Chief Sustainability Officer at CAE Talks Carbon Neutrality, Flight Simulators, & & More

CAE, a leading flight training and simulation business, has actually highlighted its dedication to ESG activities, next-gen innovations, and sustainability in its current FY23 Global Annual Activity and Sustainability report. The report showcases development throughout all 3 of CAE’s systems– Civil, Defense, and Healthcare– in 2023.

Avionics International consulted with Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) and Senior Vice President of Stakeholder Engagement, Hélène V. Gagnon, to find out more about the just recently released report and her viewpoint on sustainability in the air travel market.

“For civil air travel, we do a lot with pilot training and flight simulators,” she said. “Now, we are far more than that– through acquisitions, we provide digital options to assist airline companies with their functional assistance. We assist them with team management on the ground and in the air, handling catering, and enhancing their flight strategy to make certain that they have the most direct path.”

“We chose to make the promise in the fall of 2019 to end up being carbon neutral. Regardless of the collapse of air travel in March 2020, we stayed real to our dedication. We began compensating our recurring emissions for Scope 1, purchasing some renewable resource certificates for 200 websites around the globe, and likewise making up for business flight of our workers (partial Scope 3). That’s how we ended up being carbon neutral in 2020, and we stay carbon neutral. We’re attempting to raise the bar every year on whatever that we perform in sustainability.”

Gagnon included that balancing out carbon is frequently viewed as the last hope, however CAE prioritized carbon offsets from the start. “By ending up being carbon neutral, and by beginning to balance out today, we’re requiring ourselves to decrease at the source much quicker,” she stated. “Nobody likes to see the billing of carbon balancing out, or the billing of renewable resource certificates for electrical energy. All the leaders in the company are now extremely conscious of our carbon and our energy expenses.”

According to the Global Annual Activity and Sustainability report, the Civil system surpassed previous outcomes in spite of the pandemic’s influence on international guest traffic. The Defense system protected agreements consisting of a $455 million agreement for Flight School Training Support Services at Fort Novosel, Alabama, and a $110.6 million agreement for the U.S. Air Force’s Initial Flight Training– Rotary Wing (IFT-R) in Dothan, Alabama.

Strategic collaborations have actually been essential for CAE. Noteworthy partnerships consist of a joint endeavor with AEGEAN to develop a sophisticated flight training center in Athens, Greece, and an unique 15-year contract with the Qantas Group to establish a pilot training center in Sydney, Australia. CAE has actually broadened its network with brand-new company air travel training centers in Savannah, Georgia, Las Vegas, Nevada, and strategies for a Vienna, Austria center by 2024.

CAE likewise incorporated Sabre’s AirCentre portfolio, resulting in a boost in client touchpoints and a decreased carbon footprint for airline companies using their options. This was accompanied by different technological improvements such as the implementation of Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence-enabled Digital Solutions with the Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF), the consultation of a Chief Technology and Product Officer, and the launch of mixed-reality training services.

In spite of geopolitical shifts, CAE’s Defense & Security sector, leveraging industrial air travel developments, accomplished a $2.0 billion order consumption in FY23 and is poised for future development. The business likewise continues to focus on sustainability, ending up being Canada’s very first carbon-neutral aerospace company, establishing an electrical conversion set for Piper Archer airplane, and signing up with the Climate Group’s RE100 effort.

“Although we do a great deal of simulation, we likewise own a fleet of little airplane– mainly Piper airplane– to offer the preliminary pilot license to cadets,” Gagnon shared.

She likewise discussed that the RE100 is a group of business that are dedicated to being powered by renewable resource by 2050. “In our case, due to the fact that we have our renewable resource certificate, we’re nearly there currently– it’s evidence that you are powered on the grid by renewable resource,” she kept in mind. “We pay the premium for the electrical energy, where it’s not currently straight powered by renewable resource. Being confessed to that choose group of business was likewise among the accomplishments that we’ve highlighted in our report this year.”

CAE’s five-year ESG roadmap sets exact goals for tracking development. The business’s Flight Operations Solutions goal to lower fuel usage and waste, more supporting the decarbonization of the air travel market.

Secret collaborations consist of a 10-year arrangement with Frontier Airlines for next-gen flight operations services, cooperation with Vertical Aerospace to establish training for the VX4 eVTOL airplane, and extended arrangements with TAG Aviation and Global Jet for company air travel pilot training. CAE likewise continues to offer integrated training services through its Cygnet Aviation Academy, in partnership with Chorus Aviation.

eVTOL designer BETA Technologies and CAE revealed a collaboration in 2021 to establish a program for pilot and upkeep service technician training for BETA’s ALIA airplane.

To satisfy international need for pilots and upkeep specialists, CAE is broadening its training capability in Toronto and Burgess Hill Training Centres with the addition of Boeing 787 and 737 MAX full-flight simulators. This growth intends to produce an extra 45,000 service air travel pilots and 66,000 service airplane service technicians by 2029.

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