During the Christmas break I met a pilot for a coffee. He works for a major, red flag airline (that must give it away). We got talking at a networking event and wanted to set something up for a while now. I work across three jobs and have other commitments, and he flies all over the world – so the timing has never been right! But it finally happened. In this blog I will give you a insight what I learnt and what is relevant for this blog. I hope there are key pointers you can take away from this.

Question: Based on what you’ve seen is there a preference for integrated cadets over modular students?

In essence his answer was no. Yes, airlines like that integrated pathway cadets offer a full audit and a breakdown of their training – the good, the bad and the ugly. But that is not to say as a modular student you can’t do the same. Nowadays, not-for-profit organisations like Wings Alliance offer a full, integrated record of your high quality standard of training readily available for airlines. He also added modular students tend to be well-rounded through more life experience and host A LOT of resilience. So an airline will take all this into consideration!

Question: What makes a good candidate for airline selection, part scholarships funding or fully funded scholarships during training?

The criteria is near enough the same – the expectation is higher for funded scholarships since the demand is far greater. Firstly, you need to be able to demonstrate the core pilot competencies. For those not aware there are 9 pilot competencies:

• Leadership/Teamwork
• Problem solving/decision making
• Situational awareness
• Workload management
• Communication
• Knowledge
• Flightpath management and control (FPM)
• Flightpath management and automation (FPA)
• Application of procedures

This applies whether you’re looking to get into training or are applying for your first airline job. There are some competencies you will have more experience in than others – but the most important thing is you can demonstrate some of these. If a recruiter asks if you have these competencies – you can explain this and have hard-core evidence to show this there and then! Aside from this, an airline will also look at ATPL results – as as a side note: to have an average of over 90% is an excellent result.

In the case of funded scholarships – there a few and far in between. Majority if not all scholarships are given on a merit-only basis. Therefore, you need to demonstrate GENUINE passion and show what you have done that is merit worthy. In theory it doesn’t matter if you cannot afford flying lessons right now – however, what matters is what you’re doing outside of flying – I.e. are you part of a local airfield? Are you part of the air squadron? It has to be something really impressive that will immediately set you apart from someone else. It’s not a single thing that will differentiate you – but a combination of unique things you have done that will make me (him as a recruiter) want to give you a scholarship.

Do you prefer night flying or day flights?

Night flights. There’s something about flying at night – the serenity and calmness that cannot be compared to day flights. And also all the passengers are asleep so it’s a pretty smooth flight for us and cabin crew!

Due to affordability I may be looking to do my training through the modular route, what would be your one word of advice?

I ended up getting two bits of advice! Number 1 – Make sure to complete your entire training without gaps. In modular training, it’s not uncommon to see huge gaps in training – either due to other commitments (university), funding or taking time. The issue arises over time where you’ll become deskilled and in some cases no longer current – you will need to re-learn aspects which will be more costly down the line. Also, recruiters will be looking at this in the future – the one who completes his/her training near enough the timeframe of an integrated student will look far more impressive!

Second piece of advice was to make sure the quality level of training remains high. Often you will find training quality falls short or cadets settle for ‘good enough’ in the modular pathway. The next stage is vital as the last – make sure you demand high, quality training from reputable organisations and excellent results from yourself. He also noted one of the reasons why airlines/schools offering fully funded schemes prefer people with little to no hours is that so they can mould the students to what they want as opposed to adopting bad habits/practise from different instructors.

What’s been the most enjoyable moment of flying for you?

The training phase was the most enjoyable despite flying commercially for a number of years. From aerobatics to the first solo and flying to France for the first time – all were incredibly exciting, and you feel a sense of accomplishment at the end of it. His advice was to enjoy and live in the moment. You will miss the training phase once you’re flying commercially!

Any last words of wisdom?

This last bit of advice really resonated with me – Aviation is smaller than it seems! It’s important we look out for each other. Once you become a pilot or have acquired enough hours and experience – help others! Provide genuine advice and if there is any way you can help then do!

This resonated with me because I remember as a teenager feeling a constant deflation looking at the stumbling blocks and questioning where I’d get £100,000 from, questioning my intelligence AND feeling as though it’s impossible to become a pilot as I wear glasses. It wasn’t until I met a training pilot at a network event who set the record straight and gave me a good telling off! Since then I’m more motivated than ever to achieve and help others coming after me. In fact in the next 5 years one of my goals is to set up my very own pilot networking event – with a stage, exhibition stands and for it to be completely FREE as a way of giving back… Now all I need is to get sponsored by BA, Virgin Atlantic and some of the big training schools! Maybe we can throw in dinner if I can get enough funding.. one can only hope.

All in all it was a really good catch up. These are some of the many pointers which I thought would be relevant for this blog. I hope it has helped some of you.

Happy flying.