Delta's new SLC pilot training facility is first outside Atlanta

Delta Air Lines recently celebrated the opening of its new state-of-the-art pilot training facility in Salt Lake City with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by Delta leaders, Salt Lake City-based employees, local government officials and community members. Located near the Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC), the facility is Delta’s latest investment in a key network hub and its first significant training facility investment outside of its Atlanta headquarters, which opened its first pilot training facility in 1968.

“This 50,000-square-foot training center is really about the future,” said John Laughter, executive vice president and chief of operations for the airline. “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.”

The new facility will boost pilot training capacity and provide a closer, more convenient location for pilots in Delta’s western hubs, Laughter said. With thousands of pilots routed into the city for extended stays during training cycles throughout the year, the facility will also support the local economy.

“The significance of this training facility is not lost on Salt Lake City,” said Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall. “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 also maintains training facilities for flight attendants in Salt Lake City that hosts thousands of training events annually.

The new SLC facility will host more than 1,000 training events every month, Delta said in a release. Among the facility’s features are four flight simulation bays, an A350 and A320 simulator and a B737 simulator that will be added in the spring. The Salt Lake City flight simulators are the first Delta has had in a training center outside of its Atlanta headquarters.

“I’ve been with Delta for 17 years. For 17 years, I’ve been going to Atlanta to do all simulator training,” said Brian Rees, Delta’s chief pilot in Salt Lake City. “This will be huge for not only the pilots of Salt Lake, but we have a base in Los Angeles, Seattle and Minneapolis that are close, that will have those pilots come in here to train, as well.”

Along with the four simulation bays, the facility, which is almost 50,000 square feet in size, has seven classrooms for Delta Air Lines stakeholders to utilize, 10 briefing rooms and four procedure training rooms for qualification training. With extension space on-site for six more flight simulators and four more classrooms, there is also plenty of room for future growth, Delta said.

The facility also has door training and emergency equipment training spaces for flight crews.

“We have 5,000 employees here in the region, and when you talk about our pilots, we have the very best pilots,” said Ed Bastian, CEO of Delta. “We want to make sure we have the very best tools and technology and capability at their fingertips here. But all the other employees and families that we have here, it’s a statement to them, as well, in terms of seeing this great facility go up.”

Delta is SLC’s largest carrier, operating more flights than all other carriers combined, with 240 peak-day flights to nearly 90 destinations across the globe, including international flights and service to Seoul, Korea, launcing in June.