26/10/2014
A PILOTS DAILY DILEMMA - WHY AM I JOBLESS
A dead end question every unemployed person asks. So its fine and normal that all of us Pilot licence holders that are jobless rise every morning clear headed or hung-over and ask ourselves the same old question. And some of us have stopped asking and instead have let this question slide deep into a coma and as an option we now ask; how long can I ask parents, relatives and even friends for help to meet bare end expenses. So, if you are one of these it is not the end of the road, because there is no road here. You have to cut that road friend. Here is your spade and shovel to start building that road and I am going to try reasoning with you which way to go. The decision will always be yours. That’s why we are Pilots.
So let’s start by looking at the industry that you dream of joining and this is also for those of you considering whether you should jump into a Flight School the day you’re done with the 10+2 bit. The road is quite like the ones you find at the games you play online. You achieve a level and there’s another and it doesn’t get easier and it forces you to buy expensive tools to achieve the next game level or in our case get closer to the cockpit.
Where do you start building the road with questions that arise in your mind unfailingly and you are not to blame for this?
1. Should I join the IndiGo cadet program as it assures me a job? Or why not IGRUA. The national airlines have a campus placement understanding. Lately we hear that even that is doubtful. But these are both terribly expensive and today there are more airlines starting up as well expanding their fleets. So they will need more Pilots and there will be more jobs for me. So instead of spending it all and spending a year and a half at NFTI or IGRUA why not go abroad and do my license in half the time and be available for recruitments that have to come up. Oh! , but I will need to convert my foreign license to the Indian one and I have heard that this is such a hassle. What if I don’t make it into the IndiGo selection process? Great question. No answer. [I could start building my road however I need to consider time & expenditures and assurances and find a path through so many intangibles.]
2. Should I go get a type rating? The most popular is a 737. Or should I rely on industry and gut to do the Airbus rating. Both are as expensive and what if I don’t make it into the airline selection process. Everyone says that Pilot jobs have become like a family run business and unless you know people in the airline; it is a big risk. [I could do the rating but it’s a monstrously expensive gamble and I am already indebted to my parents for so much!!How do I even ask them for help now?]
Let’s look at why such questions cannot but arise in our minds.
1. Airline jobs and selection processes have become competitive and are becoming tougher and unpredictable. Failure at these repeatedly is quite an unbelievable reality and the reasons are mostly self-sympathetic conjectures. The huge reservoir of unemployed Pilots in India and websites that welcome unemployed Pilots to their forums is proof that failure can almost be guaranteed. The good thing is that at least you are not alone in this fatal unemployment disease and can vent every now & then. Do I want to knowingly get trained as a Pilot; only to stay unemployed and in uncertainties?
2. Decision making has never been easy with a regulator that is far from easy to deal with and clarity in black and white that made your decision; becomes an interpretation horror when it comes to conversion of licenses or approvals. Going abroad for training was a preferred option for both time and cost benefits but today there is no cost benefit with the dollar sitting on the roof. Okay so in India where do I get trained within reasonable costs and with quality and of course quickly?
3. How do I decide on a Commercial Pilot career option with the intangibles of the industry? Which newspaper, magazine, financial report, aircraft purchase orders or forum should I rely on to make my choice as my next three years could be either heaven or hell. And there are already 6000 unemployed pilots sitting on the fence. OMG! But I still want to be a Pilot. Neither the government run airlines nor do the private ones have any clearly defined recruitment or expansion plans that could give me some clues. It’s all so hush hush and ridden with politics making it just unreal. Entrance exams are held and selection processes done but results not declared and even final call letters have taken over two years to fall into unemployed hands. It’s like clutching at a straw midstream of a torrential stream. Do I want to jump into this stream?
4. And then airlines nowadays charge me a phenomenal fee just to appear for the entrance exam? And even if I am type rated; I may yet have to pay a huge amount for the Airline specific training. How do I even financially budget this whole dream of mine?
So, is there a career road to build at all? There is if you are ready to make course changes and of course changes need funding and time related to your age.
Am I competent is a question that also makes it way into the contemplating unemployed Pilot’s mind. This is a good question. And the beginning of an answer could go like this. The large number of unemployed is partly due to the downturns of the industry but even now the success rates at airline selection processes is dismally low compared to the huge numbers that appear. Are these numbers including me not competent enough and what is it that the airlines want? Or does one have to know someone inside the airline. Doesn’t make sense that everyone has a contact.
Here is my take on the above. This is drawn from my personal experiences of 6 years at IGRUA and 15 months at NFTI as Head of Training. And after this for a year now; I have been actively involved in training license holders and type rated pilots for the competitive entrance exams. I will try to answer your; “Am I competent”, question.
The knowledge levels of airline exam applicants for the written exams are quite satisfactory as there are various ways of refreshing your knowledge gathered or “learnt” at the Flight School. And the airline written exam standards are quite similar to the license exams. I have dealt with applicants that have been out of aviation for over five to seven years and found them reasonably knowledgeable to pass the written exam. What is required is passing with distinction and here is where the aggregate battle finally lets many down. Also beware of all the zip files posted on face book as study material. Get down to REAL basics and get into books and understand than mug. No offence meant to those that post their own study material on face book but just stand back one step and ask yourself why you do this. Are you helping someone or are trying to tell the world something.
Airlines have realised over the years that the skill sets of cockpit crews needs to be more than just aircraft operations. Most Flight schools provide only operating skills. You cannot blame them for this because of many reasons that finally become cost and time centric.
My experience with license holders and at Flight schools recently has been that most pilots become very radio communicative. They are not people that could easily fit into a team that needs much more voice communication and expression for teamwork efficiency. And possibly they have very little knowledge of what really builds a team through work and word. There is also quite a huge gap in understanding Interpersonal relationships that manifest during Group Discussions or professional level interviews. A look at the environment in most Flight schools and it is not difficult to realise why this state of affairs. Flight Schools are like factories. The raw material is the trainee and there are skilled workers that work on them with clear specifications and outside cockpit growth nurturing is not the rule.
After 10+2 when you really are out into the world at College; you grow up and evolve and this is not what truly happens with a Pilot trainee in an academy or a “mom & pop” flight school. Another reason for this partially evolved status could be that our education system for three decades has not allowed development of non-curriculum skills that build character and talent that grows into an identifiable thoughtful individual with feelings and consequent expression. Pilots that are unable to express opinion or make a logical choice and explain these with reason are not what the airline team makers are looking for. Our youth that has grown into cockpit filling age have stayed at a lower than team worker level mental age and self esteem but with reasonable cockpit skills. Not long ago Indian Commercial and general aviation just needed license holders to occupy cockpits. Technology has changed the entire touch feel of all aviation activities and this new environment demands a well evolved decision maker that can be a bridge between the technology they fly and the humans they deal with. This needs comprehension of situation; logical choice making and at least grammatically correct presentation through personal communications. Do all of us unemployed have this? Or do any of our Flight Schools teach this or can even consider filling this gap? Surprisingly, some trainees that I have experienced could have been great performers in the IT world. Real whiz kids would be an understatement. Strangely some of these have yet to get cockpit jobs. It’s therefore not the quick thinking hip speaking well articulated digital groupie that makes everyone laugh with a great stock of jokes; that will make it through the airline tests because he is such a team person with friends. Airlines selectors are quick to recognize such candidates and mind you; if you are the laid back let them argue and sort it out; will also not do.
I need to give you an example so I will take my own life. As a military aviator, I had to deal with people and take managerial decisions even before I knew about Management. Unfortunately you don’t get that opportunity elsewhere. As a military flight instructor I was grilled to learn teaching techniques and understand a trainee by experts in this field. Indian aviation is still standing on the work done by ex-military pilots that migrated to training commercial pilots. And this is true of almost all nations. Can we say the same about our instructors that are from a non-military background and have just completed a syllabus that the regulator has laid down but has done little to check how deep is the instructional knowledge and capability. These instructors are the ones that realised that the only way to make a living in aviation was to become flight instructors as there were no other airline jobs. Majority of flight schools have no option but to hire very passionate aviators but hardly trained pilots as instructors. Here I have to acknowledge that many western nations have a better process of training pilots to become instructors. Instructors cannot build a young trainee completely but they can set an example and this is where trainees may not get the best role models.
Flight Schools that do not have any selection process become the destination of “have money”, will train you candidates. Schools will close down if there was a centralised minimum performance selection process. And that is neither the intention nor solution to produce capable and well evolved pilots that can fit into the airline designer suit.
The one visible deficiency that I have noticed in almost all trainees is Confidence. The longer or the more number of times you have failed in airline exams makes this low confidence more visible. There are ways to deal with this and I have been reasonably successful and it is something very high in my training priorities.
To close these shared thoughts I can only appeal to all of you out there without your dream job; get yourself prepared in every which way that is required. Before anything else; grow up and start thinking TEAM. Take the entrance exams as a war. And there are no runners ups in this war; so pick up your spade and shovel and start cutting your pathway; obviously upward!! And don’t keep looking back at how much of the road you have built and how good it looks. There will be enough time for that too. Good luck.
