Cirrus Tapped for Lufthansa’s Airline Pilot Training Program

Lufthansa Airlines is the latest company to take advantage of Cirrus Aircraft's SR series for its training program. This week, Cirrus announced that Lufthansa Aviation Training purchased 25 SR20s for its facility in Goodyear, Arizona, where pilots have trained for decades in the favorable desert weather. In addition to Lufthansa's pilots, airlines like Swiss Air, Austrian Airlines, Eurowings, All Nippon Airways (ANA) and KLM will use the SR20s for their own pilots, as will the German Air Force, when the aircraft are delivered between October and February.

“In the dynamic and competitive commercial airline industry, the most successful players are looking beyond the current pilot training paradigm,” explained Todd Simmons, President of Customer Experience at Cirrus. “Today Lufthansa reinforces its leadership position not by aiming for where the business is today, but by planning for where it will be years from now.”

Cirrus aircraft are already utilized for training by the United States Air Force Academy and Royal Saudi Air Force, in addition to Western Michigan University, Southern Utah University, Aerosim Flight Academy and Emirates Airlines, among others. The SR series is beneficial to airline pilot training, as the aircraft use features found on airliners, including integrated engine indication and crew alerting/warning systems, a flight management system (FMS) keypad controller, and an Electronic Stability and Protection system.

“Today’s forward-thinking airlines and pilot training programs are realizing the immediate benefits of teaching and learning in the most effective equipment available uniquely from Cirrus,” Simmons said. “Those benefits are amplified in the airline pilot training environment as the Cirrus SR series solution offers competitive advantages of advanced navigation and safety systems similar to the systems these new pilots will use in the airlines’ larger aircraft.”