Southwest Airlines to Resume Pilot Training Center Expansion

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DALLAS – Southwest Airlines (WN) is ready to resume construction on its pandemic-delayed US$13m headquarters expansion near Dallas Love Field (DAL).

According to a permit filed with the state, WN is resuming construction on 127,588 square feet of space in its Leadership Education and Aircrew Development Center, which will contain an eight-bay flight training center for simulators, classrooms, support rooms, and other infrastructure.

While the building’s outside shell was completed, nearly a third of the inner space remained unfinished. The project is part of WN’s LEAD building extension, which began in October 2019 with plans to build a three-story, 414,000-square-foot area to boost the company’s pilot hiring capacity.

Southwest expects to finish the project in 2024, airline spokesman Dan Landson told the Dallas Morning News.

Southwest Airlines Unveils New Look with Heart. Photo: Stephen M. Keller/Southwest Media.

Changing of the Guard


The airline is in need of up to 8,000 more personnel as it strives to recover from the previous two years’ air travel slowdown. Airlines, in particular, are in severe need of new pilots, and regional carriers are investing extensively in training academies and incentives for young pilots.

Adding insult to injury, airlines will also be hit by a surge of retiring pilots who are required by federal regulations to leave their jobs at the age of 65.

Despite US$66bn in federal payroll support to keep staff employed and the industry positions filled, WN’s workforce dwindled during the epidemic due to buyouts and voluntary retirements, dropping from 62,000 employees in February 2020 to less than 56,000 at the end of 2021, According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

Now, the airline is scrambling to rehire personnel, especially because the global pandemic has put a strain on its ability to operate during spikes in case counts.

In a similar move, United Airlines (UA) opened its Aviate Academy last month in Phoenix, Arizona. The flight school would allow UA to train half of its future pilots and is designed to train 5,000 pilots by 2030. It should also allow UA to make the job more accessible for aspiring pilots-to-be.

A rendering of Southwest’s pilot training center under construction at Dallas Love Field. Photo: Southwest Airlines

“While we’ve expanded the building, the build-out of many of the floors inside was put on hold at the beginning of COVID,” Landson said. “Now that air travel demand is returning, we’re moving forward with the finishing of the interior spaces, which will add space for our new hire training classes.

“We need pilots, we need flight attendants, we need ramp staffing, and you need the appropriate amount of buffer in all of those areas until we sort of see our way past COVID and understand what more normalized staffing, more normalized behaviors, more normalized sick leave looks like,” WN executive chairman and former CEO Gary Kelly said in a call with investors in January.


Featured image: A favorite Southwest Airlines special scheme. Photo: Luke Ayers/Airways

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