Flydubai, Dubai's innovative low cost airline, officially opened its new state-of-the-art training centre today, making it the only certified Boeing 737 facility in the UAE. Flydubai's CEO, Ghaith Al Ghaith, was joined by the Director General of Dubai Airport Freezone (DAFZ), Dr. Mohammed Al Zarooni, 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 Ghaith said: “Today is a very exciting day for flydubai. I am very proud of the efforts the team has made to create a training centre of this calibre. We have 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 AED 2 million (3.283 million EGP), includes a fire and smoke training simulator plus four large classrooms and a dedicated computer-based training room. It is an expansion of the original training centre, which was 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 for diverse business activities. I wish flydubai every success for its training centre and look forward to welcoming more crews to Dubai to train here." 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. The airline has a simple model where customers only pay for services they want to receive. Fares are inclusive of all taxes plus one piece of hand luggage weighing up to 7kg and one small laptop bag or hand bag. Checked baggage starts at AED50 (82.076 EGP) for 20kgs. A seat with extra legroom costs AED100 (164.153 EGP). Flydubai operates from the modernised Terminal 2 building on the north side of Dubai International Airport.
