United Airlines Invests $100M in Colorado Pilot Training Center

United Airlines has unveiled plans to invest $100 million to expand its sole training center, located in Denver, Colorado, near Denver’s Central Park.

Plans for the 23-acre campus include construction of a four-story building that will house 12 advanced flight simulators, training rooms, offices, and conference rooms. The project is expected to be completed by the end of 2023.

“The expansion of this world-class facility gives United even more resources to recruit and train the next generation of aviators,” said Marc Champion, Managing Director of the Flight Training Center.

United’s campus – seven buildings, across 550,000 square feet of training space – is the sole training facility for the airline’s 12,000 active pilots and all newly hired pilots. Every nine months pilots must visit the training center to remain up-to-date on certifications. At any one time, there may be up to 600 pilots training at the facility.

United’s Flight Training Center campus currently has 39 full-motion flight simulators and 15 fixed training devices – the additional building means United will soon have the capability to have a total of 52 full-motion simulators and 28 fixed training devices.

United expects to add more than 2,000 new pilots this year alone and is on track to hire 10,000 pilots by 2030. The airline plans to train around 5,000 pilots by that date through United Aviate Academy, the airline’s own pilot training school. United’s goal is to have at least half of the pilots trained at the United Aviate Academy to be women or people of color.