Some west coast pilots that fly for Delta Air Lines won’t need to trek all the way to Atlanta, Georgia any longer. A new Delta pilot training facility has just opened its doors in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The new training facility is the first Delta has opened outside of Atlanta.
Class is in Session at Salt Lake
Delta Air Lines has announced the grand opening of its new state-of-the-art training facility in Salt Lake City. This new facility is part of a major expansion expansion from the airline to update Salt Lake City International Airport.
The facility boasts over 50,000 square feet of space for training, with over 1,000 training sessions planned to take place each month. Within the facility are four full motions simulators to help train pilots. There are also areas for pilots to learn about door and equipment training.
Also located in the new facility are seven traditional classrooms and ten briefing rooms. Overall, the Salt Lake facility is much smaller compared to Delta’s 400,000-square-foot Atlanta training complex. Delta had been training pilots in A-Town since the late 60s.
The press release announcement coincided with a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall, Delta EVP John Laughter, and other airport and airline executives.
Laughter had this to say on the airline’s new training facility:
“This 50,000-square-foot training center is really about the future. There’s a great opportunity to improve not only great quality of training, but quality of life, too, and have our pilots have a really great training center to come to here.”
Mayor Mendenhall also commented on the grand opening, as she sees the new facility as a benefit to Salt Lake’s local economy:
“It’s a major step forward for our partnership and the development of Delta as an airline and Salt Lake City as a major capital city in the United States, and I look forward to the future of all the growth, the professionalism and the welcoming that this facility and our partnership ensures.”
Delta’s Utah Upgrades
The new Delta training academy is the latest chapter in a series of additions and renovations at Salt Lake’s airport. The airline is currently paying the airline in leasing through 2044 with a total of $2.8 billion.
In September 2020, Delta just finished construction of Concourse A with 900,000 square feet of space. The new concourse features 55 Delta gates and 19 restaurants and shops.
In early 2023, Delta renewed its relationship with the Utah Jazz, reclaiming its status as the Jazz official airline and naming rights partner for the newly renamed Delta Center. The venue was previously named the Salt Lake Ice Center in 2022, when the US Olympic Team used the arena for figure skating and speed skating qualifying events.
Delta plans to expand even further by 2027, adding an additional number of gates. These constant additions have been planned and executed so Delta can keep up with increasing travel demands from around the world. Delta will also begin flights between Salt Lake and Seoul, South Korea this June.
