Making room for new CFII's??

[AdminLB]

Curious, has anyone heard of………. or seen any companies who furlough/lay off/down size higher time CFI’s (1000 hour or more) to make room for new CFI’s coming up through the ranks?

[mrjibbs]

Yes. Hillsboro Aviation in Oregon just did that within the last couple weeks. I spoke with a CFI there who confirmed this as well as a VP of another local school who had said that 3 high time CFI's from there had just applied with him. They posted a job opening on their site but it was just to keep things "fair." They only intended on hiring their own grad's.

[kodoz]

Silverhawk in Idaho will "encourage" 1000-hr CFIIs to move along. I don't know...from a student's perspective, that sucks: I'd rather be flying with a guy who wants to be there teaching.

[Gary DeWitt]

Yes. Hillsboro Aviation in Oregon just did that within the last couple weeks. I spoke with a CFI there who confirmed this as well as a VP of another local school who had said that 3 high time CFI's from there had just applied with him. They posted a job opening on their site but it was just to keep things "fair." They only intended on hiring their own grad's.

 

Interestingly, HAI said that the reason they laid off eight 1000+ hour pilots (low was 1,000 and high was 1,900) was this: they feel that to attract students into their program, they must offer them the ability to get all their certificates and ratings AND their first job.

 

They have just hired five new instructors, all HAI graduates, and apparently are hiring more.

[Helopilt]

I'd think that the students motivation is seeing the actual "success stories" - moving on to a career after instruction. If students see CFI's being laid off at 1000hrs, how is that going to motivate them to start or continue training??

 

Sure, they'll have a job instructing making peanuts, and then can expect to be unemployed after that?? Makes no sense to me.

[BOATFIXERGUY]

I see this as a huge problem. When I was looking for a flight school, I choose one that had experienced CFI's. The lowest time CFI was at 2000 hours and had real world experience, not just teaching patterns and auto's. I completely disregarded the schools with a plethera of 200 hour CFI's and zero higher time guys/gals.

 

Why would one not want to have EXPERIENCED helo pilots teaching? Makes no sense what so ever. I understand that the CFI route is the way that nearly every civilian pilot has to go, but why not keep the high time guys that enjoy teaching and can share some actual experience to their students. You can't guarantee a job to everyone...ever. Stop using that as a marketing tool.

 

When I was lucky enough to afford a flight school, I had new cfi's working for me, but I also had several higher time (1500 - 6000 hour) cfi's. The young cfi's need the "older" cfi's to learn from as well.

 

Why would you not want to keep attrition down also? Wouldn't you want to have employees that were there for as long as you could keep them happy and employed?

[Goldy]

In a "normal" economy this may not be such a bad idea. Encourage guys to move along and make room for the new CFI's, everybody gets a job, all is well with the world. Move one or two guys up into a senior position or CP..

 

However, I agree that to do it now, and force guys to be unemployed doesnt help anyone.

 

Goldy

[coanda]

I agree. As one of those CFII's that is looking at being kicked to the curb, I think it would be fair if there was actually a chance I could put my experience to work. 1500 hrs of patterns and more and more piston time isn't furthering my career and with the amount of 2-3000hr gulf pilots being laid off there is absolutely no chance for me out there other than practicing autos in an R22. The only light at the end of my tunnel is a job offer from Air Logistics (from December 2008). Maybe, just maybe, if they don't pull out of the Gulf, I'll get a call to report for training. Don't get me wrong....I'm very lucky to have a "paying" helicopter job.

Edited June 9, 2009 by coanda

[kodoz]

At 1000 hours, a pilot has options--maybe not many in this market, but you do have options. Below that, you really don't. Booting 1000-hr pilots out of flight instruction is the only way to get 200-300-hr pilots the experience to have options themselves. Even with that system though, it takes 5 new pilots to get one pilot to 1000-hrs...so that's a 500% growth rate for the instruction industry. And, even though it looks like a nice thing to do for the low-time pilots, the benefit is short-term: low-timers don't get the benefit of learning from experienced pilots. How'd you like your medical students learning from 1st-year residents?

 

Would be nice to see the industry develop a real mentorship program where 200-300 hour pilots can work alongside experienced pilots. To use Hillsboro as an example, instead of firing the guys who can instruct and re-hiring from within, it'd be better to take the 200-hr pilots who don't give a damn about teaching and get them into the left seat on commercial flights. Keep the good instructors where they are.

[Helopilt]

At 1000 hours, a pilot has options--maybe not many in this market, but you do have options.

 

Really? Care to share what those options might be? I am hoping 1500 might give me some options but currently I've had none yet.

[coanda]

Don't count on the magic "1500" either bud. Trust me.

[Hovergirl]

Unless you have an incredible dropout rate in the earlier stages (which is not good), even with 'letting go' instructors at 1000 hours you are still not going to be able to give jobs to a lot of qualified graduates. And you need some high time instructors hanging around -- who's going do the CFI training?

 

We all want experienced instructors. We all want a job when we're done. No way for a school to accomplish this unless it's growing like CRAZY and nobody is doing that right now.

[Darren Hughes]

Would be nice to see the industry develop a real mentorship program where 200-300 hour pilots can work alongside experienced pilots. To use Hillsboro as an example, instead of firing the guys who can instruct and re-hiring from within, it'd be better to take the 200-hr pilots who don't give a damn about teaching and get them into the left seat on commercial flights. Keep the good instructors where they are.

 

Kodoz, I've been harping on about this kind of thing for a while now. It would seem like now is the time for some of the larger commercial operators to "pull the finger out" so to speak, and pick up some low timers for some left seat operations. Now could be a chance to change the industry and put in place a more sustainable model. Below is a post of mine in a discussion we had on this very thing last year.

 

 

So how would you fix it?

Good topic Rogue,

 

In my perfect world, Instructors would be 10K-20K hour pilots with a wealth of experience under their belts and like Bossman said, doing it for the love of teaching. It would be a profession where some of the "battle weary" pilots could settle down to a particular area in order to have a steady job and a family. They could pass on all their knowledge that they picked up throughout the years and teach people to fly while relating the basic maneuvers to "real world" scenarios. Ooh, and they would get paid a real wage that would make it worthwhile for them.

 

In that perfect world, the FAA(or whatever authority you operate under) would have changed the rules to ensure you couldn't get an instructors certificate in under 5000 hours or something like that. And all those freshly minted 150 hour pilots would be able to apply for some sort of apprenticeship jobs or SIC positions that would bring them to the next level. Ooh, and there would be some sort of aptitude tests needed to get a student pilot certificate or at least a private.

 

To achieve this we would probably have to see changes from the insurance companies, the FAA and commercial operators simultaneously. We would need the FAA involved because as long as you can still get an instructors certificate in under 200 hours schools will continue to hire low timers and pay them peanuts in order to maximize profits, and who would blame them. I can't ever see the FAA changing the rules this drastically, but it's nice to dream! You would need the commercial operators on board in order to ensure "apprenticeship" positions for all the new guys coming along or else flight training would come to a standstill in the civilian world. I think this system might work for some large commercial operators as it would give them a chance to weed out the "no hopers" and sign up their good guys for 4 year contracts or something like that, this could help reduce costs for them also. And for the insurance companies to lower rates they would have to see that the new system would drastically reduce training accidents across the board, which it probably would. They would have to see that accidents during commercial operations wouldn't rise with this system also as just 1 accident in a big turbine would be more costly to an insurance company than 5 or more training accidents in a R22 or 300Cbi.

 

So that's my little dream, crazy and all as it is, I think it could be a better system than what's in place right now.

[ChopperJ]

I'd think that the students motivation is seeing the actual "success stories" - moving on to a career after instruction. If students see CFI's being laid off at 1000hrs, how is that going to motivate them to start or continue training??

 

Sure, they'll have a job instructing making peanuts, and then can expect to be unemployed after that?? Makes no sense to me.

 

Ditto, when an instructor leaves the students know where they are going. If they are being laid off with no further job lined up it sends a very bad message about the state of the job market.

Edited June 10, 2009 by HeloJVB

[Goldy]

This sounds like a job for:.

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.DP !!!

[Helopilt]

Don't count on the magic "1500" either bud. Trust me.

 

 

More like hoping the industry has started to turn around by the time I get to 1500. I don't believe in magic.

 

Hang in there man, we'll be in the pool someday...

[kodoz]

Kodoz, I've been harping on about this kind of thing for a while now. It would seem like now is the time for some of the larger commercial operators to "pull the finger out" so to speak, and pick up some low timers for some left seat operations. Now could be a chance to change the industry and put in place a more sustainable model. Below is a post of mine in a discussion we had on this very thing last year.

 

 

So how would you fix it?

 

After the Vegas Career Seminar I spent some time thinking about this too. It'll either take a broad stroke of goodwill or a severe pilot shortage for something like this to happen. I don't think any amount of motivation from the bottom up will have an effect--in the absence of a huge demand for pilots, dealing with low-time pilots is just a hassle for a commercial operator. I'd like to think that once I'm in a position to offer some sort of mentorship, I'd do it as I've done in my other career, but I get the feeling that there's a lot of "it's about me" in the industry.

[Darkhorse]

Is is just the 1-2000 hour pilots that are having problems being hired? I don't work in the civil market but we had a civil medevac pilot who flies a government drone contract come fly with us today for his currency and he said they are still hurting for evac pilots.

He comes out every 6 months or so and he always says they are short pilots. He said they have openings in Alamogordo, Las Cruces, Hobbs and El Paso. It seems whenever I look, med evac companies are on or close to the bottom of the pay scale but have the highest hour requirements. Reading boards like this, people all seem to want an evac job yet they have high turn over rates.

[kodoz]

In a "normal" economy, there are 2 bottlenecks: 200-300 hrs and ~2500 hrs. The first one is new CFI/CFIIs competing for flight instruction jobs, of which there are relatively few. They don't have any other way to get to 1000 hrs. HEMS wants you above 2000 hrs, and that, apparently, is the second bottleneck. There's been a shortage of 2500-hr+ pilots for a while now.

[DanceswithCyclic]

Internship... sign me up! I can shadow a high-time pilot, observe and learn, shut up when necessary, and gain some valuable experience without ever touching the controls or earning a dime. Can't do it full-time, and the learning curve will probably plateau after about 20 hrs. in the cockpit. What then? Look for another Operator, or gain some positive networking contacts.

 

Beats what I'm doing now, nowhere near aviation.

 

Kevin M.

[jehh]

Would be nice to see the industry develop a real mentorship program where 200-300 hour pilots can work alongside experienced pilots.

 

Sure, but who is going to do it? There are 8 companies (give or take) that hire 1,000 hour CFIs, none of them care about this "problem", because it isn't their problem.

 

To use Hillsboro as an example, instead of firing the guys who can instruct and re-hiring from within, it'd be better to take the 200-hr pilots who don't give a damn about teaching and get them into the left seat on commercial flights. Keep the good instructors where they are.

 

Why put a 200 hour pilot into left seat where he takes up a seat and adds weight to the aircraft? What benefit does this provide the commercial operator? I get how it helps the pilot, but this is not a charity, it is a business.

 

I find that one of the oversights that many new pilots make is they get into flying for "the love of it", and forget that somewhere under the dream of flying is a business.

Edited June 22, 2009 by jehh

[jehh]

In a "normal" economy, there are 2 bottlenecks: 200-300 hrs and ~2500 hrs. The first one is new CFI/CFIIs competing for flight instruction jobs, of which there are relatively few. They don't have any other way to get to 1000 hrs. HEMS wants you above 2000 hrs, and that, apparently, is the second bottleneck. There's been a shortage of 2500-hr+ pilots for a while now.

 

I don't know about that...

 

One of the reasons I'm not flying right now is because the pay is terrible. I'm not going to fly EMS for $50K a year. Give me a call when it pays $85K.

[fry]

I find that one of the oversights that many new pilots make is they get into flying for "the love of it", and forget that somewhere under the dream of flying is a business.

 

But isn't "live your dream" the sales pitch the flight schools use?

 

In a thread on the same subject at JH LB posted that full disclosure by the flight schools regarding the realities of a flying occupation would be preferable to omitting that information from the marketing...which he equated with telling a prospective student a "lie". He suggested the following be told to a prospective flight training customer:

 

"ok here is the deal.....I will take your $70k and train you all the way to CFII. Then, if you are good, I may give you a job. BUT when you reach 1000 hours, you better pray that the operators all start hiring 1000 hour guys again, cause I am gonna boot you out to make room for the next generation. Unfortunately at this moment most are hiring 1500 hour guys and a few at that. Hopefully your career will not be crushed because I put you out on the street with no place to go."

 

I'm not clear on how this would provide more opportunities for low time pilots to transition from the initial training stage to the hours necessary for a full time flying job. It would seem it would produce the opposite effect of that which marketing is supposed to produce.

[kodoz]

Sure, but who is going to do it? There are 8 companies that hire 1,000 hour CFIs, none of them care about this "problem", because it isn't their problem.

 

Why put a 200 hour pilot into left seat where he takes up a seat and adds weight to the aircraft? What benefit does this provide the commercial operator? I get how it helps the pilot, but this is not a charity, it is a business.

 

Same reasons any profession dedicates some of its resources to training the next generation: primacy and intensity. That 180 lbs extra won't pay for itself now, a low-time pilot is more receptive to learning what an operator knows about flying safely and efficiently. Down the line, you get a pilot whose foundation is more consistent with real-world operations, and will require less training/un-training to perform commercial missions. Would a 1000-hr pilot with 50 or 100 hours of a commercial internship be a more attractive candidate than a CFI who's done only training? It takes a long view for any business to realize that training is their problem.

 

Short-term benefits are small but could be worthwhile investments. Those 8 operators throw 10's of thousands into training 1000-hr pilots, some of who are going to stay long enough just to get the hours for another job, others just aren't going to work out. Deciding to make that investment is all based on a few hours in an interview, but an internship gives both parties a better representation of what the other has to offer. It's cheaper for an operator to weed out bad egg interns than to hire them, get them their turbine transition, and then figure out they're not going to work out. The long-term benefit for the operator is reduced attrition, and ultimately, lower training costs.

 

On non-revenue/ferry flights, an operator is wasting resources by having their pilots fly straight-and-level from point A to point B. A well-chosen low-time pilot could do that with minimum supervision, and the higher-time pilot then arrives on site less fatigued and ready to fly jobs only he's qualified to perform.

 

As a flight school, if you partnered with an operator to ensure that training was accomplished in a specific way, then transitioned your graduates to an internship, all parties would benefit.

 

I know it's all a pipe dream. The attitude that an internship only helps the low-time pilot and is charity is too pervasive for an operator to go through the hassle. I would say this though. If there is an operator here willing to try this, I'll help with the footwork to get the program off the ground and make it as hassle-free as possible, even if I won't benefit from it by accruing flight time.

[Rogue]

the whole progress your career as a CFI business model is a sham and a pyramid scheme - not in the malicous sense mind you - but seriously, reality check here it will take 3 to 4 full on students ( 0 to hero ) to progress a CFI to the magic 1000 which isn't magic anymore number one and number two that means for every 1 CFI that leaves the nest only 1 out of 3 or 4 can move up. the entire business model of progressing as a CFI is a sham! only places like Bristow with foreign students that go home at the end of their training can sustain that type of a business model.