By ANDY PASZTOR And DAVID KESMODEL
TOKYO—All Nippon Airways Co. is taking significantly longer to train pilots for its new Boeing 787 jets than the aircraft maker and aviation-safety experts had expected, a surprise that Boeing Co. rival Airbus is trying to exploit.
ANA's training program for initial groups of pilots flying the twin-engine 787 Dreamliner takes about five weeks, ANA officials said. By contrast, Chicago-based Boeing for years has promised airlines that one of the new aircraft's major advantages would be short and relatively simple training requirements, typically lasting a week or less for many pilots.
The difference poses important cost and safety implications for ANA and other airlines waiting to take delivery of hundreds of 787 jetliners. Typically, the longer it takes an airline to run pilots through mandatory training, the higher its costs.
Minimizing the length of pilot training has become a major point of competition between Boeing and Airbus, a unit of European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co. At many airlines in Europe and elsewhere, only two or three days of training are required for pilots to shift between certain Airbus models. Boeing has been marketing the 787 by stressing that Boeing 777 pilots switching to fly the latest model typically should require no more than five days of training.
Officials at Airbus are trying to use ANA's 787 training time as a way to promote their own planes, arguing in recent sales pitches that Airbus planes are a better choice partly because pilot training is faster and therefore less costly, according to industry officials.
An Airbus spokeswoman wouldn't comment on whether Airbus is using ANA's long training time for the 787 to market Airbus jets.
Roei Ganzarski, chief customer officer for Boeing's flight-training organization, said ANA opted for "a few extra steps." That's the "choice they made along with the Japanese regulator," he said, to "introduce this brand new airplane." Mr Ganzarski declined to comment on training periods adopted by other carriers.
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