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Media IN ABU DHABI —27th-06-2019
High global demand for airline pilots, and the growing popularity of Airbus A320 and Boeing 787 aircraft, have jointly sparked major growth in the pilot training division of Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways.
Hitherto, Etihad has won contracts to train pilots for more than 40 clients, over half of them airlines in the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Indian sub-continent and South East Asia. One year ago, it supported only three other operators.
Captain La Cava said training for new pilots from ‘ab initio’ stage was a growing activity of Etihad Aviation Training, which currently has over 100 cadet pilots and 22 training aircraft, including four Embraer Phenom 100 jets, all based at Al Ain, in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.
But by far the fastest-growing segment of the business has become retraining pilots to fly new aircraft types, particularly the Airbus A320-family of narrowbody jets and the wide-bodied Boeing 787 Dreamliner, two of the most in-demand types.
“As airlines and private operators introduce more of these jets, demand is increasing significantly to transfer pilots from flying other aircraft types,” said Captain La Cava.
Captain La Cava said Etihad Aviation Training was equipped with 10 Full Flight Simulators including three Airbus A320 devices, three Boeing 787 units, two Boeing 777s, a single unit for Airbus A330s/A340s, and one A380 simulator, as well as 12 fixed-based Airbus and Boeing training devices.
An Airbus A350 simulator will be introduced later this year, as well as an A320 fixed base training unit.
