Qantas opens new Sydney training centre with Australia's first A350 simulator

Qantas Group has opened a new Emergency Procedures Training Centre at its Mascot campus in Sydney, the airline said. The facility is part of an AU$100 million (US$65 million) investment across Qantas and Jetstar training infrastructure.

The centre covers roughly 6,300 square metres. It is designed to train more than 10,000 pilots and cabin crew from Qantas, Jetstar and QantasLink every year. Inside are replica widebody and narrowbody cabins fitted with seats and galleys, door trainers covering eight aircraft types, a multi-storey evacuation slide and life rafts, a virtual reality training area, and classrooms across two floors.

It is one of seven Qantas Group training facilities now running in Australia. Another Emergency Procedures Training Centre opened in Perth in March 2026, according to the airline.

Over the past year, the group says it has added seven new flight simulators. These include Australia's first Airbus A350 simulator, based in Sydney, along with new A320 simulators for Qantas and Jetstar crews and a Q400 simulator supporting QantasLink's turboprop fleet transition. The Melbourne training facility also received upgrades during the period, the airline said.

Qantas Group chief executive Vanessa Hudson said the training investment is tied to the carrier's fleet and network growth, letting crews train on new aircraft types ahead of their arrival, including the A350-1000ULR planned for the airline's long-haul Project Sunrise flights. She described the group as the largest aviation skills and training provider in the country.

No timeline was given for further simulator additions beyond those already delivered in the past year.