FSANA Releases Call to Service

The Flight School Association of North America (FSANA)’s  recent newsletter shows the company releasing an open letter call to service, preparing for Learn to Fly month, releasing its 2020 survey results, as well as sharing conference outcomes from its FSANA Flight School Operators Conference in addition to pre-conference meetings.

The open letter call to service is for FAA DPEs in theUnited States to make a concerted push to clear a backlog of practical testneeds. FSANA highlighted that there are approximately 950 FAA DPEs who canconduct practical tests currently but that the mean number of tests provided byany DPE is only 63 tests per year. Even if each DPE gave just a limited numberof extra tests monthly, the effect would be a significant increase in theoverall output of practical tests. The goal is to leverage already in placeresources, the DPEs the FAA has already put in place, to help increase thetesting capacity.

Learn to Fly Month, which starts in May, is a continuationof the month-long initiative that FSANA has promoted for the last three yearsto facilitate flight training providers in attracting new potential entrantsinto the field of aviation. FSANA is encouraging flight schools andorganizations around the country to collaborate and hold events and promotionsfocused on getting more people to learn to fly. FSANA is providing a set of sixfree tools intended to help all flight schools and others interested inpromoting Learn to Fly Month.

In 2018 FSANA conducted a survey of FAA practical test costsaround the country. To track this part of flight training and see if changesare trending, the survey was conducted again in January of 2020. Some of thefindings include an upward trend on the average practical test closer to the$500-600 range than in 2018 when it was averaged at $400-500 per test. Inaddition, add on ratings seemed to have seen the greatest increase in averagepricing.

In a separate report, FSANA analyzed 2019 ATP certificationnumbers in the U.S. and found that while the numbers are not back to what theywere before regulation changes, ATP pilot certification trends continue to headupwards with the 2019 numbers.

Before the FSANA Flight Schools Operators Conference began,FSANA hosted meetings relating to concerns on FAA practical test availabilityand consistency, as well as availability of aircraft for training providers. Thefirst meeting highlighted positive effects that have been made in some areas ofpractical test availability due to policy changes that have been made for DPEsby the FAA over the past year since the last meeting and also noted thatbacklogs still exist. It was also noted that some degree of consistency oftesting seems to be improving.

In the second meeting, representatives from Sportcruiser,Tecnam, Vans, and Vashon aircraft talked with training providers about theabilities of their aircraft and applicability for flight training operations.The discussion highlighted the challenges of aircraft that are certificated asLSA instead of traditionally certificated FAA aircraft. FSANA will becontinuing the discussion from this meeting in a new flight training aircraftcommittee that will work to drive the discussions of meeting flight trainingaircraft needs for the training industry.

On day two of the conference, Keynote speaker Fay MalarkeyBlack, RAA President and CEO,  highlighted the importance of integrationbetween U.S. regional airlines and flight training providers. She noted theimpact of the regional airlines on the number of flights and employment in theaviation sector, highlighting the fact that 41% of scheduled passenger flightsare operated by regional airlines who employ over 57,000 employees.