FLIGHT TRAINING ADELAIDE

Ms BETTISON (Ramsay) (14:56): My question is to the Minister for Manufacturing Innovation and Trade. Can the minister inform the house of the upgrade to facilities at Flight Training Adelaide based at Parafield Airport?

The Hon. T.R. KENYON (Newland—Minister for Manufacturing, Innovation and Trade, Minister for Small Business) (14:56): Happily I can, and I thank the member for Ramsay for her question, bravely battling on through laryngitis. Last week I had the pleasure of opening a new multimillion facility at Flight Training Adelaide based at Parafield Airport.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: Who negotiated that?

The Hon. T.R. KENYON: I am sure it is a very well negotiated agreement and arrangement. Being so well negotiated, it probably involved the Minister for Infrastructure somewhere, but I will confirm that to the house at some stage. This multimillion dollar investment ideally positions our city as a pilot training hub for the Asia-Pacific region.

Flight Training Adelaide is a great local example of a flexible, innovative business that continues to survive and grow in competitive international markets. The new multimillion dollar simulators will ensure that the company remains one of the major pilot training schools in the southern hemisphere. They will provide the most up-to-date training for a new generation of commercial airline pilots.

The jet simulation centre is a state-of-the-art building housing two jet aircraft training simulators, one replicating an Airbus A320 aircraft, while the other has dual functionality and can replicate a Boeing 737-800 aircraft, as well as an ATR 42-500 turbo propeller aircraft.

A highlight of my visit was being given the opportunity of 'landing' an A320 Airbus on the simulator. I am told pilots have a saying that any landing that you can walk away from is a good landing and, given that we were on a simulator, we were always going to walk away from it, so it obviously turned out quite well! It gave me a real insight into the highly skilled and complex technical training needed to pilot one of these highly sophisticated passenger planes. Needless to say, we all 'landed' safely if not all that smoothly.

FTA also has a third multimillion dollar aircraft simulator located in another hangar, and the company now has 170 employees and a fleet of 46 training aircraft. The company has been training pilots for the world's leading airlines since 1982 and graduated more than 200 cadets just last year. Since 2011, FTA has undertaken a $16 million capital upgrade program, which includes the new simulation centre.

The company has adopted an innovative approach to training in purchasing more than 200 iPads for use as 'all-in-one' training devices by cadets and installing fibre optic cabling through the Parafield campus for quick and easy wi-fi access. This innovation and adaptability has played an important role in attracting many of the world's major airlines, including Cathay Pacific Airways, Dragonair, Hong Kong Government Flying Service, QantasLink and Virgin Australia.

A strong selling point has also been the on-site, full board accommodation offered to cadets on FTA's training campus, with around 80 per cent of the company's students coming from overseas. FTA was named the winner of the Business SA Export Award for Education and Training and was a finalist in the National Export Awards in October last year. I congratulate them on that, and I commend the FTA for its commitment to our state and their innovative approach to growing their business; it is a real local success story.