Flybe achieves City & Guilds Centre status

Flybe has announced it has officially become the UK’s newest City & Guilds Centre following the successful completion of an extensive approval process. The certification means that Flybe can now award its cabin crew National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) through its Training Academy.

During a short presentation ceremony this morning at the airline’s Exeter headquarters, City & Guilds’ Director-General, Chris Jones, handed over a plaque to Simon Witts, Flybe’s Director of Safety, Quality & Training, to mark the achievement.

The airline, in partnership with Exeter College, has been delivering and awarding the City & Guilds’ NVQ in Aviation Operations in the Air (Cabin Crew) since April 2008, through the colleges own City & Guilds centre approval. To date, 300 cabin crew have been awarded this specialist NVQ for the sector, with 500 more planned to graduate this year alongside those undertaking several other programmes already set to start.

Mr Witts said: "We are naturally honoured to have received City & Guilds Centre approval and to now count ourselves amongst the 8,500+ City & Guilds colleges, training providers and employers in operation across the world. We plan to register and award our existing Flybe cabin crew NVQ as well as extending it to now include Customer Service and Aviation Operations on the Ground NVQs.”

City & Guilds has been in existence for 130 years and offers over 500 vocational qualifications covering all 22 identified industrial sectors, from pre-entry to post graduate level. Chris Jones commented: “City & Guilds has been working with Flybe for some time to deliver high quality training on site to all employees. We are dedicated to the development of relevant industry qualifications and are pleased to announce this partnership with one of the largest private employers in the South West.”

Added Mr Witts: “We have a long and enviable history of training within Flybe and this City & Guilds approval is yet another landmark achievement that further enables us to offer quality training programmes solely aligned to our own brand. It is yet another major step on an exciting road for our new Flybe Training Academy.”