United this week unveiled a new 150.000-square-foot building at its Flight Training Center in Denver, United States. Considered the largest facility of its kind in the world, the additional building offers the airline the ability to add 12 more advanced full-motion flight simulators, six of which have already been delivered.
Since the start of 2024, the airline has hired more than 300 pilots, in addition to the more than 2.300 last year. The new campus building adds even more training capacity for United's 16.000 pilots.
United Flight Training Center now has eight total buildings, more than 65 square feet of training space and 46 state-of-the-art full-motion flight simulators.
These investments in people, infrastructure and technology continue to fuel the United Next plan from the airline.
New features
Located in the Central Park neighborhood of Denver, the facility spans 23 acres and is the only training facility for the airline's nearly 16.000 active pilots and all new hires. All United pilots complete intensive simulator training with instructors and evaluators during the initial qualification process and every nine months thereafter to maintain their Flight Training Center certifications.
- United Flight Training Center currently has 46 full-motion flight simulators, including six in the new building, and 21 fixed training devices.
- In addition to the six already existing in the new building, there is space to add six more full-motion flight simulators.
- The new building addition allows for a total of 52 full-motion flight simulators and 34 fixed training devices in the Flight Training Center.
- The new building gives the Flight Training Center the ability to conduct more than 32.000 training events annually and train up to 860 pilots per day.
- The facility is in operation 24 hours a day, 362 days a year.
Local impact of the Flight Training Center
United has invested more than $145 million in the new building and is expected to create more than 370 new jobs. In total, more than 1.600 of United's more than 10.000 Denver-based employees work at the United Flight Training Center, representing 24 different departments in functions that include flight instruction, flight evaluation, scheduling, pilot hiring, human resources and flight patterns. In 2023, more than $＄44 million was spent on hotel room nights in Denver for pilots visiting the training facility, with expectations to spend more than $＄65 million in 2024.
The United Flight Training Center was originally built between 1966-68 as part of the Stapleton Airport complex and has since served as United's primary pilot training facility. Since 2016, United has invested US$370 million in the Flight Training Center.
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