Dubai Budget carrier flydubai Thursday officially opened its training centre, making it the only certified Boeing 737 facility in the UAE.
Gaith Al Gaith, flydubai's CEO, was joined by Dr Mohammad Al Zarooni, Director-General of the Dubai Airport Freezone (Dafz), to cut the ribbon on the new centre, which has been approved by the General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA).
The centre, located at Dafz, not only allows flydubai to train its own cabin and flight deck crews, but to also conduct third-party training to other airlines, including Global Jet, around the region.
Al Gaith said: "We now had 30 batches of cabin crew graduate from our internal programme, and I look forward to seeing more complete this world-leading training as well as welcoming other airlines to take advantage of the excellent training facilities we have here."
The facility, which was built at a cost of more than Dh2 million, includes a fire and smoke training simulator plus four large classrooms and a dedicated computer-based training room.
Internal programme
It is an expansion of the original training centre, which opened in August 2010, and houses a 737 door trainer, emergency training slide, pilot training seat as well as four traditional classrooms.
Al Zarooni said: "Today's opening not only highlights the excellent facility flydubai has built here at the freezone, but also shows the flexibility of our facilities to cater to diverse business activities."
Flydubai trains all its cabin crew in-house, from entry level to supervisors. All cabin crew undergo a thorough five-week course prior to their first flight, which includes cabin service, first aid and safety and security training.
The airline also conducts recurrent training for both cabin and flight deck crews.
Flydubai operates from the modernised Terminal 2 building on the north side of the Dubai International Airport.
