The agreements concluded by LAT and United Aviate Academy focus on a cooperation that aims to transform the Goodyear campus near Phoenix in line with market requirements. United Aviate Academy will lease the Goodyear campus along with its associated infrastructure. In addition, United Aviate Academy will lease the training fleet owned by LAT, consisting of 25 Cirrus SR20 aircraft. As part of the comprehensive agreement, LAT has options to purchase training services from United Aviate Academy, depending on its own future needs.
Until the beginning of the pandemic, Lufthansa Aviation Training had trained pilots at its flight school EFA for Lufthansa Group Airlines as well as for the external market, covering the entire training process from the first theory lesson to A/C-type rating. Going back in time, Lufthansa Group’s flight schools have successfully trained pilots since 1955, offering both the Multi-Crew Pilot License (MPL) and the Airline Transport Pilot License (ATPL). Goodyear is one of the oldest training sites, where pilot students have undergone their initial practical training phase.
As a consequence of the tremendous impact the pandemic has on the aviation industry, the training of new pilot students at the European Flight Academy had to be temporarily stopped as the demand for newly trained pilots by Lufthansa Group Airlines significantly decreased. As part of the group-wide restructuring program, Lufthansa Aviation Training is streamlining its pilot training program in a new set-up while maintaining the highest quality standards to meet the market’s needs.
”Lufthansa has enjoyed many years of successful cooperation with United Airlines as part of Star Alliance. We are glad to be able to emphasize this partnership in the context of our long-established flight training campus in Goodyear. We are convinced that both partners will benefit with regard to their needs – the United Aviate Academy can make full use of a unique campus infrastructure and a modern training fleet while LAT secures access to training capacities in the future in addition to substantially reducing costs in pilot student training", said Matthias Spohr, Managing Director at Lufthansa Aviation Training GmbH.
“United and the Aviate program have a long-standing relationship with LAT and we are proud to expand that with this agreement,” said Captain Curtis Brunjes, United’s Managing Director of Aviate and Pilot Strategy. “Discussions with the LAT management have made clear that we share a fundamental view of the importance of quality flight training and together we look forward to years of innovation and continuous improvement in training future leaders of Lufthansa and United.”
About Lufthansa Aviation Training
Lufthansa Aviation Training GmbH (LAT) is one of the leading companies in the field of flight training with its competence in the training and further education of cockpit and cabin personnel at twelve training locations worldwide. The company’s headquarters is located at Munich Airport employs around 1,000 people. The customer portfolio includes over 250 nationally and internationally renowned airlines, including the Lufthansa Group airlines.
Lufthansa Aviation Training has almost 200 training devices within its training fleet, including aircraft for pilot training, flight simulators of all common aircraft types for pilot training and emergency and service mock-ups for the training of flight attendants.
Under the European Flight Academy (EFA) brand, Lufthansa Aviation Training bundles all Lufthansa Group flight schools.
Further information on Lufthansa Aviation Training and the European Flight Academy is available at www.lufthansa-aviation-training.com and www.european-flight-academy.com.
Press contact
Lufthansa Aviation Training
Dirk Sturny
Head of Marketing & Corporate Communications
Südallee 15
85356 Munich Airport, Germany
Phone: +49 89 977 6447
e-Mail: dirk.sturny@lat.dlh.de
Website: www.lufthansa-aviation-training.com
Media Center: www.lufthansa-aviation-training.com/mediacenter
