Airbus also started a door-to-door customized spare parts logistics service in China in 2008.

Using DHL as a forwarder for shipments, Airbus provides spare-parts deliveries and takes full control of the supply chain for customers.

The service is designed to reduce logistical complexity and administration workload for customers, enabling them to concentrate on their core business.

Seven Chinese aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul, or MRO, companies signed up for the service.

The companies include Guangzhou Aircraft Maintenance Engineering Co Ltd, the MRO arm of China Southern Airlines, and Shanghai Technologies Aerospace Co Ltd, the maintenance provider for China Eastern Airlines.

Airbus' US archrival Boeing also offers value-added services to Chinese airlines.

For instance, Air China has signed a contract with Boeing for an aircraft health management service for a total of 117 Boeing 737 planes. The service allows Air China to gather and evaluate real-time in-flight flying-conditions data. The data allow the airline to better plan and perform repairs.

Pilot training

Airbus recently added a new A320 full-flight simulator to its training joint venture Hua-Ou Aviation Training Center in Beijing.

The 12,300-square-meter training center is now equipped with four full-flight simulators, three for the A320 family and one for the A330/A340 family.

Boeing's training center in Shanghai has three simulators.

The new simulator can also be upgraded to support flight training for the new A320neo plane.

ICBC Financial Leasing Co Ltd - the leasing arm of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd - has ordered 20 A320neo aircraft. The new plane, a revamped A320 with new engines, is scheduled to enter service in 2015.

Compared with China's huge demand for pilots, the training capacity at the Hua-Ou center is still limited.

Boeing forecast that China will need about 72,700 pilots to operate the 5,000 new planes entering service in the next two decades.

The country now has more than 20,000 pilots, operating a fleet of about 1,800 aircraft.

China's pilot training capacity can hardly catch up with the fast-growing aviation market, said Zhu Qingyu, director of the marketing department of the China Air Transport Association.

"Our mission in China is to secure the entering-into-service of new operators and to teach the Airbus way to Chinese customers," said Thierry Marty, senior director at Hua-Ou.

Like the Airbus' training centers in other countries, the Hua-Ou center is receiving more and more young and inexperienced pilots, Marty said.

"They lack experience and just graduated from schools like the Civil Aviation Flight University of China. We have to adapt to that," Marty said.

Hua-Ou is now offering more entry-level training services.

"We have to get them ready at the right moment with the right skills," Marty said.

 

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