United Airlines has been on a roll lately adding new routes and aircraft. In order to meet that demand, United is investing heavily in pilot training. Recently, United opened a new 150,000 square feet training center in Denver. This will help facilitate training for the 300 pilots hired so far in 2024. The expanded facility has the capability to train up to 240 additional pilots per day and is one of the largest of its kind in the world.
Combating The Pilot Shortage
Throughout the aviation industry there is a shortage of pilots mainly caused by an influx of senior pilots retiring. This has caused airlines in the United States both large and small to park planes and potentially suspend routes. United is combatting the pilot shortage shortage by hiring 2,300 pilots in 2023. The airline has also launched an in house flight academy tailored to applicants with little to no flying experience called the United Aviate Academy. The existing flight training center did not have the capacity to support additional growth which is why United invested $145 million into the new expanded training center.
A State Of The Art Training Center
United’s Flight Training Center now has eight buildings spanning a total of 700,000 square feet of training space. The new building at the flight training center features six full motion flight simulators. This brings the training center to a total of 52 full motion simulators and 34 fixed training devices. Not only will the training center bring on more pilots, 370 new jobs are expected to be created across 24 different departments. This includes departments such as flight instructors, flight evaluators, scheduling, pilot hiring and flight standards. “We’re growing faster than any airline in the industry and our investments in our pilots and their training are critical to support the unprecedented number of new aircraft United will add to our fleet in the decades ahead,” said United CEO Scott Kirby. “United pilots are the best aviators in the world and the way we recruit, hire and train directly supports that high standard of excellence.”