When it comes to training pilots, few airlines can afford a dedicated airport or décor befitting a high-end hotel. Richard Schuurman travels to the Emirates Flight Training Academy in Dubai to find out more.
Were it not for the large Emirate Flight Training Academy (EFTA) sign on the façade outside, you could be forgiven for thinking you were standing in the atrium of a hotel. In fact, the facility is so plush – heavy glazing and accented in dark stone and natural woods – that the students, in their uniform of grey trousers and blue blazers with the prominent EFTA logo, look almost out of place. But this is not a boutique establishment – it is a school intended to meet Emirates’ insatiable appetite for new flight crews.
The training academy, housed at Dubai’s second major airport Al Maktoum (also known as Dubai World Central), was opened by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum – Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of the Emirate of Dubai – during the 2017 Dubai Air Show, but plans for such a facility were first hatched as long ago as 2005.
“Before this, we used to train new pilots in Spain, at Oxford in the UK, and at a small facility in Garhoud [a community on the outskirts of Dubai Internation…
