Flight Dept 1.qxp_Finance 25/01/2022 12:23 Page 1
FLIGHT DEPARTMENT MANAGEMENT
Five Tips for Hiring Great Contract Pilots At a time demand for flying is skyrocketing, how can you find and hire the best contract pilots to cover staff shortages in your flight department? Andre Fodor shares tips…
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recent call caused me to think about the need to ensure we have a good pool of contract pilots to draw from in the event of staff absences within the flight department. The following five tips are the sum of my musings, offering advice on how to attract, and communicate with, outsourced cover. Despite promising my family some quality time, very early in the morning on New Year’s Day my phone rang. At first I ignored it, but the caller was persistent. Finally, I answered. It was a man I’d met during my last recurrent training. Very apologetically, he told me that his team had dropped their principal and family at a Caribbean island two weeks before, taking airline flights home for the holidays. During the break one of the pilots had fallen ill and was unable to fly. They were due to make a return trip in two days’ time, and the caller wondered if I could take an airline to the island with him, and fly the principal back. My first thought was to decline. Uninterrupted holidays at home are rare for anyone in our line of business. But then I imagined myself facing the same situation, keen to provide great service to 70 Vol 26 Issue 2 2022 AVBUYER MAGAZINE
the principal. I accepted the assignment. As I traveled to the Caribbean, I pondered how I had covered holes in our schedule before. After all, it’s inevitable that people need time off for medical reasons, which has a big impact, especially on a small flight department. As good Flight Department Managers, we should be sensitive to our team members, accommodating them within reason. With the current demand for private aircraft soaring, finding available cover has become a challenge, however. With full-time piloting jobs readily available, the relatively few pilots who focused exclusively on contract flying are now accepting salaried positions which provide stability, benefits, and longevity. Who could blame them? The high cost of training to keep current for the sake of contract work can be prohibitively expensive, especially for Large Jets. I recently met a contract pilot who self-funds his training. His annual recurent costs are $38,000, plus hotels and airlines. Even by applying his daily charge of $1,700, he must work nearly thirty days per annum just to cover his training costs. www.AVBUYER.com
