CFI Shortage....

Richman

Richman

JC’s Resident Curmudgeon
Hey Guys,

Doing some independent research.

What's the CFI availability at your school/shop? Please mention if it's a career track/non or 61/141 if you can.

Anecdotal stories are OK. This isn't scientific or anything.

Richman
 
The school I worked at is a 61 school. When I was there, we had about 5 full time instructors who were available 5-7 days a week and another 6 part time available several days a week. We made our own schedules and blocked off whatever days we needed and/or wanted off. We could fly 1 day a week or 7 days if we wanted.
 
I work at a large 141 school with international students.

400+ students with under 100 instructors. Ratios should be 4:1 but right now some have 7:1 or 12:1.

I was running 12:1 for the last 4 months and now I have around 7 students. We work 5 11 hour shifts and 11 hour rest period. At one point we were so desperately in need of instructors it was bad but they somehow keep hiring classes of about 7 a month.
 
Thanks guys...Just wondering about a shortage or the schools having a hard time maintaining staffing.

Of ancillary interest is how the mom-n-pops are doing (smaller outfits, FBOs, etc). There are probably a lot fewer of those now than back in the day (say, early 90s), but I've heard some stories that outside the mills, CFIs are very part time and very hard to come by.

FWIW, for a historical perspective (and @Derg and the other old timers can chime in), there weren't many mega schools. ERAU, UND, Flightsafety was about it. In the runner up category were the American Flyers outfits, but each location rarely had more than 10-15 airplanes. The mom-n-pops seemed to carry most of the load.

Our M-n-P 141 school had about 10 152s, 3 172s, 2 Arrows, 2 Seminoles and a Seneca. Some M-n-Ps got really big, really fast, and there were some pretty spectacular flameouts.

Just wondering what the job market for a new CFI looks like....

Richman
 
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Richman said:
Just wondering what the job market for a new CFI looks like....
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The place I used to work at (big academy focusing on foreign students) pretty much told us during every monthly meeting that we were understaffed and they were desperate for more instructors. Yet even with a $1000 (or was it $1500?) referral bonus they couldn't get enough instructors. Then again, I also only had two students and flew less than 40 hours a month fairly frequently so I'm not sure how accurate the claims of being understaffed were. Retention was a big problem though. The program I taught in had fairly high entry requirements and a rather lengthy training and qualification program for CFIs (200 hours dual given or 500 TT just to start). However, about 50 percent of our time was spent in a Frasca simulator. Sure it counted towards our bonus pay but in the end only getting 30 flight hours a month led to a rather high level of discontent among many of the instructors, most of whom (myself included) wanted their hours to move on to the airlines. Their target instructor was someone older, settled, and not looking to go to the airlines/135. Unfortunately things didn't lend themselves to attracting instructors like that, the scheduling system especially led to a fairly unsuitable quality of life and didn't help the recruiting efforts.

If you're willing to spend your days flying around with students from fall off lands with poor english skills and limited understanding, there really is no shortage of jobs for instructors. Relocation may be necessary but there's no shortage of foreign students.
 
n156499000 said:
The place I used to work at (big academy focusing on foreign students) pretty much told us during every monthly meeting that we were understaffed and they were desperate for more instructors. Yet even with a $1000 (or was it $1500?) referral bonus they couldn't get enough instructors. Then again, I also only had two students and flew less than 40 hours a month fairly frequently so I'm not sure how accurate the claims of being understaffed were. Retention was a big problem though. The program I taught in had fairly high entry requirements and a rather lengthy training and qualification program for CFIs (200 hours dual given or 500 TT just to start). However, about 50 percent of our time was spent in a Frasca simulator. Sure it counted towards our bonus pay but in the end only getting 30 flight hours a month led to a rather high level of discontent among many of the instructors, most of whom (myself included) wanted their hours to move on to the airlines. Their target instructor was someone older, settled, and not looking to go to the airlines/135. Unfortunately things didn't lend themselves to attracting instructors like that, the scheduling system especially led to a fairly unsuitable quality of life and didn't help the recruiting efforts.

If you're willing to spend your days flying around with students from fall off lands with poor english skills and limited understanding, there really is no shortage of jobs for instructors. Relocation may be necessary but there's no shortage of foreign students.
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Yup my school has $1000 referral bonus and $5000 sign on bonus with a free CFI-I (one year contract).

Desperate times call for desperate measures.
 
If anything, you'd think that the "1,500 hour rule" would have improved CFI availability.

Any of the pro-CFI rags/websites have anything to say? I'm interested to see how the pipeline is holding out.

Anyone teaching in SoFL (yes, I know it is south of the dreaded VRB-TPA Line of Doom & Ultimate Suffering)?

Richman
 
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ahw01 said:
I know people at aerosim, scheduled 0830-2130 with 90 minutes of breaks...
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Why would they do that to themselves? I mean sure I understand fly as many hours as we can but seriously don't need to kill your human life in the process...

Gotta feel for those instructors unless that's how they like it
 
The whole company renews itself every 4 years, chief pilots tend to last a year max. Very different to traditional schools where you get some 10-20 year people
 
ahw01 said:
The whole company renews itself every 4 years, chief pilots tend to last a year max. Very different to traditional schools where you get some 10-20 year people
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Yeah couldn't tell you how long mine has been here. I had in interview with Aerosim but didn't like the whole idea of going to a month long class and then being told if we were hired or not...seemed extremely odd to me and a huge waste of money/time for a standardization program.
 
They have an odd way of working but it seems to do ok for them. SR22 Pvt training is a strange one though.
 
I have been trying to get into my old school for an IPC etc the past couple of years and they still fob me off.

They get reduced rates if they offer rentals alongside being a flight school but I think that's become very small now...

Fleets at that place flying 200k hours a year means you have 200 CFIs gaining 1000 easily
 
As someone on the outside looking very carefully in, I can tell you what I'm observing:

There are 4-5 "solid" FBOs that offer flight training around the DC Metro area. They have various levels of amenities, spread out over multiple airports. Some are large and regimented, and others are of the old school "mom and pop" variety. They seem to charge anywhere from $40 per hour for instruction up to $68 at some of the larger places.

The one thing all of them have in common is that they are hiring instructors, and the instructor schedules they do have are full.

I'm in the shopping process right now to decide where to study and earn my CFI. The old "study where you want to work" mantra applies, but in this case, I'm also considering client availability and market, networking opportunities, and flexibility. Ideally, I'd like to also instruct with my flying club, but most schools seem to want exclusivity. I'm hoping that this "CFI shortage" puts me in a more favorable position to negotiate that.

I'm noticing that some major metros have a marketable base in a city that has difficulty getting out to actual fields for study. I've toyed with the idea of buying/leasing something like a Redbird and installing it in the city where people could come in and get ground/sim lessons much closer to home and work. They get out to the FBOs for the actual flight time. If the thing could operate often enough, I could see it serving some markets (like this one) effectively. The key would be effective liaisons with FBOs to operate on a complementary instead of a competitive basis.

Either way, it'd be another opportunity for a CFI.
 
There was never really a shortage of instructors at my school. When one or two left, we hired one or two more. It was a revolving door. Great place to work and I was happy to instruct for them.
 
killbilly said:
I'm noticing that some major metros have a marketable base in a city that has difficulty getting out to actual fields for study. I've toyed with the idea of buying/leasing something like a Redbird and installing it in the city where people could come in and get ground/sim lessons much closer to home and work. They get out to the FBOs for the actual flight time. If the thing could operate often enough, I could see it serving some markets (like this one) effectively. The key would be effective liaisons with FBOs to operate on a complementary instead of a competitive basis.
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I wonder how well putting a couple of those redbird sims in a retail space such as a mall would work?

One thing about flight training is that most flight schools "storefront" has all the appeal of a medium security prison. Redbirid has created a "sim-centric" flight training model, so why not put the sims where there is a lot of foot traffic and easy access, then head out to the airport for the flight portion. There is absolutely no reason that Sims need to be anywhere near an airport.
 
USMCmech said:
I wonder how well putting a couple of those redbird sims in a retail space such as a mall would work?

One thing about flight training is that most flight schools "storefront" has all the appeal of a medium security prison. Redbirid has created a "sim-centric" flight training model, so why not put the sims where there is a lot of foot traffic and easy access, then head out to the airport for the flight portion. There is absolutely no reason that Sims need to be anywhere near an airport.
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Perhaps having it on your own grounds that you already pay rent for makes it cheaper for you? I can't imagine rent on a property just for a sim location could be very profitable but that's just my opinion.

Plus, rent with higher foot traffic is probably more as well. Depending on your student body size it could be a hit or a complete bust. That's just my thought. He did say that lots of people flying around his area would benefit from this so that's good for the idea then.
 
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