2013-01-11 — /travelprnews.com/ — Wizz Air, the largest low-cost, low-fare airline in Central and Eastern Europe, today announced it will open a new crew training centre in Budapest in March 2013. The Wizz Air training centre will feature a modern A320 full flight simulator, aircraft cabin mock up facilities and a fire fighting trainer, representing an investment of €15m over a period of 10 years. The state of the art equipment will be located at Budapest Airport and will allow Wizz Air to carry out over 90% of its crew training in Budapest. The operation of the new training centre will create a number of jobs in the aviation sector and the tourism industry in Budapest.
To secure this modern crew training centre and flight simulator in Budapest, Wizz Air partners with Amsterdam based flight training organization FSC (Flight Simulation Company). The partnership ensures that Wizz Air’s new crew training centre will be operated in Budapest for the next 10 years.
József Váradi, Chief Executive Officer of Wizz Air, said: „This summer we will have an international workforce of 500 pilots and 1,000 cabin crew to be trained on an ongoing basis. These numbers could double in 5-6 years as a result of Wizz Air’s continuous expansion. In the past, flight crew trainings could not be done in Hungary, and due to the lack of suitable facilities we had to shop around in Western Europe. Wizz Air’s new training centre in Budapest further demonstrates our long term commitment to Hungary and will play a key role in supporting Wizz Air’s overall growth. Our new training centre will benefit local job creation and support the local tourism industry with hundreds of crew members spending time in Budapest for their initial and recurrent trainings.”
Bob van Balen, Managing Director of FSC, said: “We are proud to partner with one of the fastest growing airlines in Europe. Getting selected by Wizz Air means we were able to come up with the solutions Wizz Air was looking for at its Budapest training centre.”