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Whilst Global Jet is widely recognised throughout the industry for the excellence of its Personal Development Training - and latterly its e-Learning programmes - your core business is aircraft engineering. Tell us about the current student intake. Are sufficient numbers of young people still being attracted to the industry, or will we be facing a shortage of qualified engineers in years to come? I’m concerned that aviation is losing valuable talent to other sectors, such as trains, elevators, and other high-tech industries. This is mostly because of better pay, better benefits, and reduced safety responsibilities. We are still getting the majority of new technicians from the traditional aviation technical and trade school programs - but with declining enrollment levels. We also see young people coming out of the military aircraft maintenance programs and they want to continue into that career when they enter civilian life. The average AMT age in the US is 54 years old; the average AME in Europe is 45 years old. I'm expecting a major shortage in the US for this field in the years ahead as the present pool of workers retire or move on. And female engineers? I would like to see more women enter this specific field. Certainly more trained and talented women would help address the workforce shortage. Aircraft technology is rapidly advancing - particularly in avionics. Are today's engineers still 'hands on', or are they ostensibly computer boffins?
What are the main challenges facing today's engineers? They really need to develop their “soft” skills; leadership, and management preparation areas. In my opinion the changes in the work environment dynamics makes soft skills almost as imperative as the technical aspects of their position. Management of their interpersonal relationships and maintaining highly effective communication practices will set the most competent technicians apart from the other aviation professionals in their field. Safety Management Systems have been a key industry issue since the FAA introduced regulations in 2008. Can you give us an overview of the topics covered by your SMS courses. Safety agencies are requiring flight operations to implement a safety management system (SMS) within their organization. This includes training their employees on the purpose and benefit of using an on-site SMS. We’re very proud of the impact our SMS and our other aviation safety classes have had with our customers. Our 2-day SMS class covers: introductions and fundamentals, economics and cost impact, changing and influencing the safety culture, individual roles and responsibilities, risk management, data collection and reporting. In class we use several key, contemporary case-studies to illustrate our concepts and underscore our point. There’s no teacher like experience - in this case we use the experience of others to show how improvements will be found or where changes need to happen. We don’t need to become victims of the same poor and outdated practices. As we wrap up the course, the student will be able to decipher and understand the differences among ICAO, IBAC, and IS-BAO. Then we move on to considerations for implementing a safety management system for their organization. Moving on to Professional Development, I think I'm correct in saying that Global Jet is unique in the industry for its truly comprehensive training programmes. Everything from interpersonal skills, project management and finance to customer service, communications and international etiquette! How did this philosophy evolve? Global Jet Services is the only business aviation training organization that has put this much emphasis and dedication toward building up the professional development area of the aviation technician. We feel that the ability to make gains in the area of soft skills is getting to be even more important than technical training. It goes back to some of our core intentions within our mission statement: We want to see the technician not only succeed in their job, but also to advance in their careers. Having been in the aviation maintenance field myself for many decades now, I always saw there was a need - something was lacking with the leadership and management experience. Perhaps organizations never had time, or thought it wasn’t a priority, or the economics made it prohibitive to take a highly skilled technician offline to receive additional training. I had the pleasure of hearing you speak on 'Leadership for Flight Attendants' at NBAA 2012. You put forward the concept of a name change from Flight Attendant to Cabin Safety Officer. Have you any further thoughts on this? It is the primary function of the flight attendant to ensure the flight arrives safely at its destination from the interests of the passenger. Their role is very important to the total safety of the passengers -no different than pilots or engineers. Their dedication to passenger safety, comfort and satisfaction are unmatched in the travel industry. Since air travel has largely become the safest mode of transportation out there, we can easily become complacent with the degree of safety training attendants must take and pass. They are known to put themselves in harm’s way for the sake of passenger safety-often someone they’ve never met before the flight. I have considerable respect for these individuals with regard to how they handle their jobs professionally and their dedication to passenger safety.
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