Skymark Sheds A380 Training System

Japanese carrier Skymark Airlines, which is undergoing civil rehabilitation proceedings, has sold a flight simulator for the Airbus A380, the superjumbo jet at the root of its bankruptcy filing.

The simulator's buyer and price were not revealed, but it appears to have been sold for several hundred million yen to a Middle Eastern airline. The sale is part of a move by Skymark, which has limited itself to smaller planes after filing for bankruptcy protection, to sell off unnecessary assets.

Used in crew training, the simulator can reproduce virtually the same environment as when actually flying, including changes in scenery outside the window and tilting of the floor surface. Skymark had installed one at its headquarters at Haneda Airport in Tokyo at a cost of some 1.6 billion yen (US$13.3 million).

In preparation for flying international routes, Skymark in 2011 entered an agreement with Airbus to purchase six A380 jets at a total cost of 190 billion yen. The first of those was to have been delivered in the fall of 2014, but Airbus terminated the deal in late July 2014 due to payment delays. Skymark's dwindled cash position led to its bankruptcy filing in January 2015.