Middle East Business
Construction starts on a 13,000 square metre pilot and crew training centre in Riyadh, built for eight simulators and expandable to fourteen
By Staff Writer | 25 August 2026
flynas has begun building a training centre in the Al Rimal district of Riyadh at a stated investment above 200 million Saudi riyals, opening in 2028 with three simulators and a stated daily capacity of about 700 trainees.
The Saudi low cost carrier flynas has started construction of a pilot and cabin crew training centre in Riyadh. The company puts the investment at more than 200 million Saudi riyals and states a floor area of approximately 13,000 square metres in the Al Rimal district, less than ten minutes from King Khalid International Airport. The building is scheduled to open in 2028.
The operating figures the company has published are a daily capacity of around 700 trainees and three advanced flight simulators in the first phase. The company names Airbus, CAE and Restart as collaborators on the facility.
The capacity numbers are the part worth reading
Three simulators go in at phase one. The building is designed to hold eight. The company states a future expansion capacity of up to fourteen. Those three numbers are the whole engineering brief in miniature, and they describe a structure specified today for a load case that will not arrive for years.
A full flight simulator is a heavy, dynamically loaded machine on a motion base, and a hall built to receive eight of them has to carry that from the outset: slab thickness, foundation design, clear heights, plant capacity and access routes are all fixed at construction, not at fit out. Going from eight to fourteen is a different matter again, and the company has not said whether the fourteen is achieved within the same envelope or by extending it.
A building fitted with three of something and designed for eight has already spent the money for eight in its frame and its foundations. What it has not necessarily bought is the ability to reach fourteen without touching the structure, and the announcement does not say which it is.
The training center reaffirms flynas' commitment to investing in the development of national talent for specialized roles in the aviation sector, in parallel with our ambitious growth and expansion strategy, as well as our contribution to achieving national targets through qualified Saudi talent.
Bander Almohanna, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of flynas
Why an operator builds its own
The company states the purpose in commercial terms rather than symbolic ones: to strengthen in house training capability, cut reliance on external training providers, lower the cost of training pilots and cabin crew, and produce recurring savings. Airlines that reach a certain fleet size generally arrive at the same calculation, because simulator hire is priced by the hour and an expanding fleet consumes hours at an increasing rate.
The facility is also stated to include equipment for practical safety and service training, which is the cabin crew side of the building rather than the flight deck side. That is usually a different set of spaces again, with mock ups, water tanks or slide rigs, and it explains part of the 13,000 square metres.
What has not been given
No contractor, consultant or designer has been named for the building. No construction programme has been published beyond the 2028 opening, no breakdown of the 200 million riyals has been given between structure, fit out and simulator procurement, and the plot area is not stated. There is also no figure for the number of pilots or cabin crew the centre is expected to qualify each year, which is the number that would let anyone test the daily capacity claim of 700.
For a reader following Saudi construction rather than aviation, the item to watch is the main contract. A 13,000 square metre specialist building with a fixed opening date and an unusual structural brief is not a routine commercial shell, and who takes it will say something about which contractors are being trusted with technical work in Riyadh this year.