DE&I in Aviation with The Airline Pilot Club
How the Airline Pilot Club are widening the path to become an airline pilot.
In the UK, just 7% of pilots are from BAME backgrounds and 3% are women. Globally, the statistics are similar. While the overall number of female pilots in aviation has increased, the percentage has largely remained the same.
Aviation and aerospace have a long-standing diversity and inclusion problem. Organisations like Women in Aviation and Aerospace Charter, Royal Aeronautical Society, and Aviation for Humanity have created initiatives to raise awareness about the diversity problem, advocate for gender parity, and support women and people of minority ethnicities in entering aviation.
But there are other deep-seated factors in the airline training industry that make achieving diversity a challenge.
As the former Head of Training for Ryanair, Captain Andy O’Shea spent 27 years training 10,000 low-hour pilots for their first Airline Pilot job. Having spent 40 years as a professional pilot, Andy has a unique perspective on the systemic barriers in the pilot training industry: “there are barriers of ignorance, barriers of accessibility and the barriers of no learning opportunities”, says Andy.
“That is the unacknowledged power story that’s going on in the industry at the moment. Aircraft are being piloted by people who can pay for their training, rather than the best people who can fly the air.”
The Airline Pilot Club is a digital talent marketplace that enables Flying Schools and Airlines to enrich their supply chains at scale, with
diverse and quality-assured candidates. The early-stage startup has a stellar team compromised of CEO Andy O’Shea, Head of Commercialisation David Barrett, CTO Ross Shannon and Head of Operations Róisín O’Shea.
In this interview, The Airline Pilot Club team shares an insider perspective on the diversity problem in pilot training. The team explains the existing talent supply problem in aviation, unpacking why airlines are increasingly paying attention to how their pilot diversity reflects their company and consumer brand.
“Airlines that have programmes around hiring female pilots are very proud of this, and they all have targets of getting to 20 and 25% quite quickly. That’s part of their customer brand, not just their employer brand,” — David Barrett
As an Ireland-based team, The Airline Pilot Club are operating with a global vision. Pilot diversity is a global problem and the team has plenty of partnerships with airlines and training organisations in Europe, the Mediterranean, and North Africa, with plans of expanding to the US in the near future.
And as a startup spearheaded by diversity and inclusion, the team shares advice specific to tech startups on breaking down barriers so people from diverse backgrounds are invited and supported to grow their careers for years to come.
What problem are you trying to solve?
Andy kicked-off this question, “At its heart, the problem is low diversity and very low quality of new students coming into the industry. Couple that with the variable quality of flying schools across all the geographies globally, this generates the problem that there’s a less than optimal talent supply to current and future airlines.
“There’s a safety issue downstream, but there’s also the human issue of having many, many disappointed individuals and families who have invested huge amounts of money into pilot training. And indeed, they should never have started down that track because they were never suited for the career path in the first place.”
David added, “If you were looking at it from maybe the airlines and training environments, we’ve seen airlines with plans to spend up to a billion dollars to hire up to 10,000 new trainee pilots. Anything that affects the sustainability or reliability of the system creates terrible problems — either for the hardware vendor like Boeing, who’s trying to deploy the aircraft with an airline, or for the airline who will end up even having to underserve routes, or not be able to expand or operate their business model properly.
“This is all geared towards trying to improve the supply side of the situation, but also take away some risk for the individuals, training schools, and airlines. We know there are periods when there are acute shortages of pilots and this creates really significant challenges for the OEMs and airlines.”
How does pilot training work? How do airlines recruit people to train pilots and how long does that journey take?
David: “There are requirements out over the next 20 years for what could be up to a quarter of a million pilots needed for all different types of deployment.
“But you can’t make a pilot overnight.
“From a beginner to doing the initial theory on flight training and then getting type rated to be able to fly a commercial jet or aircraft; in Europe, that’s probably about a minimum of 2 years until they can be in the right-hand seat as a first officer co-pilot. It takes even longer under the FAA rules in the US because of flight regulations, so could take 2.5 to 3 years.
“And 85–90% of all training has to be paid for by the individuals. So you need to have plans on how to finance your training. Getting a commercial license to fly an aircraft could cost approximately €100,000 or $100,000, depending on the geography, excluding the type rating. You need to be able to research which airlines co-fund or fully fund training, which ones have lots of jobs available (but they typically do not fund your training), who might fund your type rating (which is to fly a certain type of aircraft and might cost 30% of the actual training to be a commercial airline pilot). And also looking at finance options where state intervention is available — through tertiary education or government schemes to subsidise the cost of training. In different countries, there’s access to very low-cost loans that are unsecured, but in most cases, it’s secured, and you need co-signing and collateral. So it involves quite a bit of research.
“That’s where I think a lot of parents and individuals need help. Even the airlines and training schools need help because they need to make this easy for the talent supply to understand to feed their operational requirements.”
Andy: “Many organisations also have different models of how they go about training. Some airlines will get deeply involved from the very beginning of the student’s journey — from the first advertisement all the way through to finishing the type rating.
“They’re not the majority. An awful lot of operators or airlines tend to have a more distant relationship with their talent flow. They’re happy to wait until there are lots of people trained by the training industry, and then wait for those qualified people to knock on the door to try to get a job. Both of those work for the airline.
“But there’s absolutely no doubt that the one that works for the industry is the first instance where the airline is actively involved in the selection, motivation, culture, orientation and onboarding of the individual from a very very early stage.”
“There’s a less than optimal talent supply to current and future airlines.”
The mission of APC centres heavily on diversity. Why is it important to have a diverse workforce in aviation?
Andy: “First of all, it’s the right thing to do. We should have a diverse population in the aviation industry. The second point is it makes absolute sense for the industry to broaden and deepen the pool of talent for future pilots. At the moment we are drawing from a very small pool — 6% of pilots are female, 94% are male, and most of them are white in certain geographies.
“Because of the financal requirements, they’re usually the people who have the collateral and the means to pay for their training, rather than people who are able to be trained to be very good pilots.
“So we’re drawing from a restricted pool in terms of numbers, but we’re also not putting the opportunity in front of people who could make an outstanding pilot. Instead, we’re relying on a pool of people who can afford to pay for their training. That doesn’t make any sense at all.”
David: “Between this dynamic of that only 6% are female, globally, that we’re looking at that, you have to have a lot of economic means in 90% of the time to pay for it, and that it tends to be served mainly by the majority ethnic group who’s economically advantaged, especially in Europe and North America, you’re probably down to about like 5% or 3% of the population could ever even consider participating in the career.
“You can’t make a pilot overnight.”
“So, the industry loses 97% of all available talent in Europe and North America, very quickly. And also, I think that with the way purchasing activity happens around who buys airline tickets… A lot more than 6% of the tickets are bought by females. Even though only 6% of people who have the primary job in the airplane as pilots or co-pilots are female, you have over 90% of all flight attendants and cabin crew as females. I think it’s a very strong customer message around pay equity and the public face of an airline about how it treats its customers and respects its customers around what would be their access to job opportunities.
“Airlines have a strong agenda around sustainability, from a talent point of view, and how they represent not just their employer brand, but their customer brands. Airlines that have programmes around hiring female pilots are very proud of this, and they all have targets of getting to 20 and 25% quite quickly. That’s part of their customer brand, not just their employer brand.”
Róisín: “I think it’s important to note as well that Boeing has released their projections for 2021 to 2049, and they’re expecting about 612,000 pilots will be needed. So, obviously, it makes a lot of sense to dip into different pools of people rather than, as Andy said, a very restricted pool, that has historically been explored.”
That’s a really interesting take on diversity — not focusing on the people who can pay, but widening that pool of talent
Andy: “Yeah, I think that’s a really important point.
“That is the unacknowledged power story that’s going on in the industry at the moment. Aircraft are being piloted by people who can pay for their training, rather than the best people who can fly the air.
“An awful lot of the people who end up flying an aircraft right now are great. But there are an awful lot of people who end up on the wayside and they never will get the career that they hope for.
“So there’s one aspect of disappointment, but the other aspect that we have to be careful of is that we have to make sure we’ve got the right people flying our aircraft because it’s not an easy thing to do. If it was easy, it wouldn’t cost $100,000 to do it.”
“You need to have a culture about inviting in the underrepresented groups and the external and internal talent.”
I’d love to hear about any success stories. I know you engage with lots of aspiring pilots through the platform. Have you personally seen the tangible impact that Airline Pilot Club has had on these aspiring individuals?
I came to aviation a little late in life but it was the best decision I ever made. I only have one regret; that I didn’t do it sooner. It is something I always thought I would love but it perhaps felt unattainable. I finally got the opportunity and took the leap of faith in 2019 and have not looked back. I have completed my MEIR and am edging closer to that airline pilot career.
I have been so lucky with all those that have assisted me on my journey. The Airline Pilot Club has been an incredible aid in my professional development as a pilot and I hope as I gain experience that it will be a platform where I will be able to pass my knowledge on to those coming behind me.
Alana — female member of APC
David: “At the end of October 2021, APC changed the model to access the learning, psychometric and career matching tools to engage with the training environments from a paid model to a free model. Within a month, 5,000 new people joined into the community seeking training and careers.
“That itself shows the difference between when you’re trying to charge someone $300 versus you give them access to be a member of the community and be available in the talent supply. Like, obviously, to those people, there was some barrier about having to pay money.”
Róisín: “When we moved to a freemium model, for so long, whenever we’d go to conferences, we kept saying, “No, everything is free. It’s all free”, and everyone just says, “Yeah, but what’s the catch? Like how is it free?”
“It’s such an alien subject in aviation that something of such high quality is actually free. Everyone is trying to make money out of pilots and students.
“I remember talking to one woman at a conference and she was just saying, “yeah, but how is it free? I just don’t understand that”. I had to go in and say, “it’s free because it’s disrupting everything that everyone knows about aviation already”.
“It’s just something that we really believe is important for people — to have access to high-quality subject matter experts and opportunities to learn more about the career. I know for myself, growing up, I knew of aviation and becoming a pilot because of my family background. For a lot of people, there was no indication on how to join or where I should be looking or anything like that. So it’s just to make it a bit more accessible to everyone.”
Andy: “Actually, that’s the key thing — accessibility.
“David actually hit a light bulb moment in my head: we were discussing the premium model, and he said, “but Andy, how do you expect to attract a whole bunch of people into your industry, when the first thing you’re doing is ask them to get their credit card?”
“The logic of it is so fierce and I said, okay right you win. That’s it. Offering really good free stuff out there to anybody who has a computer and a WiFi connection to visit the APC website, especially in 2022, it’s going to be absolutely brilliant. I expect it to break down an awful lot of the barriers that are there at the moment: barriers of ignorance, barriers of accessibility and the barriers of no learning opportunities.
“So that’s, that’s why the freemium model has been so important and so successful.”
“Getting a commercial license to fly an aircraft could cost approximately €100,000 or $100,000."
I hundred percent agree with that. I want to quickly shift gears and talk about your work in Nigeria and explore how applicable the problem you’re solving is in a global scene?
Andy: “The work was done with Green Africa Airways, which is a value airline based in Lagos, Nigeria. They were interested in our indicative assessment as a first indication of people’s capability. But they’re also very interested in our learning management system, which is now up and running on test user mode where we have lots of really important concepts in there about the human side of being a pilot. So we worked with Green Africa to provide them with a funnel and an initial filter as to the quality of the people going into their type rating programme.
“The problem we’re solving is global, the further you move away from the UK, Europe and North America, the more the problem is exacerbated. We definitely have a global application and that’s why the partnership with Boeing is potentially so empowering for us.
“We’ll tackle that globalisation of our products at the appropriate time. For the moment clearly, we’re Europe, Mediterranean, and North Africa-centric, but we are talking to ATOs in the states in America.
“But, of course, that’s a different training system over there. We’re developing relationships with people in the ‘States through Boeing but also separately. And also, we’ve got a very strong connection with Australia as well so we are looking abroad.
“At the moment we want to just get ourselves fixed in 2022 and operate really well.”
Do you have any advice for aspiring pilots on where to find resources, what are some actionable points they could do to explore this potential career, whether it’s something they’re set on pursuing or just thinking to explore?
Andy: “ I mean, I would clearly answer that by saying come to the APC website where all the information you need is there. If they’re interested in it, they’ve probably seen it locally, and there’s probably a flying school or flying club locally that they could engage with and learn some very basic information about how it is to fly an airplane, what it’s like to be around them, safety issues, and get an early safety culture.
“One piece of advice we give to everybody (and it’s on a video on our website) is you really have to go and fly an aeroplane to understand if it’s physiologically for you because very often it’s not, unfortunately.”
Róisín: “I remember when I did a flight, the flight instructor asked me afterwards, how did you feel up there? Did you notice we were up there for an hour and a half?
“No, it felt like we were up there for 10 minutes and he said, that’s how you know if you’ve enjoyed it. Because it felt like it’s gone by so quickly, whereas if you’re there, “I’m here for 27 minutes, okay, I only have this much time left” then you know that it’s not for you.”
Andy: “Yeah, as they say, you have to see it to be it. You can start local and engage with a local entity. Online, things like AOPA in the ‘States are very good, in Europe, you’ve got ourselves and the Royal Aeronautical Society. So, it’s there if people are interested. But I suppose if I’d give any other piece of advice, I would get people to explore the STEM subjects in school — science and engineering — as they definitely help people move into the pilot career.”
On a separate note, do you have any advice for tech startups on how to make the team more accessible, make engineering roles more accessible, how to diversify their team etc? Because I imagine there’ll be some crossover in terms of the pilot industry as well of tech industry.
David: “The best way to achieve diversity in your workforce is through a grassroots approach. Most countries have apprenticeship schemes where you can organise your agenda around things like technical skills whereby you get access to a wide community of people who may or may not have had the chance to go to conventional tertiary education or college. Collaborate with apprenticeship providers and further education colleges, as well as relying on traditional tertiary education, which again will be skewed demographically towards the probably more socio-economically automatically advantage. I think being willing to research it is important.
“And I also think that what’s important is when you’re assessing somebody for a promotion, or a job. You have to treat everybody the same around who has the potential to be given that job, regardless of who they are.
“So if you have women or people from underrepresented groups in your company, you should be actively encouraging everyone who has the skill set to apply. I know from my own work as an occupational psychologist, that if you give the same job description to a woman, if the man has 30% of the required skills described or attributes in the description, he is likely to apply. Normally, the female would need to see at least 70% of the attributes present in the job description before she will apply. But both could be equally good. You’d have a history of males tending to be more likely to apply and males tend to be more likely to be invited.
“You need to have a culture about inviting in the underrepresented groups and the external and internal talent. You make a decision based on the merits of the person and you appoint the person, but you have to go that extra mile to encourage the participation of new groups, as they enter the company, and to progress, because it won’t happen just by itself.”
What’s next for the Airline Pilot Club?
Andy: “The future direction of the company is very positive, and it’s been hugely boosted by our association in partnership with Boeing. We can see that on the commercial side and internally. And we can see clear pathways to solving one of the biggest problems — which is the funding solution that we’ve been working on. And indeed Menna has been heavily engaged in that and we’re very encouraged by that. So we’re moving from the position of thinking about maybe we’ll do it at some stage in the future and now we’re much more confident that we will produce this system in the future, because of what has happened over the last few months.”
Hear Andy share more about the Airline Pilot Club and their next steps at Aerospace Xelerated — 2022 Demo Day
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