A significant remodel of the former terminal at Columbia Regional Airport has transformed the interior space into a school that began instruction this month.
The gateside waiting area desk and seats have been taken down and walls have been put up. The room where airline passengers previously unpacked their bags and took off their shoes going through security is now a classroom where students will unpack backpacks and learn about aviation.
It’s part of Moberly Area Community College’s new commercial pilot training program. This month, MACC is welcoming its first cohort of 12 prospective pilots.
Retired airline pilot Ed Longoria is overseeing the program and is kicking off what's called "ground school” this semester — the non-airborne component of commercial pilot education.
Over the next four months, he’ll lead the inaugural class through Aviation 101 — where students will study meteorology, go on a tour of the control tower and get a primer on the history of aviation.
The flight component won’t begin until late August, when students will take off from the same two runways United, American and Allegiant Airlines use to take passengers from Columbia to Chicago, Denver, Dallas and Florida.
“You can see that the three airlines that are currently using this airport will be coming right behind the school, so it's going to be a very busy space,” Longoria said.
The new program will consist of two years and six semesters of classroom study and flight training. Graduates will earn an associate’s degree and complete approximately 250 to 300 hours of flying — getting them on their way to becoming a pilot for airlines, private companies or the military.
Longoria said a small regional airport such as Columbia, with around 10 flights coming and going per day, is an ideal training ground.
“They're in an air space that is not super congested, a perfect place for puppy pilots to start learning to fly, but yet they're flying with other commercial aircraft,” he said.
Handling the schooling from the sky is Keara Neifach and her staff of flight instructors at Kansas City-based ATD Flight Systems, who will teach students to fly 4-seater, 180 horsepower, Piper Archer aircraft.
Neifach’s father was a pilot and founded ATD. She took over the family business in 2020 and tells people she basically grew up in an aircraft.
“I forget that this is scary for some people. Because to me it's like getting in a Honda Civic,” she said.
To earn a pilot’s license, students must complete hundreds of hours of training in the air with a certified instructor — and that’s where Niefach comes in.
“They go over maneuvers in ground school and then that lines up with their next flight portion that will be with us, and then we'll go over those concepts in the air,” she said.
The company is working with MACC to provide the planes and the certified flight instructors for the aviation training conducted in Columbia. Neifach is currently purchasing the six planes that will be used at the Columbia airport and said they’re aiming for a ratio of one aircraft to five students.
Dan O’Hara is president of the Missouri Aviation Historical Society and said an airport is an important component of a region and can keep a community current.
O’Hara said as a college town, it’s fitting for Columbia to have a flight school and the accessible aviation education can offer opportunities.
“Once you get this thing up and running, it's possible, not just for the local area, for folks that want to go and get their aviation ratings, but you might have people coming in from Macon, Moberly, all around the middle part (of Missouri) to come to Columbia and get their flight training done,” he said.
Demand for pilots is sky high
The Columbia Regional Airport opened its new terminal three years ago, leaving the previous facility vacant and largely unused.
The city is now leasing the space to MACC, which paid to retrofit the building to conduct flight training, since anticipated demand for new pilots is high.
Boeing predicts a need for 660,000 new pilots to meet demand in the next 20 years. That’s in addition to the anticipated need for 710,000 aircraft maintenance technicians and a million cabin crew staff.
But going to college to get that training can be expensive. St. Louis University aviation science professor Stephen Belt said that’s especially true when factoring in the cost of fuel, a trained pilot and an aircraft.
“When you think about flight training, it's a one-on-one laboratory experience in an airplane,” he said.
Missouri, and Columbia, could be an ideal destination for aspiring pilots due to its relatively lower cost of living.
“When you're living on the east and west coast, the cost of fuel has just gotten crazy,” Neifach said. “We're seeing so many more students move from those locations where fuel is expensive because they're going to end up saving $30,000 to $50,000 on their flight training.”
Belt said a bachelor's degree in aviation, such as the one offered at St. Louis University, or an associate’s degree, like what will be offered at MACC, teaches students not just how to fly planes, but positions them to become leaders in the aviation industry.
Through nearly 30 years as an aviation educator, Belt has seen how most students pursuing the life of a pilot have a passion for flight. Now, with an aviation school in Columbia, he said more mid-Missouri students with a fervor for flying are a little bit closer to accessing that goal.
“I think one of the great advantages of the expansion of flight training opportunities … is that it's allowing more and more young people the ability to kind of imagine something that they may never have imagined before,” Belt said.
Longoria, the MACC program director, is hosting informational sessions for interested students throughout the next few months. The college plans to eventually expand its flight school capacity to 96 students. But for now, the first 12 aspiring pilots are on their way.
