Carla Booth Of Skyborne On The Future Of Aviation and Aviation Tech
An Interview With David Leichner
Our industry is highly competitive. By putting the customer at the centre of every business decision, ensures that everyone wins! Skyborne uses Net Promoter Score (NPS) questionnaires throughout the training journey to gain feedback from customers on their experience with us. These insights ensure we continually improve and move forward as a business.
As a part of our series about “The Future Of Aviation”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Carla Booth, Commercial Director of Skyborne, a pilot training school based at Gloucestershire Airport in the UK and Vero Beach, Florida, in the US.
Carla Booth brings 16 years of experience in the recruitment and management industries across Skyborne, L3Harris and CTC Aviation. Newly promoted to commercial director at Skyborne, she oversees the business across its UK and US bases. Prior to this, she worked as group head of airline business where she helped secure long-lasting partnerships with Delta Air Lines, British Airways, IndiGo Airlines and more. Carla also served as head of recruitment for three years at Skyborne, dramatically increasing student intake. As the most senior female lead at the academy, Carla plays a fundamental role in supporting other women in aviation by promoting the importance of equality and gender diversity at Skyborne and in the wider aviation industry.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
I graduated from Bournemouth University in the UK with a degree in Psychology, however, aviation was a feature of my degree. The university partnered with NATS, the UK’s leading Air Traffic Control provider, and through an awareness of NATS during my studies, it planted a seed that I later revisited.
Once I graduated, I went into the telecommunications industry and worked as a recruiter for a few years. Recruitment was absolutely where I wanted to be and I enjoyed the space, but the telecommunications industry did not ignite a passion in me. At that point, I looked for an alternative and that’s where I sought out aviation specifically.
I applied as a recruitment and selection coordinator at flight school CTC Aviation — now formally known as L3 Harris, and Lee Woodward, who was Head of CTC Wings at the time, recruited me and I reported to him throughout my time there.
When Lee left CTC to start Skyborne Airline Academy and become CEO, we stayed in contact as I really enjoyed working with him and I kept looking over the fence to see how Skyborne was coming along. When the time was right, I made the jump and I’ve really enjoyed my time working with Lee across the years. He’s been my biggest supporter in terms of my career and he’s afforded me many different opportunities which have brought me to where I am today. I’ve never looked back.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?
There are many interesting stories from my time in the industry and I wouldn’t want to single any story out, but I am particularly proud of Skyborne being awarded the UK provider for the British Airways Speedbird Pilot Academy programme because it’s the first initiative of its kind for so many years. After the pandemic, it is quite a statement from an airline, particularly a legacy carrier such as BA, to come out and offer fully-funded pilot training.
We put a huge amount of effort into the process of our partnership which was incredibly stringent, but as a result of our hard work, we have a very good relationship with the airline and the senior team. I’m extremely proud of us achieving this accolade.
This of course, goes hand in hand with the fact that I’m also particularly proud of the trainees that we have and the huge amount of success we’ve seen them have. Throughout my time at Skyborne, I’ve seen people overcome a lot of adversity in terms of trying to fund their flight training. It could be obstacles that they’ve had to overcome along the way, challenges or external factors from their family life that have impacted their training journey, but they’ve come out of it and have all achieved their dream career.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
When you start your career, there is an adjustment period where you’re finding your feet and you’re not certain of who’s who and names aren’t always going to be remembered. When I started at CTC, we had a selection process for cadets which included a flight simulation assessment at the final stage. It was conducted by a small number of assessors that would undertake it and I’d receive a report from their assessment.
I will never forget the funny mistake I made. It was Good Friday and we were going into a long weekend. I was frustrated by the lack of information that had been presented on the form of the assessment. So, I made a point of it and called the assessor who was Captain Chris Clark, whom I did not know. He was driving home for the long weekend and pulled his car over to have a conversation with me. On the call, I told him what I had thought about his report and it turned out that he was the chairman of CTC Aviation.
I was extremely lucky that CTC, much like Skyborne, operated an open-door policy. While I was not in any trouble, I suspected that the Chairman, had found our conversation funny. He would have also probably been quite pleased to know that a junior and new member of staff felt that they could pick up the phone and have a conversation with him.
It was an amusing mistake to make and thankfully it didn’t limit my career!
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
Lee Woodward, who is the CEO of Skyborne, is who I’m grateful for. He took a chance and saw something in me in 2008 when I had no aviation experience and had come from a completely different industry. He’s encouraged and motivated me from that point onwards. I’m sure there were naysayers during the selection process that said I was not right for them because I didn’t have aviation industry experience, but Lee stood by his decision and I’m so thankful for that initial opportunity because that has led me to develop my career. I’m incredibly loyal to him.
You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
The three character traits I’d say have been instrumental to my success would be adaptability; integrity; and being customer-focused.
The aviation industry is incredibly dynamic but that is what I love about it and I find that I thrive in this environment. However, I also accept and have learned from working alongside others, that being able to adapt to a situation can be quite difficult. During my time at CTC, we worked with a private jet organisation recruiting cabin crew and pilots. We had a significant pipeline of candidates that we were working with. In the early stages, I received a phone call from them and overnight, the funding for their project was pulled and stopped. As a result, we had numerous candidates in the process that needed management. We took a professional approach and proactively contacted them about the situation and referred those candidates to other opportunities we were aware of, to support them in their future, chosen careers. In a moment like this, it is important to be able to pivot and adapt to the situation.
In my role, whether you are talking to candidates or airlines, you must have integrity at all times. You need to respect everybody’s opinions. I would say I’m privileged to have the level of insight that I have in the airline business. Having that integrity over time, builds a huge amount of trust and you become a true partner with that airline. For instance, airlines will call me regularly for industry insights in terms of what’s going on and they’ll ask for my opinion on new initiatives that are happening– this doesn’t happen by accident. It is by being professional and having integrity.
Finally, in any work-related situation, I try to think of it from a customer’s perspective — whether that be a customer who is a candidate, someone who is interested in buying a training course or whether it is an airline. I always put myself in their shoes before taking something forward. I try to think about how they would feel about a decision and the direction we are taking. It shows that we’re in tune with what our customers need and it leads to trust. People will know that you have their best interests at heart and you’re not going to give them bad advice. For example, I place graduate pilots in roles and there may be several different opportunities that are available to them at any one time. I will spend the time talking to them about the pros and cons for each of those opportunities to get the very best for them as an individual. It can be that they can’t afford a type rating course — I would advise them that it would be best to wait because I know that there’s an opportunity coming down the track that would mean they don’t have to take on the financial burden. I would always give them the benefit of making sure they’re taking the right route by giving them sound advice.
Thank you for that. Let’s jump to the core of our discussion. Can you share with our readers a bit about the innovations that you are bringing to the Aviation and Air Travel industries?
At Skyborne, we are always looking at ensuring we’re using cutting-edge technologies and methodologies to make sure that our commercial pilots are ready to assimilate into an airline operation seamlessly. We do this by adopting modern airline practices that are embedded throughout the trainees’ training journey and become second nature.
We also like to be at the forefront of up-and-coming training support systems such as Aeroplanned software, which we are one of the early adopters of. We embrace the concept of being as sustainable as we possibly can be and we’ve done so by committing to an order of 40 electric training aircraft with BYE Aerospace. Should the aircraft go into production, Skyborne will be one of the first companies to take delivery of the eFlyer, which will be a significant first step towards reducing our carbon footprint. It is a bold move, but we believe this is in the right direction of the future of travel.
Which “pain point” are you trying to address by introducing these innovations?
There is a real drive within our industry to become more environmentally conscious and responsible. In pilot training, we recognise the need for more sustainable aircraft. We absolutely support this and our order for electric aircraft is part of our contribution.
We’ve used Aeroplanned for months, probably years now. It is a sophisticated tool to effectively manage our resources and plan strategically — helping us time-save and work more efficiently. We work closely with the developers of this software to continue improving but it’s certainly become a pivotal tool within our business to help manage the flights and simulator time our trainees have per week, understand our ebbs and flows, seasonality and more.
How do you envision that this might disrupt the status quo?
The aviation industry is always evolving and so must pilot training. With new developments ranging from eVTOLs to virtual reality usage, we must start thinking about how we should also adapt. With the availability of zero-emission training aircraft quickly increasing and through our own acquisition of 40 BYE Aerospace eFlyers, we hope our competitors will start considering their own fleet choices in the future.
It is important to us that we make pilot training as seamless and efficient as possible for both our employees and trainees. With Aeroplanned, the technology not only helps us save time, but it also enables us to dedicate more time on our trainees and their training journeys.
My expertise is in product security, so I’m particularly interested in this question. Recently there were famous cases of hackers breaking into the software running automobiles, for ransomware or for other malicious purposes. Based on your experience, what should aviation companies do to uncover vulnerabilities in the development process to safeguard their vehicles and aircraft?
At Skyborne, we adopt stringent processes to ensure our trainees as well as employees are familiar and aware of any potential threats. As a pilot training school with digital input and outputs, cybersecurity is integrated into our safety management systems and training procedures. We take every precaution to ensure we are protected against any malicious threats. We therefore, make every effort to equip our people with the skills to distinguish genuine threats from false alarms.
Furthermore, it’s imperative our syllabus hasn’t been tampered with, so we keep secure backups of everything. To this end, we continue to extensively review our internal security for our servers and cloud providers.
What are your “5 Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Career In The Aviation Industry?
You need to be highly motivated in all that you do.
When working on airline recruitment campaigns, there can be very high volumes of applicants. Some of the functions can be repetitive, such as screening thousands of application forms. It is important during such processes to remain motivated and to give the last candidate the same level of care and attention as the first. I find my role highly rewarding, seeing people progress and achieve their passion and career goals. This keeps me motivated.
You have to be customer focused.
Our industry is highly competitive. By putting the customer at the centre of every business decision, ensures that everyone wins! Skyborne uses Net Promoter Score (NPS) questionnaires throughout the training journey to gain feedback from customers on their experience with us. These insights ensure we continually improve and move forward as a business.
You need to be tenacious.
The ability to keep going is vital. In any career there will be knockbacks and aviation is no different. It is inherently a cyclical industry so periodically, world events that no one saw coming will have a significant impact on airlines and training organisations.
You need to be someone who’s very adaptable.
As previously mentioned, the industry is incredibly dynamic and your focus can change from one conversation to the next. Being flexible, having strong time management skills and the ability to prioritise goes a long way.
Finally, you need a huge sense of responsibility.
What we do is important — to us and the trainee pilots. We take our safety and customer responsibilities very seriously. Holding yourself and colleagues to account ensure that best practice is exercised throughout the business and any issues are rectified swiftly.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
In our world and industry, funding is the biggest barrier. There is a huge amount of talent interested in pursuing a career as a commercial pilot. However, the biggest issue that most people face is the ability to fund their own flight training, which can be in excess of £100,000.
When I started in the industry, unsecured loans existed. People would be accepted through a selection process and the offer letter would provide them with access to an unsecured loan to allow them to fund their flight training. So suddenly, it wasn’t about your ability to pay. It genuinely was about your ability, aptitude and attitude that the selection was based on.
The biggest change or movement I would start would be to overcome the financial barrier in the industry which will open up the talent pool hugely.
I would also encourage more women to consider a career in the aviation industry. The industry average is inherently low for female pilots — hovering around 5–6%. A significant step in the right direction would be to encourage young women to understand that this is a viable and long-term career that will offer them the flexibility that they may need throughout their life.
This needs to be done at a much younger age through initiatives such as easyJet’s. The airline has been going into primary schools and asking children to paint pictures of what they think a pilot looks like — nine times out of 10 they paint a man. It’s about educating the young and changing their stereotypical views of what a pilot should look like.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
To follow our company updates, check out Skyborne’s website. You can also reach out to me directly on LinkedIn — where I’ll always be happy to connect!
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
About The Interviewer: David Leichner is a veteran of the Israeli high-tech industry with significant experience in the areas of cyber and security, enterprise software and communications. At Cybellum, a leading provider of Product Security Lifecycle Management, David is responsible for creating and executing the marketing strategy and managing the global marketing team that forms the foundation for Cybellum’s product and market penetration. Prior to Cybellum, David was CMO at SQream and VP Sales and Marketing at endpoint protection vendor, Cynet. David is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Jerusalem Technology College. He holds a BA in Information Systems Management and an MBA in International Business from the City University of New York.
