Colombian carrier Avianca has installed an ATR 72-600 full-flight flight simulator at its base in Bogota.

The equipment is the first full-flight simulator for the latest ATR generation outside the manufacturer’s own training centres in Toulouse and Singapore. It will be used to train pilots for Avianca and third-party customers, says ATR.

Making the device available is an “important step… in a region where we have experienced strong success in recent years”, says the Franco-Italian turboprop manufacturer’s chief executive Filippo Bagnato. The number of ATR 42/72-600s in Latin America and the Caribbean is set to double to around 100 over the next three years.

The simulator has been approved both by Columbia’s civil aviation authority UAEAC and by the European Aviation Safety Agency.

ATR has a joint training centre with CAE in Toronto, but that facility's full-flight simulator can only be used to instruct ATR 42-300 and ATR 72-200 pilots.

Source: Cirium Dashboard