Behind The Scenes at Dallas Fort Worth Airport with American Airlines Part 4

The Flight Academy Facility houses flight attendant training for American Eagle and mainline American Airlines crew. In addition, there is a flight simulator for pilot training on all of American Airlines and American Eagle’s planes. Currently there is no 787 Dreamliner flight simulator yet.

This is Part 4 of my four part trip report:

Part 1 – Terminal Renewal Improvement Program (TRIP) in Terminal A and the American Airlines Control Tower

Part 2 – Crew Lounges and the Underground Bagroom

Part 3 – On the tarmac experience and the C.R Smith Museum

Part 4 – Flight Academy Facility – Flight Attendant Training, Flight Simulator, and the Integrated Operations Center (IOC) (formerly Systems Operations Control Center (SOCC))

The Flight Academy is on FAA Road in Dallas and is located next to the C.R. Smith Museum.

Upon entering, a large model American Airlines plane and many smaller airplane models on the wall.

There was a sign directing to Flight Attendant training.

Here, flight attendants can check their e-mail.

Unfortunately, we were unable to get a tour of a classroom is progress or a photo opportunity of a training cabin. We simply did not have time for this portion of the Flight Academy tour.

However, we did see pilot trainings going on in the flight simulators. The flight simulators cost between 10-15 million dollars each and it’s available for external 3^rd party rentals at $300-$400 per hour.

I got a chance to step inside the flight simulator which was pretty rad. Next time, I will need to try one of these out.

After the flight attendants and pilots are done for the day, they step out through these doors which say “Through these doors pass the best trained crews in the world”.

Next up, we took a tour of the American Airlines Integrated Operations Center (IOC) which was formerly called the Systems Operation Control Center (SOCC). This place is basically the central nervous system of American Airlines.

Jim Eastin, the Control Center manager gave us a tour of the facility. He is solely the decision maker in determining if an American Airlines flight has to be cancelled. He gave us a tour of two command centers within the IOC.

The first command center, aka “War Room” contains Cisco telephony devices with 5 television screens. It was a small room and is designed to be used during major emergencies such as a natural disaster or an act of terrorism.

The second command center, aka “War Room” was right next door and was very similar to the first one except this one had no TV’s. Instead, there is a computer work desk with a telephony device for each work-station. Jim Eastin has high level governmental security access and often talks with the FBI, CIA, and other agencies when a problem arises. He told us that the “War Room” was last used during Hurricane Katrina.

We went out to the Integrated Operations Center (IOC) floor to see how life was like at the hub of American Airline’s central nervous system.

It was an amazing feat as these guys are in constant communication with the crew in the air, on the ground, and even in different parts of the world as American operates 24 hours in all time zones. There is even an in-house meteorologist. Without these guys, American could not operate.