Orlando, FL — AeroStar Training Services, LLC is one of the first Part 142 flight training centers to receive Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approval on an in-house Airline Transport Pilot certification training program (ATP-CTP).
The ATP-CTP became a requirement on Aug. 1, 2014 for new pilots wanting to attain their ATP certification, which qualifies them to fly commercial aircraft. The CTP must be taken before a new pilot can take the ATP written test.
“Our mission is to help aviation students realize their career dreams, and find innovative ways to meet the challenges involved,” said David Santo, founder of AeroStar. “We provide training that meets requirements and more importantly, produces safe pilots who are ready to meet the challenges they will find in the air AND on the ground.”
AeroStar has worked closely with the FAA to develop time and cost-effective programs that meet the rigorous requirements for ATP-CTP certification. Successful completion of any of AeroStar’s ATP courses allow the candidate to take the ATP written exam. They have also created courses that use required simulator time to serve the requirements for both the ATP-CTP certification and a type rating, making graduates qualified candidates for more flying jobs at a considerable savings.
An innovative ATP-CTP ground school program provides AeroStar instructors and materials to selected partners, such as state colleges, Part 61 and Part 141 programs, so that students can complete the four-day ground school program on-siteATP-CTP at AeroStar.
“We understand that airlines, flight schools and students need to meet this challenge, so we are doing what we can to provide quality, flexible training programs that meet their needs within time and expense parameters.” said Santo.
“Some airlines, such as Lufthansa and Emirates, have already begun recruiting individuals who meet their qualifications other than flight training, and provide ab initio training programs. Partnerships with airlines and flight schools allow us to create custom programs that meet these changing needs with qualified candidates.”
For more information about AeroStar’s ATP-CTP programs, Flight School partnerships, or airline partnerships for ab initio training, contact Captain David Santo, AeroStar Training Services, LLC.
About AeroStar Training Services, LLC
AeroStar Training Services is a US-based, FAA approved Part 142 Training Center specializing in pilot and flight attendant training utilizing the latest advances in aviation training technology. AeroStar was founded in 2008 by a team of experienced airline pilots with a vision that aviation training should be realistic, state of the art, and provide an enjoyable learning experience. The team focused on providing flight training using the most advanced equipment available, delivered by experienced professional airline pilot instructors.
Paula Williams: All parts of that question. Great, exactly. Let’s carry on with the next one. How can flight schools attract more students? I know this is a problem for a lot of flight schools coming out of what was a slow period and I know a lot of them are starting to get a few more students in the door but depending on where you are in the country, this is still a problem.
David Santo: We see this is a multifaceted problem. First of all, and I’m guilty of this too when we started AeroStar, we had the concept, if we build it they would come. When we built it and opened the doors, we were shocked and surprised that people weren’t lined up around the street to enroll in our programs because nobody knew who we were, they didn’t know we existed. One thing that flight schools should really look at is their marketing, their branding, how they’re getting their message out there, and I think that’s a plug for you guys, Paula, at ABCI because I think internet-based marketing to the global market is the way to go. We see our opportunity working with the Flight School as making yourselves even more attractive. You might have the best Flight School in the world but how can you make it better? Are you offering your students the option to complete the ATP CTP? Are you offering your students the option to get advanced jet flight simulation training or type ratings? If you’re not, that’s where we think we can bolster your offering catalogue and degree programs by adding classes that you don’t have to spend the money in doing your own certification, research and development. We’re turnkey. We formalize an agreement. You advertise and market us as part of you and you’re out there really attracting private pilot and commercial pilot students who maybe want that extra program and then you package that into your pricing structure.
Paula Williams: That makes perfect sense. It’s like what we call a white level service. As far as the student knows he’s working with Cochise College or FIT, or Sun State Aviation and the student may not know or care or want to know about FIT or any other partners or anything like that, or sorry, about AeroStar. They just see the school that they initially entered in agreement with, is that correct?
David Santo: That is absolutely correct and we really do see ourselves as a subcontractor so we’re not out there trying to beat the AeroStar drum, we’re trying to beat the we’re a subservice to the larger pipeline which is the Flight School itself. We just want to be there at the end to help you provide that finishing school, that graduate school piece which is the type rating ride. How you market it, package it, present it, it is really up to the individual school. We want to support whatever the school thinks is the best approach for their individual marketing efforts. I will say that with FIT, for example, one of the things that we did early on with FIT was FIT actually got our programs approved for academic credit so that students could attend a type rating course or a flight deck observation program and receive college credit for it, number one, and therefore, they could apply student aid, financial aid to help offset some of the cost of these programs.
Paula Williams: Right, that makes perfect sense. The other side of that I think is that affiliating with AeroStar is to the advantage of flight schools because of AeroStar’s reputation. As you’ve mentioned you’ve been in business for six years, a lot of the other providers in the market maybe don’t have the reputation that you do for quality of training and things like that. It’s like a Gulfstream with a Rolls Royce engine. You do want to have the best components in your system and AeroStar is a really good engine to have under the hood for those students that do want to look at the details.
David Santo: I’ll say this, Paula. Our students have given us very positive feedback. The quality of the training that the students who have come to our type rating courses really has been very, very positive and that means a lot to us. Now, I’m not going to say that we don’t occasionally have people that run into training issues because every Flight School does. In fact, if you have a Flight School that doesn’t have some kind of training issues, they’re probably selling the license and not selling the training.
Paula Williams: True.
David Santo: We take great pride with the fact that people have been employed from our training program. We currently have a relationship with Tiger Airways where Tiger Airways in Australia is sending their initial new hires over to AeroStar, a preferential provider for them and the feedback that we’re getting has been very, very positive so we’re very proud of that.
Paula Williams: Right. Let me just expand on that just a little bit more as far as how can flight schools attract more students and I think the keyword here from a marketing perspective is competitive advantage. If there are four flight schools on your field and you are the one that offers ATP/CTP and type ratings and all of the things that AeroStar can add to your catalogue, that really makes you stand out because people don’t buy flight training, they buy a career. It’s just like … the old marketing saying is people don’t buy a drill they buy the holes that that drill can make. They’re really buying a solution. I think as Flight School owners, sometimes people get in to the mode of we have to lower our prices, we have to offer training at a lower cost per hour than the other folks on the field and that’s our competitive advantage but that’s just a race to the bottom and that doesn’t do anybody any good. Adding to your competitive advantage rather than subtracting from your price I think is really, really key to staying in business, in a healthy business as a Flight School.
David Santo: Yeah, you’re absolutely right, Paula, and of course you’ve got a lot of experience with that. We try to compete on value and not on price. We want to have the best targeted value. We’re not trying to be the Walmart provider in our market. We’re trying to be the Target. We’re also not trying to be the Tiffany’s. We find that most of the students are looking for somewhere in the middle where it’s a reasonable price, reasonable quality product, they’re going to get a good foundation of the training and they’re going to be able to better afford it than some of the $40-50,000 type ratings. I mean let’s be clear here. To get a type rating on a Gulfstream or a Challenger at flight safety or semi-flight CAE, you’re looking at paying 40, 50, $60,000. To get a type rating on a airbus a320 or a Boeing 737NG with AeroStar is ,500 and you’re going to get 28 hours in that program of flight simulation training. Now if you take 28 hours of flight simulation training and just run the math, so I think the average twin is about $350 an hour. If you get 28 hours of that, that’s almost $10,000 of the cost right there so I think it’s very attractive. I think one of the other things that I didn’t mention, Paula, if I can, I’m going to go slightly off the track here a little bit, but I think one of the challenges that we’re faced with as flight schools in the United States is, with the new ATP rule how do we get graduates from the commercial multiengine instrument and/or type rating program to employment. Because if we can’t get them out the door and get them into a job, then it slows down that pipeline and this is where we really see a symbiotic solution to a global problem. In the US, we have a pilot shortage but that pilot shortage has a hurdle of 1500 or 1000 hours depending on what type of 141 school you are. The international market does not have that limitation. Right now, the average new hire flying an A320 or a Boeing 737 or any narrow body airliner in Asia, the Middle East and Africa, the average new hire has about 300 hours or less. That’s where the biggest demand is. Here’s what we would propose. We would propose to the flight schools to go after the international foreign student, bring those foreign students into your Flight School. They are not going to get work visas so they’re not going to want flight instructor jobs. They don’t have time to go out and do the time building for flight instruction. As soon as they graduate they’re going to go back and go into their airline’s specific training program. What that does for you is it increases the number of people utilizing your airplanes, increases your revenue streams and it also increases the flight instruction opportunities for our local American men and women. By helping the international market we’re creating more flight instructor opportunities for our own market which then bridges the gap to get people to the airlines. We really see it as a global and a symbiotic solution. If you stop and think about the demand, with a half million pilots needed over 20 years, if every single Flight School in the United States pulled the resources together, we still couldn’t meet that demand in that timeframe so there’s plenty of work for everybody. We need to try to figure out a solution. It really brings more foreign folks into our training environment and that helps our training environment produce more American pilots.
Paula Williams: Right, which brings up the question, is there anything specific that I need to do as a part 141 or 61 school to be authorized to do those visas and other kinds of things? If I haven’t been pursuing that market, is there something I need to do to make that legal, correct and all those kinds of things?
David Santo: Yes, you have to apply to SEVIS for what’s called an I-20 authority to issue M1 visas. It’s a lengthy process, it’s a government process but any 141 school should have a fairly easy time of doing that. Even the 6191 schools I think have a venue for being able to do this. Then of course when they come for jet transport training, we will do the TSA portion to make sure that they’re properly vetted by TSA to train in the sims. I really think it’s getting out there to the global market. There are going to be some hurdles. It’s not going to be easy. Nothing that’s worth pursuing is going to be easy but we certainly are in a position to help flight schools. We’ve done the SEVIS I-20 visa authority, we’ve done VA, we’re currently VA approved. We’ve trained a lot of foreign pilots and are very familiar with the process. Those are things that I think we can bring to the table to help the schools that are interested in diving into this ab initio market.
Paula Williams: I promised to bring this back up and that is the screening tools that you mentioned, COMPASS and others. At what point should flight schools even approach that? Do they want to disqualify students from the front end or would that actually be a selling point to be a little bit more exclusive with people who really have a good shot at becoming a pilot? David Santo: First of all, I think that the right time is at the beginning or prior to initiating the expense of the flight training but I also would not want to see this as a tool that weeds out the determined. I have to share with you. I don’t know that I could have passed the COMPASS test back when I was trying to get … break into the industry. I go with more the American concept that says it’s a great screening tool for airlines. It’s a great screening tool for moms and dads to feel like before they make a capital investment in their son or daughter, do they have the aptitude for it? I believe if they show the passion and certainly put forth the effort, I wouldn’t take COMPASS as the ultimatum in deciding whether somebody can or can’t do something. I think with enough passion and effort and time and dedication, a lot more students would pass and graduate than what COMPASS would select.
Paula Williams: That makes perfect sense, so maybe a Flight School could offer that as an option for students who maybe are not sure if this is something they want to do or for corporations or airlines or others to use as well.
David Santo: If we were going to use it in an ab initio setting, what we would tell the parents or the airline is if a person graduate … completes the COMPASS test and scores above a certain level, you have a high level of confidence that they’re going to complete the training on track, on course without additional cost. If they complete below that level, you should anticipate that they may take extra training and there may be some associated extra cost.
Paula Williams: Fantastic. We did have one other question and I’m not sure if we want to do that now or later. You can tell me, Dave. Do you have a take on MPL implementation?
David Santo: MPL is not something that we’re currently involved with at AeroStar. We know that the industry outside of the United States is looking at this multi-crew pilot license solution. It is currently available in a few places in the world. We think there’s a better solution. I think what we would say is if you complete all your licenses and you complete a type rating program, you’re going to be pretty much at the 350 hours that the MPL license gets you to and you’re going to have all of your ratings, it’s all transferable, and it’s all licensed. If you go to an MPL program right now, you really don’t get the licenses, you get a certificate that allows you to operate for the airline. We would argue that it’s better just to do the licenses but we certainly think that there’s a better way to modernize how we do pilot training and our solution for that is to combine the multi-crew, the ATP CTP during the time building phase of the commercial license. It reduces cost, increase the quality of the training, gets the students more multi-time and it would get them to type rating at the same time they’re doing their CPL.
John Williams: Hey, Dave, there’s a follow on to a previous question. They want to know if the cost you quoted includes the check ride or is it just requirements to complete.
Paula Williams: That was regarding the ATP CTP I believe.
David Santo: It’s the tuition for the entire ATP CTP course which is that 30 hours of ground school. Our course is a little bit longer than that, by the way, and it includes the 10 hours of FTD and full flight simulator time, and the instructors and materials. It does not include actually taking the written test. AeroStar is not a written test center but we certainly have affiliates around our facilities that are for the laser testing or the CATS testing centers that we would send the students over to.
Paula Williams: Makes sense. I know we have a lot of other questions that are being asked in and not asked specifically about different cost and things like that. I don’t know if there is a … if you want to answer this in general or if there’s a place that you can direct people to.
John Williams: Before you … as a lead in to the question on the screen, there was a question that came in that says can you walk us through what a trainee would expect once he signs up with you guys.
David Santo: Okay, well, that’s a very good question. Let me see if I can answer two birds with one stone. An ab initio scenario that we have been working with Cochise College in Douglas, Arizona basically is a program where the student would not be enrolled as a college student. This is purely an ab initio program. They would live on campus and they would do their private instrument, multiengine commercial and a 737 or a320 type rating. That course would include room and board on campus, no transportation requirements because their runway is right next to the dormitories, and it is a school that offers English immersion training. You could do the entire program with room and board and everything right around the $80,000 level that’s including the type rating. When you figure a type rating course right now is retailing for about $13,500, you’re talking about a program that when you compare it to other ab initios that don’t offer a type to get the zero time all the way through the commercial multiengine instrument and include room and board for a year, that’s a very, very competitive price. Now, our piece, our piece of the puzzle is to deliver the type rating course or the ATP CTP or jet transition or any of the programs that we teach. When we deliver a course like our standard type rating course, the students come to ground school for nine days, four of those days they’re on self-guided CBT labs. Five of those days they’re with a standup instructor who uses a myriad of different lecture and facilitator techniques to involve the students in the education process. After the ground school and they take a written examination to validate that their knowledge is where it needs to be, they go into one four-hour FTD session. That’s a non-motion, non-visual simulator. Then they do five four-hour full flight simulator sessions including a line-oriented flight which is basically simulating an actual line flight between two … departure and destination airport. Ultimately, the conclusion of the entire program is a check ride administered by the FAA or one of our in-house TCEs that provides the practical examination under the ATP CTPs. We issue them a new license with a type rating and if they meet all the requirements we can also issue at that time the ATP certificate itself. So, you can get a A320 recurrent ATP CTP, or a b737 recurrent ATP CTP.
Paula Williams: Fantastic, that’s a nice detailed answer to hopefully …
John Williams: All questions.
Paula Williams: All parts of that question. Great, exactly. Let’s carry on with the next one. How can flight schools attract more students? I know this is a problem for a lot of flight schools coming out of what was a slow period and I know a lot of them are starting to get a few more students in the door but depending on where you are in the country, this is still a problem.
David Santo: We see this is a multifaceted problem. First of all, and I’m guilty of this too when we started AeroStar, we had the concept, if we build it they would come. When we built it and opened the doors, we were shocked and surprised that people weren’t lined up around the street to enroll in our programs because nobody knew who we were, they didn’t know we existed. One thing that flight schools should really look at is their marketing, their branding, how they’re getting their message out there, and I think that’s a plug for you guys, Paula, at ABCI because I think internet-based marketing to the global market is the way to go. We see our opportunity working with the Flight School as making yourselves even more attractive. You might have the best Flight School in the world but how can you make it better? Are you offering your students the option to complete the ATP CTP? Are you offering your students the option to get advanced jet flight simulation training or type ratings? If you’re not, that’s where we think we can bolster your offering catalogue by adding classes that you don’t have to spend the money in doing your own certification, research and development. We’re turnkey. We formalize an agreement. You advertise and market us as part of you and you’re out there really attracting students who maybe want that extra program and then you package that into your pricing structure.
Paula Williams: That makes perfect sense. It’s like what we call a white level service. As far as the student knows he’s working with Cochise College or FIT, or Sun State Aviation and the student may not know or care or want to know about FIT or any other partners or anything like that, or sorry, about AeroStar. They just see the school that they initially entered in agreement with, is that correct?
David Santo: That is absolutely correct and we really do see ourselves as a subcontractor so we’re not out there trying to beat the AeroStar drum, we’re trying to beat the we’re a sub-service to the larger pipeline which is the Flight School itself. We just want to be there at the end to help you provide that finishing school, that graduate school piece which is the type rating ride. How you market it, package it, present it, it is really up to the individual school. We want to support whatever the school thinks is the best approach for their individual marketing efforts. I will say that with FIT, for example, one of the things that we did early on with FIT was FIT actually got our programs approved for academic credit so that students could attend a type rating course or a flight deck observation program and receive college credit for it, number one, and therefore, they could apply student aid, financial aid to help offset some of the cost of these programs.
Paula Williams: Right, that makes perfect sense. The other side of that I think is that affiliating with AeroStar is to the advantage of flight schools because of AeroStar’s reputation. As you’ve mentioned you’ve been in business for six years, a lot of the other providers in the market maybe don’t have the reputation that you do for quality of training and things like that. It’s like a Gulfstream with a Rolls Royce engine. You do want to have the best components in your system and AeroStar is a really good engine to have under the hood for those students that do want to look at the details.
David Santo: I’ll say this, Paula. Our students have given us very positive feedback. The quality of the training that the students who have come to our type rating courses really has been very, very positive and that means a lot to us. Now, I’m not going to say that we don’t occasionally have people that run into training issues because every Flight School does. In fact, if you have a Flight School that doesn’t have some kind of training issues, they’re probably selling the license and not selling the training.
Flight School Pipeline Partnerships – what are the advantages?
Paula Williams: Fantastic. Okay, so we know a little bit about the ab initio programs. There’s a question. What are the advantages to my Flight School for partnering with AeroStar as opposed to just creating my own program?
David Santo: That’s a very good question and clearly, we believe in creating a symbiotic relationship. Hold on just one second here. Hold on.
Paula Williams: No problem. Yeah, I know that’s a question that comes up a lot and just to … Actually, we had another question come in that we’ll ask again later but it’s basically about not everyone can become an airline pilot, not everyone has the aptitude. I’d like to talk a little bit more about those screening program so I’ll put a note to talk about that more toward the end of the program. I think we can certainly …
David Santo: I think if I come back and I’m sorry for the interruption, the advantages, I think creating a symbiotic relationship means that you allow people to focus on their core competencies. AeroStar’s core competency is we are a 142 training organization. We employ airline pilots whether they’re active or retired to provide advanced Airbus, Boeing, large transfer category jet training. We are just one small piece of the pipeline. The biggest piece of the pipeline is the 141 or part 61 school. What we are proposing to industry is a partnership that would allow us to work as one single pipeline, a symbiotic relationship so that the student gets the feel of a one-stop shop. It gets them all the way through their general aviation training and delivers them into type rating school and out to industry. The other piece I think that’s important right now, Paula, is the new ATP/CTP course. The new ATP/CTP regulations here in the US make it difficult for 141 and 61 schools to offer students the ATP and the ATP written examination leading up to the ATP. Partnering with a 142 school like AeroStar gives you an outlet to accomplish the ATP. Now that course now requires that students or candidates for the ATP written have to have 30 hours of ground school instruction taught by somebody with at least two years of PIC … I shouldn’t say PIC, it could be SIC as well, but 121 experience and they have to receive at least 10 hours of advanced flight training, simulation training of which four hours can be done in an FTD, six hours have to be in a full motion, full flight simulator. Those have to be provided in an aircraft that weigh more than 40,000 pounds gross takeoff weight. Those are not easily accessed resources and we provide those resources for you through the 142 pipeline.
Paula Williams: Most of the 141 and 61 schools don’t just have one of those sitting on the ramp.
David Santo: No, the level C, level D devices that are required by the new regulation, those are $10 million plus pieces of equipment and the individuals to teach those courses are also tough to come by. We have Flight School Pipeline Partnerships. We have those resources ready to go. It’s turnkey. We’re available to work with 141 and 61 schools as an outlet for your ATP/CTP or your type rating programs. That gives you the benefit of adding these courses without adding the cost. You can add the course to your curriculum, you can advertise it, you can market it and really, it’s just an affiliate relationship and we create a symbiotic pipeline.
Paula Williams: Right, and then there are also marketing advantages to working together, one of my favorite subjects, and those would be basically you linking and maybe creating some joint materials where you’re splitting the cost or doing some other things that can be more effective and less expensive for both parties.
David Santo: We totally love that, Paula, and that’s one of the things we’d like about with ABCI. If I can make a plug for you guys, is developing synergies where people focus on their core competencies really allows you to excel. You can’t be everything to everybody, you got to specialize if you’re going to be good and we want to be specialist so that we can be the best at what we do. We want to work with other schools that are the best of what they do so together we can provide a wow experience for the customer. That’s what it’s all about, right? It’s not about generating revenue in the front door, it’s about generating qualified trained professional pilots who are wowed by the experience and who wow their employer and their employer then says, “Where did you learn how to fly,” and they come back and they say, “Well, we learned how to fly at Sun State Aviation” or we learned how to fly at IFT or Cochise or any of these awesome schools that we’ve had the privilege of working with in the past.
Enjoyed a great week teaching an initial A320 type rating course for five fellow aviators. I always take special pride in working with ab-initio customers and this class had two such candidates fresh from commercial pilot training, one customer who is from Egypt and the other is from Madagascar. Both are awesome hard-working guys dedicated to advancing their careers.
Obtaining a type rating is hard work. There is a ton of new information to learn and memorize. People have correctly described these courses as trying to take a sip out of a fire house. I like to say it’s like eating an elephant, it may be to big to eat all at once but very manageable if broken down into small bites.
Having never gone through this type of training before, ab-inititio customers especially need help and guidance knowing how to study. They need someone to show them how to break the elephant down into bites.
My two customers expressed their concerns many times this past week, will they be able to do it? My answer is yes! Although it’s a daunting task we should all take comfort in knowing that thousands of pilots have done it successfully and you can too!
Paula Williams: Just to get started, maybe you can tell us more about ab initio training. What does that even mean?
David Santo: Ab initio is a … I believe it’s a Latin word that stands for from the beginning. What we’re talking about here is how do we develop enough of future aviators, future pilots to meet the global demand. First, let’s talk for a second if I can about the global demand. The numbers that are being put out there by Boeing, they’ve been validated by Airbus industries, they’ve been validated by the US Accounting Office, they’ve appeared in front page news, periodicals like the Wall Street Journal and the USA Today. It talks about needing nearly a half a million new pilots in our industry over the next 20 years. Ab initio is an old concept but it’s a concept of we may have to start training pilots from zero time to get them qualified to be airline pilots because they’re not coming through the ranks organically, naturally fast enough on their own. Ab initio is a way to streamline the pipeline of people coming into the industry all the way into the front seats of the airliners.
Paula Williams: That makes perfect sense. In a sense that means taking people from their very first lesson. Maybe people who are … You’re looking for high school or community college graduates or anybody in particular? Are there any qualifications to start an ab initio? I know it says from the beginning but there has to be something at the beginning, right?
David Santo: That really is dependent on the airline and the individual. You really have two types of ab initios. You have the self-sponsored ab initio. This is somebody who is looking to start maybe fresh out of high school or somewhere in the early stages of college. Honestly, nowadays it could be anywhere in their career. We have a lot of people that get into aviation late as a second or third career but they make the conscientious decision that they’re pursuing aviation as a job, as a career field. Really, they are ab initio students. It’s how quickly they dedicate themselves to accomplishing that task and some people will use schools like Cochise College, FIT, the 141 schools. They’ll go there to accelerate either their education or their time building to get done quicker so they can get into the job market. The other type of ab initio is somebody who’s being sponsored by an airline. Lufthansa has done this for many, many years. Lufthansa hired nationals from Germany. They sent them over to Arizona and they sent them to Flight School really with zero flight experience. Now there is an advantage to hiring somebody with zero flight experience for the airlines and that is that you screen them not on their skill, you screen them on their aptitude. You’re screening them on are they a good cultural fit to your organization and then you train them to be the airline pilot that you want them to be. There are some benefits there. United Airlines did this in the ‘60s. Due to the Vietnam War there just wasn’t enough pilots available and they had to recruit people. At that time, Paula Williams, they were using people with private pilot licenses as a prerequisite. It really depends on the airline whether it’s self-sponsored, whether it’s sponsored what that starting point is. The end game is still the same and that is creating a pipeline that is a clear beginning, a gateway, all the way through a career preparation and hopefully placement.
Paula Williams: That makes perfect sense. If I’m going into an ab initio program as a self-sponsored student just to get an idea of what I’m in for, what kind of time and money requirements are we looking at? I know we’re going to talk about this in more detail later but just to get a broad picture of what that would look like.
David Santo: Some of the programs that we’ve worked with can accomplish zero time all the way through the commercial multiengine instrument and a type rating within as little as 12 months. This is based on the student being full time, fully engaged in the ab initio course. If we go through that pipeline they would come into the program having been pre-screened. We’ve seen screening tools like COMPASS which are aptitude tests that help identify before you spend the money whether you have the right stuff, if you will, to make it through the program. Then they complete their private pilot license, they complete their instrument license, they complete their time building for their commercial, complete their commercial license, their multiengine. Then they come to AeroStar for that finishing school, if you will. We do jet transition training. We do the high altitude, high speed aerodynamics and theory training. We can do CRM. We can do the new ATP/CTP course which is a requirement for the ATP written. Ultimately, our final stage of training of the pipeline is completing the type rating or A320, b737 crew qualification training.
Flight School Opportunity Webinar Excerpt – Transcript
Paula Williams – We’ll introduce Captain David Santo who has been waiting patiently, and you’re in Michigan today, are you Dave?
David Santo – I sure am, Paula.
Paula Williams – Fantastic. We’re really glad to have you here today. You might want to tell us a little bit about your career. I know you’re an airline pilot, and you absolutely love it.
David Santo – I am. Thank you, Paula, and thanks once again for organizing the seminar. To you and to John both, I greatly appreciate all of your efforts. It’s been great to work with you. I’m sitting here looking at the introductory slide, and I’ve got to update that picture because that’s false advertising. That’s about 10 years old now, and I’ve got a lot more gray hair than that.
Paula Williams – You look fantastic.
David Santo – I am indeed an airline captain. I’m an A320 captain for a major US airline. I’ve actually worked for five different 121 airlines over my career and a handful of 135 and corporate organizations as well. It’s been a pretty well-rounded career. I’ve done passenger airlines now. I’ve done cargo operations in worldwide transport flying 747s. I’ve flown Lears and Citations, some airplanes that maybe some folks haven’t heard of like Hansa jets and turbine Beech 18s. It’s been an absolutely fabulous career for me so far and I’m only in the middle of it. I’m looking forward to a long career still ahead of me.
Paula Williams – That’s fantastic and I think there’s been a lot of noise lately about how, especially in the US, a lot of people are unhappy with an airline career and for different reasons and things like that. I think you show a different side of that coin and show that it really can be a fantastic career if you’re in the right place and the right time and if you just basically follow a path that is smart about how you do that.
David Santo – I think you’re right, Paula. So many people are very concerned on the blogs about the experience that they’ve had in their career. I can honestly tell you the experience that people have had in the last 15 and 20 years has been very challenging. We have to be sympathetic, even empathetic, to the fact it has been a very tough environment for the last 20 years.
It’s also a cyclic industry meaning that when you have a downturn for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction. The reaction right now is that we are going into what’s projected to be a 20-year boom in the industry. We can’t take the past, last 20 years experience and say this is what the industry is going to be like, it won’t be. It’s going to be much better in the future and that’s what’s really an exciting message for us is to convey that we’re getting into a very good time in aviation.
Several of our graduates have asked for tips to help them land their dream job. Others have asked why some people seem to land jobs faster then others. The first step is getting invited to interview.
To both questions I believe when applying and hoping to be invited for an interview perseverance and effort are key ingredients. Ever heard the term “it’s the squeaky wheel that gets the oil”? You cannot simply fire off an application and expects it to be all that’s required. It’s going to take a whole lot more effort then that!
You’ll need to let the employer know your commitment and have resolve by making every effort to communicate with them as frequently as possible. Resend frequent updates or revision to your application and resume, call to followup on the process of your application and be both persistent and pleasant. If you receive communications from then that is disparaging don’t give up. Be the squeaky wheel and just keep trying!
If you receive a rejection letter use that letter as springboard to ask what you can do to better your qualification next time and make sure to let them know your going to be reapplying as many times as it take. Many successful airline pilots will tell you that they were turned down by potential employer’s and many more then once! Being turned down now doesn’t mean you’ll be turned down later. You’ve worked hard to obtain your pilot certificates and you cannot let a “no thank you” to any job application slow you down: Persevere and don’t take it personal and certainly don’t be shy!
Do your home work on the prospective employer to learn all about who they are and what they are looking for in pilot candidates. Try to identify the buzz words they use and lace these words into your corespondents to help illustrate yourself as their perfect employee prospect.
Get professional help preparing your application resume / CV and cover letter. You’re a professional pilot not a professional job seeker and that’s okay because you can always hire the services of people who specialize in interview preps. These services aren’t cheap but the return on investment will be huge if it helps land the job sooner.
Bottom line, it’s up to you to convince an employer your the right pilot for the job. Be confident, professional, and personable as you persistently communicate with resolve. Do your home work and seek the help of professional do get the job faster. And don’t be afraid to celebrate every rejection because it’s one “no” closer to a yes!
Meet our new graduates! Within the past few days AeroStar graduated two A320 initial type rating customers and two more on the B737NG. All of them did an outstanding job while completing their new ratings both on budget and on schedule! Congratulations!
Female airline pilots – Is it a good career choice for a woman?
Paula Williams: Is it a good career choice for a women to be an airline pilot?
Captain David Santo: Yes. Absolutely. I don’t think there’s any difference between the career opportunities for men and women. Specifically, Paula I’ll tell you why: Because the airlines do things by seniority, by date-of-hire seniority. That takes all of the bias out of it. If a men and a women are hired at the same date, they’re going to upgrade with the same opportunities. They’re going to have everything the same right on down the line. I think women are very successful pilots. I’ve flown with many of them. I think they’re very level headed. I enjoy the opportunity to work with them because they finesse the airplane a little bit differently then I think guys do. As far as the career opportunity, absolutely this is a career where once you get into an airline there really is not going to be a difference.
Paula Williams: Great. Have there been women go through AeroStar program and be successful with that?
Captain David Santo: We have had a number of women go through AeroStar. We’ve had students as young as twenty go through a type rating program. We’ve had a women that was near her sixties go through a type rating program. We’ve seen the success rate really is equal with the guys that have come through. We had a young lady came through our type rating program. I’ve asked her if I could use her name. She said I could. Her name is Julie Meade. She was a Comair pilot. Comair went out of business. She took an opportunity to use work improvement act money from the State of Kentucky and came through. Did a type rating with us, and she has complete the phase one with a major airline to fly the A320. Is waiting to hear on the phase two interview. We’re expecting to see her hired very quickly, flying an A320 within the next few months.
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