Canada-based CAE has entered a sale and purchase agreement with China Southern Airlines to sell its 49% stake in the jointly held Zhuhai Flight Training Centre (ZFTC) for $96m.

Under the deal, the third-party training excess capacity conducted at ZFTC will also be outsourced to CAE.

It is expected to offer more flexibility to CAE to serve the broader aviation training market in China.

“We have created together a highly successful pilot training facility in China."

Following the deal, China Southern Airlines will focus internally on its own training and continue to partner with CAE for services and simulation requirements.

China Southern Airlines president Tan Wangeng said: “We have created together a highly successful pilot training facility in China.

“This was the first Sino-Western Pilot training facility in China, and while China Southern will now focus on training as a cost centre, it will continue to benefit from CAE's expertise and innovation as an important partner through the outsourcing of our excess capacity to third-party training, service support such as updates on our equipment, as well as the training of our cadets through our ab-initio training joint venture in Perth, Australia.”

In a separate development, CAE signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Singapore Airlines (SIA) to establish a 50:50 pilot training joint venture (JV) in Singapore.

To be based at Singapore Airlines Training Centre (STC) located near Changi Airport, the proposed JV will initially offer simulator training for Boeing aircraft types, as well as support SIA Group airlines and other operators' pilot training needs in the region.