United Airlines has expanded its flight training center in Denver, USA, which is the world’s largest.
The facility spans 150,000 square feet and has the capacity to house 12 full-motion flight simulators, six of which are already in place. It can train up to 240 pilots per day. United Airlines has invested over $145 million in the expansion, creating over 370 new jobs.
The United Airlines Flight Training Center currently comprises eight buildings, over 700,000 square feet of training space, 46 full-motion flight simulators, and 21 fixed training devices.
It serves as the sole training facility for approximately 16,000 United Airlines pilots and newly hired pilots, providing simulator training for certification and maintenance every nine months. With the addition of the new facilities, the center can conduct training for up to 860 individuals per day, totaling 32,000 training instances annually. United Airlines has hired over 300 pilots this year and plans to employ more than 2,300 in 2023.
In the summer of 2023, United Airlines acquired two plots of land near Denver International Airport, having invested nearly $1 billion in the past few years to enhance the customer experience at the airport. They employed over 2,500 individuals in Denver in 2023 and plan to add over 1,000 more in 2024. Of the 10,000 Denver-based employees, over 1,600 work at the Flight Training Center. The pilot accommodations for training are expected to cost $44 million in 2023 and are projected to reach $65 million in 2024.
