Flybe Employer Engagement Day with Year 9 students

On Friday 17th April, a group of Year 9 students spent the day at the Flybe Training Academy based at Exeter Airport. The aim of the day was to help students to learn more about the world of work and to look at different careers within one organisation.

Students were based in the classroom where Lianne, our educator for the day, explained about the Flybe airline and its operations at Exeter. Students were then treated to a taster of the sorts of activities that cabin crew have to go through in their training and refresher courses each year. This involved students going into a mock-up of an passenger plane to try out the emergency slide descent before experiencing the actions to be taken by the cabin crew in the case of an on board fire.

In the training workshops, our students watched apprentice first year engineers. They were then taken to the main hangars through security and passport control at the airport, where third year apprentices were working alongside the engineers to maintain the two passenger planes that were in for their regular overhaul services. The students were treated to taking a look inside one of the planes to see what the engineers were doing, from stripping out the interiors, to taking the engines apart, fixing the fuselage and repainting the livery colours.

It was a fascinating experience for the students with several now wanting to apply for the cabin crew training and the engineering apprenticeships. One student, Elleesse, was really interested in learning about the engineering apprenticeships and Graham, our guide around the hangars, said that girls are more than welcome to apply as they have a good eye for the finer details on projects.