PEYTON, Colo. – Direct Connect Flight Academy celebrated its official opening on Saturday, June 23, at the Meadow Lake Airport, in Peyton, CO with an open house event, showcasing several of its airplanes current students and instructors.
Direct Connect Flight Academy (DCFA) is the most recent of its kind to open along the Front Range Urban Corridor, an area that continues to see considerable growth in aviation employment.
According to the Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation, in 2017, employment in this region’s aviation cluster grew for the sixth-consecutive year, reaching over 20,000 aviation employees for 680 companies. Between 2012 and 2017, aviation employment rose 23.1 percent, compared with 4.1 percent nationally. Those numbers are impressive, while the industry, as a whole, is finding itself in a massive pilot shortage.
The founders of DCFA – Ben Dwyer, Jim Boberg, Frank Schultz and Keith Hawbaker know all too well the difficulties the industry has with the recent lack of qualified pilots. Between the four of them, they have over 90 years of experience in the airline industry, most of them also holding roles in management at major airlines.
“We have developed the Direct Connect Flight Academy as a way to provide an efficient, accelerated curriculum for pilots searching for an airline career,” co-founder of Direct Connect Ben Dwyer said. “We know that there is a major shortage in commercial airline pilots right now and a big part of that is because of lack of affordable and convenient training options. We are here specifically to fit that need for the Colorado community.”
Direct Connect has actually been in operation since late 2017, and Dwyer admits this grand opening has been a long time coming.
“We are so excited to finally open these doors,” Dwyer said during the reception. “Our owners and instructors know full well what kind of experience you need to get hired on with a major airline. And our training program employs the same Line Oriented Scenarios (LOS) that airlines use to train and evaluate their flight crews.”
This summer alone, five students are looking to graduate from DCFA and many more have committed to joining on in the fall. In addition, DCFA has been in works with key aviation personnel, educators and community leaders to join forces and build the necessary pathways for interested students in high school to achieve their aviation careers. The details of these future partnerships will be released soon.
For more information about DCFA or to get on their upcoming news distribution list, please visit www.flydcfa.com or contact Direct Connect Flight Academy directly at (719) 208-7049 or info@flydcfa.com.