Dubai's budget carrier flydubai has announced the official opening of its new hi-tech training centre, making it the only certified Boeing 737 facility in the UAE.

The centre, located at DAFZ, not only allows flydubai to train its own cabin and flight deck crews, but also conduct third party training to other airlines, including Global Jet, around the region.

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).

Al Ghaith said: “Today is a very exciting day for flydubai. We have till now had 30 batches of cabin crew graduate from our internal program 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 4 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.

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.