Training and Workforce
Pan Am’s SimCom Focuses on Business Aviation Training
With the opening of its new 67,000-sq-ft training center in Orlando, Fla.

With the opening of its new 67,000-sq-ft training center in Orlando, Fla. last October, Pan Am International Flight Academy underscored its intention to further expand into the business of simulator training for business aviation.

The academy has long been associated primarily with airline pilot simulator training, in part by virtue of its launch in 1980 by the late Pan American World Airways. The company survived bankruptcy in 1991, was purchased by investment firm J.W. Childs Associates of Boston in 1998, and in January 1999 bought SimCom. Shortly after the acquisition of SimCom, Pan Am management decided to integrate business aviation simulator training under the SimCom general aviation umbrella and to expand that aspect of the business.