Page 19 - AAA NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2018 Online Magazine

IT’S BOOM

TIME!

Manufacturers of flight simulators
have seen a surge in business as
airlines seek more cost-effective
ways to train quality pilots.

Arun Sivasankaran

he looming pilot shortage is bad
news for carriers all around the
world, many of which are already
Tfeeling the pinch and having to
cancel routes, but the flight simulator indus-
try, which has never been busier, certainly
isn’t complaining. The scramble to produce
quality pilots, which is primarily because of
the increase in air traffic, and the need for
cost-cutting in pilot training has resulted in a
substantial spike in business for companies
involved in the manufacture of flight simula-
tors. With technological advancements in the
field making synthetic training more realistic
than ever before and providing real life-like
experience to pilots, industry experts predict
the demand for such devices to increase in
the future. market will not be as pronounced as that of the military market,
but industry watchers expect sustained growth, not only due to
With the market so primed for sustained the growing emphasis on safety but also because such devices
growth, it is not a coincidence that the indus- substantially decrease pilot training cost in a variety of ways.
try has seen a sharp increase in the money Full flight simulators are expensive - the purchase price of a new
being invested in research and development, FFS is in the US$6 to 10 million range for narrowbody aircraft
with companies vying with each other to intro- models and more than US$18 million for widebody units - but
duce new products. Grand View Research the cost of providing live training on aircraft to student pilots is
(GVR), an U.S. based market research and so prohibitive that airlines prefer training them on simulators.
consulting company, forecasts that the global The operation and maintenance costs of flight simulators con-
flight simulators market will reach US$5.62 tinue to be on the higher side, but the many advantages of such
billion by 2024. The market growth will pri- devices – it saves fuel, extends the life of aircraft and engines,
marily be due to the increasing use of full and allows training in conditions such as severe thunderstorms
flight simulators (FFS) because of their high and system failures – ensure that their popularity and use will
fidelity and reliability and the growing accep- continue to increase in the future.
tance of flight training devices (FTDs) due to
a variety of factors such as low operational Montreal-based CAE, which had a near-monopoly control of
costs and modular approach. airline FFS for more than a decade and accounted for more
than 40 percent of the global market in 2015, still remains the
Rosy Future Predicted market leader among Level D FFS simulator manufacturers,
According to GVR, FFS products, which but the company has in recent years had to face increasing
accounted for over 85 percent of the total competition from not just FlightSafety International but also
revenue in 2015, is expected to grow at a relatively new entrants in the market such as L3 Commercial
CAGR of over four percent until 2024. The Aviation, the Textron Aviation-owned TRU Simulation + Training
growth of the civil aviation flight simulator and Rockwell Collins.

ASIAN AIRLINES & AEROSPACE November/December 2018 | 19