United Airlines says it will train 5,000 pilots over the next 10 years at its own Arizona flight academy and half of the graduates will be women and people of color. The airline bought Westwind School of Aeronautics in Phoenix last fall and is turning it into its own private pipeline to fill its cockpits. Many of the candidates will enter the academy with no flight experience and possibly be in the right seat of its single-aisle aircraft in five years. United says it will continue to hire from its traditional sources, like the military and from charter and cargo airlines, but academy grads will be groomed from Day One to be airline pilots.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/united-opens-own-flight-school-targets-women-minorities