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Martha Jercinovich

AIN’s second-annual Corporate Aviation Leadership Summit (CALS) brought together a selection of business aviation thought leaders to examine and discuss some of our industry’s pressing issues. This year’s topics included training, sustainability, maintenance, organizational health, aircraft transactions, managing generational differences, and compensation.
Long gone are the days when flight training was all a pilot needed to stay current.
In fact, according to the CALS attendees, today’s widening array of training needs—regarding everything from aircraft type ratings to cabin systems to flight physiology—means that planning and selecting the right regime has become a significant challenge. To help provide guidance, attendees identified four key steps towards optimizing your operation’s training program: selecting a training provider, expanding the types of training, planning for online versus in-person training, and enhancing new-hire training.
<h2>Not Every Trainer is the Right Trainer</h2>
While we’ve all experienced the increased strain that the past two years have put on corporate aviation, few idof us realize the impact on the training industry.&nbsp;
“We’ve lost a lot of our most experienced sim instructors to corporate and fractional operators,” a representative of a large training provider said. “It can take nine to 12 months to hire and train replacements.”
That’s tough on the provider and the customer. Fewer qualified instructors means longer waits for available slots. So, now, you not only have to find a provider specializing in the aircraft you operate; you also must ensure that their availability meets your needs. It’s hard to tell the boss that the airplane is grounded because the pilots aren’t current.
“It takes more planning and coordination now,” continued the training provider’s representative. “It also means that the cost of training is going up. In addition to having to pay for their training, we have to pay our ‘instructor pilots’ like the operators, so they will stay with us.”
Additionally, because the training requirements of today’s operators are expanding into CRM, circling approaches, upset recovery, e-learning, and the like, training providers must invest in developing new curriculums. That takes even more time and money.
<h2>The ABCs of C-FOQA</h2>
One new aspect of training that is growing throughout the industry involves integrating Corporate Flight Operations Quality Assurance (C-FOQA) into a provider’s situational training portfolio.
Trainers are collecting data from all their students to find common areas of errors or inconsistent operations. For example, say trainers are seeing an increase in issues with low-visibility approaches across the board. Another scenario is a particular airport with challenging SIDS and STARS. Or trainers may see a trend for higher G-forces during flair and landing in a particular aircraft type. Now, no matter the situation, they can take that collected FOQA data and emphasize that aspect in a training scenario.
“Having this kind of scenario or experience-based information available is a great way to optimize our training efforts,” a chief pilot said. “Learning about and sharing FOQA data is a great predictor and helps us avoid common issues.”
Of course, C-FOQA isn’t the only acronym that’s getting increased attention from the training providers; CDPLC, CRM, UAT, and CMS are also on the list of subjects that providers are adding to their training offerings.
In addition, many training providers are expanding into offering “soft skill” training, including flight physiology subjects like setting personal Go/No-Go parameters.
<h2>Online Versus In-person</h2>
Flight training providers are also making considerable investments in increasing the quality and availability of their online offerings. And, as you’d expect, the CALS attendees who had experienced both types of training were quick to share their insights.
Overall, attendees felt that both have their place in today’s corporate aviation world. Online training, they said, is be better suited for initial and familiarization-type courses. The self-paced aspect of online is also good for pilots who are on the road a lot.
Still, receiving in-person training was the hands-down winner for obvious reasons.
“You have a chance to talk to other pilots to learn from their experiences,” a senior captain said. “The benefits of that exchange often go beyond what you expect from a training session. You may ask questions you hadn’t even thought of previously.”
As mentioned, the training providers have been experiencing difficulties staffing their locations. The good news is that the problem is lessening, so scheduling is becoming more accessible, but it is not back to pre-pandemic levels.
Also, because of the busier schedules, operators must limit a crew’s away time without damaging training quality. The solution is to offer a hybrid-type training program mixing online classes with in-person training regimes.
As one corporate line captain said, “It gives me the ability to study parts of what I need at my convenience and then put that knowledge into practice when I’m in the classroom or sim. It takes some getting used to, but I think that a hybrid-type program will be the way of the future for all types of flight training.”
<h2>They Don’t Know What They Don’t Know</h2>
As noted earlier, corporate aviation has seen unprecedented post-pandemic growth. And it’s put pressure on operators and training providers to bring new hires up to speed faster and more efficiently than ever before.
Unfortunately, no two hires are the same. One pilot’s 2,000 hours will be different from another’s.
“What we’re seeing is widening deficiencies among our new-hire candidates, to the point of it being a decline in skills,” a director of aviation said. “Much of it is due to big gaps in various types of experience.”
“Some new hires come in with a lot of experience with glass panels,” he continued. “Others have a lot of hours but little of that kind of knowledge.”
So, when creating an efficient and cost-effective onboarding training program, there’s not much opportunity for standardization. Every situation is unique and requires a different solution.
And, it’s not only their hands-on skills that need sharpening; the new hires are not familiar with your company’s cockpit culture, meaning that pilot pairing is critical to help streamline their transition.
That’s where the benefits of simulator time go beyond keeping the wings level. “We use the sim as a tool for our crews to get to know each other without the pressure of an actual flight,” a senior captain said. “Today, being a good pilot requires more than just flying the airplane; well-planned training is key to developing all necessary skills.”
And, lastly, when it comes to new hires and everyone else in your flight department, it’s been well established that making a structured training program part of your operation is a considerable aid in long-term retention. It’s always better to keep the folks you have rather than needing to hire replacements.
Whether teaching new systems skills or bringing new pilots up to speed, today’s corporate aircraft operators must be much more proactive in creating and managing their operation’s flight training program. If we continue to work together to share ideas and information, that’s just what we will be able to do.

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