Etihad Airways breaks ground on flight training centre extension

Etihad Airways Chief Operations Officer, Captain Richard Hill, has turned the first sod to mark the construction of a US$15.3m extension to the airline’s Flight Training Centre at its Abu Dhabi headquarters. The new 5,300 m² metre facility will house six flight simulator training bays, classrooms for pilot and cabin crew training, pilots’ briefing and debriefing rooms, a new pilots’ lounge and offices. Etihad Airways will install flight simulators for all of these new aircraft types in the expanded facility. The UAE flag carrier has more than 90 aircraft on firm order with Airbus and Boeing, and to match this fleet growth, has plans to recruit 1,000 pilots and 9,000 cabin crew by 2020.