulators and fixed flight training devices (FTD) planned for Sydney Flight Training Center are the following:
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A380
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A350
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A330
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A320
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B738
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A380 FTD
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A330 FTD
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B787 FTD
The facility development is subject to planning approvals, with a submission lodged by property group LOGOS who will develop the center in partnership with global training provider CAE and Qantas. The New South Wales Government has declared this proposal as state significant and will expedite its assessment.
“Qantas has trained its pilots and crew in Sydney for more than half a century and we look forward to bringing this critical function back to New South Wales with this custom-built facility,” Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce said in a statement dated August 17, 2022.
“Sydney will be the launch city for our non-stop flights to London and New York, and will now be the home of pilot training for the A350s, which will operate these flights from 2025,” Joyce added.
Joyce continued: “As our international network recovers from the impact of COVID and we grow our fleet, this new training center will give us the simulator capacity to train our new and current pilots.”