WATS 2025 Ab Initio Session: Partnership Programs – Do They Work?

Hats off to Paul Priedecker, President, National Association of Flight Instructors and session moderator, for a leading a session that generated wide-ranging topics that should resonate within the broad commercial aviation market. $380,000. Remember that number. I’ll be delving further into the genesis of that sentence and other topics from a most insightful WATS session.

To be clear, the path to aspiring pilots achieving their career goals remains challenging. The airline industry’s hiring cycles, the US 1500-hour rule, the cost of gaining required certificates and licenses, and other impediments remain significant. One strategy to easing the pathway to achieving career aspirations may be mitigated, in part, with more robust partnerships between air carriers and accession sources.

Community Overview

Panel members initially provided a snapshot of their cohorts’ demographics and partnerships with airlines.

J. Shane Kelly, Vice President and Director of Operations, ATP Jets, noted his organization has 39 partnerships in place with air carriers. Erik Strickland, Vice President of Safety, Operations and Regulatory Affairs, Regional Airline Association (RAA) echoed themes highlighted in other WATS 2025 sessions: the emerging and uncertain impacts of recent geopolitical decisions; OEMs’ delays of single aisle and wide-body deliveries; and other factors are leading to a slowdown of regional air carrier hirings. Similarly, Joel Davidson, CEO, AeroGuard Flight Training Center noted his international students are better positioned for jobs than their US counterparts, who he noted are starting to see “bit of a wait in the US.”

Planting the Seed of a Career Sooner

Moderator Priedecker pitched his opinion to the panel members that the community needs to plant the seed of an aviation career sooner in younger and more formative youth. The strategy was offered as one way to meet long-range demands for aviation industry workforce members.

To point, Dr. Lauren Burmester, Pilot Partnership Manager, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, stated ERAU’s outreach includes going into elementary schools, conducting women in aviation day events and encouraging high school students to take and complete college-level courses in STEM topics.

Buckle Up: the Expense of Pilot Training

RAA’s Strickland initiated a discussion on what would be one 800-pound elephant in the room – the cost of completing pilot training. This will be an “all hands” effort to fix, as students simply need more access to affordable loans and financing plans. Indeed, the RAA executive suggested  the US Congress needs to help make pilot training more affordable. ERAU’s Burmester noted a student may be $380,000 in debt after they receive their 4-year degree at her private institution. Davidson added the cost of gaining a degree and aviation license at a public 4-year university exceeds $200,000. The executive reflected on the gap many newly minted graduates with licenses, but unable to obtain more hours as flight instructors due to the current market, find themselves, “If you don’t have a job, you still have to make a payment.

And as another benchmark, it was stated flight instructors may typically earn $40,000-$45,000 annually. However, many remain saddled with student debt – some approaching $2,000-$3,000 in monthly payments. ATP Jets’ Kelly suggested another solution may lie in the regionals truly and more fully partnering with students earlier in their pipeline training. The issue of debt for aspiring US graduates from flight schools remains a policy issue that CAT will continue to follow and comment on https://www.halldale.com/civil-aviation/the-price-of-dreams.

Mentoring

There was wide-spread agreement among the panel members about the need for airlines to step up their mentoring programs for students in their training pipelines. ERAU’s Burmester said her university offers a 1-hour credit class on mentoring essentials for its essentials. But the mentoring concept was noted to be a long-term proposition, with some noting airline pilots need to coach and mentor aspiring aviators to get through the first 5-10 years of a career.

Teach to Fly vs. Being a Pilot

Moderator Priedecker teed up another insightful topic for the panel – the need to mover beyond teaching an aspiring aviator how to fly as opposed to being a pilot. The responsibilities of a pilot are huge the panelists agreed, encompassing communications, leadership, decision-making and other competencies not taught in the classroom but more frequently obtained through experience and conveyed from effective mentors. ATP Jets’ Kelly summarized the conundrum quite well when he noted, “You can’t address everything in the flying pipeline.”

Of little surprise the US 1500-hour rule was discussed several in the session, with the subject matter experts agreeing this was a legal and regulatory matter, but one that should be changed in favor of granting more credit for instruction successfully completed in approved simulators and other strategies.