CHINA Southern Airlines Co., the country’s biggest carrier, opened its first flight-training facility to ensure supply of new pilots for its growing fleet.

    The Hong Kong and Shanghai-listed carrier would spend 510 million yuan (US$73 million) on the facility, located at Nanyang Airport in Central China, it said in a statement on its Web site yesterday.

    A Boeing Co. 737-300 is the first plane stationed at the school, which will eventually support training on all aircraft smaller than the twin-aisle 777.

    China needs to step up pilot training as the country faces a shortfall of almost 10,000 pilots by 2010 because of the rapid growth of its airlines, the country’s aviation regulator said last year. The nation’s commercial fleet is likely to triple in size over the next 20 years, according to Airbus SAS.

    At present, more than 90 percent of Chinese pilots are trained by the Sichuan-based Civil Aviation Flight University of China. The school, which is run by the Civil Aviation Administration of China, recruits up to 1,000 pilots a year.

    Guangzhou-based China Southern last year became the first mainland carrier to recruit pilots willing to pay for their own training to widen the pool it could hire from. The pilots were tied to shorter contracts in return for self-financing.

    China Southern operated a fleet of 332 planes at the end of last year. It has orders outstanding for more than 160 Boeing and Airbus aircraft, according to the planemakers’ Web sites.

    In total, China is likely to order 2,800 new planes from 2007 to 2026, about 12 percent of global demand in the period, according to Airbus.

    (SD-Agencies)