Etihad Aviation Training, the specialist training division of Etihad Aviation Group, has become the first aviation company in the Middle East to gain approval from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) to train Boeing 777 and 787 pilots for European operators and carriers elsewhere which adopt Europe’s air safety standards.

The approval to train pilots for these two wide-bodied Boeing aircraft types expands the global capabilities of the school, which in 2018 also became the first Middle Eastern aerospace business to gain EASA designation as an approved training organisation for pilots of Airbus A320, A330 and A340 aircraft.

Captain Paolo La Cava, vice president and managing director of Etihad Aviation Training said: “Some operators have insufficient capacity to conduct training in their own facilities while others do not have in-house capabilities. In addition to training pilots for Etihad, our school also supports the requirements of many other operators for a range of aircraft types.”

The suite of offerings ranges from ‘ab-Initio’ courses to type rating and recurrent training, as well as Upset Recovery Training and Performance Based Navigation. The school has 11 full motion training simulators, including five for Boeing 777 and 787 training, as well as fixed base devices, and training teams include senior pilots actively flying for Etihad Airways.