Pilots, cabin crew from Pakistan being trained by Emirates

Pakistani pilots and other cabin crew from one of the largest groups being trained at the Emirates Training College, Dubai. Senior Vice-President, Cabin Crew Training, Catherine Baird, briefing visiting newsmen from Pakistan, Argentina and Brazil, here on Saturday said as many as 122 Pakistani crew, 25 pilots and 97 other cabin crew are among the trainees from 164 different nationalities, now under training at the state-of-the-art training college established with an investment of 248 million dirhams.
"With the resolve to remain the best in the air, Emirates has invested this huge amount to ensure perfection in this all important area of aviation industry," she added. The college which is rated as one of the best institutes in the world where trainees from 164 nationalities are being trained, has paramount trainers who do their job from 7am to 11pm, she said.
Baird said the college, which was established in 2007 to meet the growing needs not only of Emirate Airlines but other airlines from across the globe, aims at having a dedicated cabin crew training facility to ensure service standards and surpass customer expectations. The college has so far trained 13,000 cabin crew and would transfer best knowledge to 4,000 new entrants in 2011.
She said currently Emirates has 164 planes in its fleet and is looking forward to expanding to a total of 280 planes. Giving details, she said an order has been placed for 50 more 777-300 ER aircraft worth approximately $18 billion. This order adds to Emirates existing world's largest fleet of 95 777s in service including nine 200 ERs, 10-200 LRs, 12 -300s, 61-300 ERs and three freighters.
She said Emirates is one of the largest airlines having 73,000 employees, serving 146 destinations in 70 countries and keeping an eye on exploring more destinations. Helen, an Emirates college staff along with other officials namely Sumitta, Siobhan Bardet, Sherone, Reneel Khouri, and Huma Khawaja gave brief overview to journalists now visiting Emirates facilities in Dubai about training courses being conducted in the facility.
The college specialises in training Emirates' cabin crew in different disciplines that include evacuation and safety emergency procedures, service, image and uniform, leadership, security and medical (first aid) training. The college also includes replica toilet facilities, hatracks and stowages to train the cabin crew covering all aspects of in-flight service besides providing realistic training environment to them. In addition, a comprehensive seat demonstration room has been built which contains fully operable aircraft seats where cabin crew acquire experience in operating seat controls, understanding manual overrides and thus get equipped to assist customers to make them fully comfortable with their respective seat controls. The college does not only pay attention to polishing skills of cabin crew but also makes them familiar with different cultures especially Arabic, to give adorable feelings to passengers.
Sharing his experience with Emirates at the end of the tour, Hameed Faiz, one of the Pakistani pilots of A380 said the Emirates have 18 A380 in its fleet. The airline had started its operations with two leased planes from PIA in 1985 and after 26 years, it has become one of the largest airlines in the world, covering 30,000 miles across the globe. Emirates is the only airline, which operates in all six continents from single hub (Dubai), he added.