United Airlines began accepting applications for its flight academy on Tuesday, part of an effort to hire 10,000 pilots by 2030, as more of its pilots reach the federally mandated retirement age of 65.
The airline announced in February 2020 that it had purchased a flight school, but the Covid pandemic forced it to suspend its training plans. United is now resuming plans to top pilot ranks and prepare for growth as travel demand returns. Last week, it said it will be hiring pilots again, starting with 300 candidates whose recruitment process was halted by the pandemic.
United’s flight school is designed to train pilots with little or no experience. United said it wants to train 5,000 pilots and aims for half of them to be women and people of color. Just over 7% of United’s more than 12,000 pilots are women and 13% are people of color, United said.
The first class of 20 pilots will begin in the third quarter with a graduation date sometime in the first half of 2022, United said.
A pilot walks past United Airlines planes as they are parked at the gates at San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco, California, on April 12, 2020.
Justin Sullivan | Getty images
United and other airlines have ramped up pilot recruitment in recent years. Students can apply for United’s Aviate recruitment program, which offers conditional positions to candidates while gaining experience in training and with smaller carriers. It can take a student about five years from starting flight school until he lands a job at United.
United declined to say how much the flight academy would cost the students, but said it would fund $ 1.2 million in scholarships “to break down the financial barriers that have limited access to the career path of pilots for generations of women and people of color. JPMorgan Chase said it will provide an additional $ 1.2 million in scholarships to help increase diversity.