United Airlines plans to interrupt floor Wednesday on an enlargement of its coaching center in Denver, an initiative geared toward getting hundreds of pilots able to fly passengers because the service goes on a hiring spree.

The venture will value about $100 million. The brand new four-story constructing at its coaching campus will permit United so as to add six new flight simulators. The airline plans so as to add an extra six simulators in a while, though the placement is but to be decided. It at the moment has area for 40 simulators.

The brand new simulators will probably be to coach pilots on the Boeing 737 Max and Airbus jetliners, after a massive order final yr, in addition to the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, Marc Champion, managing director of the flight coaching heart, informed CNBC.

The service expects the venture to be accomplished earlier than the top of subsequent yr. Champion mentioned the coaching heart enlargement venture has been within the works for a couple of yr.

Like different carriers, United is dealing with intense competition for pilots because the trade recovers from the Covid pandemic. The airline is planning to rent about 10,000 pilots between now and the top of the last decade, Champion mentioned. The Chicago-based service expects so as to add about 2,000 pilots this yr.

Final yr, United began educating the primary college students at its new flight college, the United Aviate Academy, in Goodyear, Arizona. It goals to coach 5,000 pilots there by 2030.

Fleet modifications and idled pilots through the pandemic created massive training backlogs throughout airways as many aviators switched to new plane or waited for slots to finish federally mandated recurrent coaching.

American Airlines, for instance, final yr determined to maintain a pilot coaching heart in Charlotte, North Carolina, open to deal with the amount. United, nonetheless, maintained a lot of its fleet, and reached an settlement with its pilots’ union early within the pandemic that helped it hold lots of its pilots skilled.