Ground School And Sim Training

CAE has signed a 10-year agreement with UK-based Virgin Atlantic Airways to provide training for pilots of the carrier's entire fleet of Airbus A340-600 and Boeing 747-400 aircraft. Initially valued at $51.3 million, the contract also includes an option for Airbus A380 training. If all options were to be exercised, the total contract value could amount to $78.8 million over 10 years.

The training, which includes instructional delivery for ground school as well as simulator training, will take place at CAE's Burgess Hill, U.K., training center. Existing A340-600 and B747-400 simulators will be redeployed from within CAE's global training network to Burgess Hill by summer of 2006 for this purpose.

"CAE is proud to have been selected by Virgin Atlantic as its training partner. This is another major milestone for our growing UK Training Operations," said Jeff Roberts, CAE's Group President, Civil Training and Services. "We welcome Virgin Atlantic to the group of carriers to whom we offer training services in our 22 training centers around the world."

The Burgess Hill training center is part of the Airbus-CAE cooperation, which combines CAE's and Airbus's training expertise to provide increased access to training to customers around the globe. Established in 2002, the Airbus-CAE cooperation operates the largest fleet of Airbus full-flight simulators in the world.

FMI: www.cae.com