United opens $145M addition to pilot training center in Denver

United Airlines officially opened a new 150,000-square-foot building at its Flight Training Center in Denver on Thursday, marking a milestone in its quest to hire 10,000 new pilots by 2030.

United, the largest carrier at Denver International Airport, spent more than $145 million on the new building. The airline said the addition to the 23-acre campus in northeast Denver will allow it to conduct more than 32,000 training events annually and train up to 860 pilots daily.

The training center, which United said is the largest of its kind in the world, now has eight buildings, more than 700,000 square feet of training space and 46 state-of-the-art flight simulators.

“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, who attended the grand opening.

Chicago-based United and other airlines are striving to ensure they have enough pilots to fill their cockpits as more baby boom-era pilots reach the federal mandatory retirement age of 65. In 2023, United hired approximately 2,300 pilots and has added more than 300 so far this year.

The Denver center is United’s sole training center for its 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 then every nine months to maintain their certifications.

The expansion of the flight center is expected to create more than 370 new jobs. More than 1,600 of United’s roughly 10,000 Denver-based employees work there, United said.

The flight center was originally built between 1966 and 1968 as part of the Stapleton Airport complex and has been United’s main pilot training facility since. The airline said it has invested $370 million in the center since 2016.

More than $44 million was spent on hotels in Denver for pilots visiting the training center in 2023, according to United. The total is expected to increase to $65 million this year.

The airline spent $33 million last year to buy 113 acres near the Denver airport to further expand the training center. United said it aims to have the expansion up and running by 2028. Plans filed with the city said United is exploring “programmatic needs to support corporate campus activity accommodating 5,000 employees in future phases of the project.”

“It’s fundamental to our ability to really implement United Next, which is growing United Airlines at about twice the rate that any other airline in the world has grown in history and doing that for years in a row,” Kirby said.

The airline said it has invested nearly $1 billion in the past few years in Denver, the site of its fastest-growing hub. Those investments include new gates, two new clubs at the Denver airport and a new check-in lobby.

The airline said it hired more than 2,500 people in Denver in 2023 and anticipates hiring more than  1,000 people this year. United offers more than 500 daily departures from Denver.