50% of applicants aren't employable....
 

The above stat is getting widely reported, even more so from the output of integrated schools and it mostly seems to stem from the self-selection and ATO's being happy to take the cash but provide the minimum required training. The industry seems to have created it's own issue and though there are many applicants, seemingly only half are suitable. I've certainly met a good few in training who could probably do with some experience in the real world to round their character and produce some soft skills. What are peoples thoughts on this and are there any concerns or strategies of redress out there?

What is your source for this 'stat'? I've certainly never come across it.

As someone from an integrated school, I can sort of comprehend what's being said. I'm somewhat older than most integrated students, and had further education and a career before signing-up so (i'm not just saying it), but I'm very different to the typical integrated student.

In my experience, I would say 70% of the people I know are or were straight into flight training from school. I.e straight from A-Levels onto an integrated course, at age 18 or 19. Maybe 1 in 5 went to University, and then straight onto an integrated course. The biggest proportion of students are definitely those straight from sixth form or European equivalent into flight school, without further education or the experience of an actual proper job. For three quarters of the people I trained with, their first ever job interview would have been for an airline as a first or second officer.

The average age of an integrated course is very young. I would be interested to know what it actually is, but I was the third oldest on the course of twenty people at the age of 23, so that explains a lot. The majority were 19 as far as I can remember. "Unemployable" is not the word, but "limited life experience definitely" is.

Rottweiler, I hear you, and DSB; I don't disagree with the sentiment. But you can't go around claiming opinions as fact, particularly if they're based purely on anecdotal evidence.

Not fact but you have to read Andy O'Shea's statement as "50% are fundamentally unemployable by Ryanair's standards" and there is no doubt that employment standards vary across the industry.

The only reference I can find to this 'statement' is the earlier post on PPRuNe that you just copied and pasted. That aside, I wouldn't consider one piece of hearsay 'widely reported'.

I think you're trolling :ok: And for that reason, I'm out.

Maturity is one of the critical ingredients for any professional pilot.

Those straight from school are probably at a disadvantage compared to those who have either engaged in higher education, or gain work experience.

You do get a young person straight from school who are sufficiently mature, although it is fairly rare.

Its a statement Andy O'Shea, Ryanair's Head of Training, has repeatedly made in public, in fact one of two. The second is that as far as he is concerned there is no difference in quality of applicants between integrated students and modular. The 50% claim is usually followed by an admonition to the training industry about their claimed attempts at 'selection', because by his standards it is completely ineffective, 'selected' integrated students being indistinguishable from not selected modular students.

In common with many airlines Ryanair select and train to competency based standards, AFAIK no ATO trains to competency based standards at the ab-initio stage, so a disconnect in standards seems inevitable.

History says otherwise
 

The corporations recruited mainly A level students for Hamble.. criteria was to be 18 when the course was finished. I was one of the older ones at 20.. the youngest retired last year after 46 years flying for BA. Those in their 20s had more problems than the teens. In those days you couldn't get into a major over 26, the exception was Swissair and that was 29 with significant experience. It's about selection and training. In gliding its a function of age to calculate rough solo time. The younger the better.

I can't argue with what has gone and it can be assumed that effective selection and training would be successful. But linked to the current market, 'selection'
has been replaced by the thickness of wallet, and 'training' has been reduced to the core flight exercises as it isn't in FTO's interests to deliver any more than that.

I would say that age isn't necessarily an issue, but the level of maturity and the life skills that come with age are. As mentioned previously, the majority of those I trained with on an integrated course were under 20 years old, had no further education and or never had a job. On the flight deck, the young and old tended to perform the same. Results were similar, and flying performance was dependant on ability, rather than age. So flight school performance was pretty much the same.

However, there was a world of difference when it came to what went on outside of the cockpit. The slightly older ones could stand on their own two feet, make their own decisions, and tackle their own problems.

The younger bunch were much more irresponsible, made rash decisions, and you could say were a lot more socially awkward. A lot had quite passive personalities, and only seemed to speak up when they had no other option. An older student would knock on the CFI's door and talk face-to-face about a problem. The younger ones would e-mail them, or get their parents to do it. Jokes aside, there were integrated students who used to get Mum and Dad involved when things weren't going their way. The younger ones seemed to have much less real-world knowledge, and had unrealistic expectations about what was going to happen. For example, thinking they'd be hired by British Airways or Etihad straight from flight school. Just generally lacking the life-skills and view on reality you get from the real world of work. This is a generalisation, but I assure you that the bulk of integrated schools are full of students like this.

From my experience, I can partly comprehend that 50% of integrated graduates aren't suited to airline work. Mainly due to the high proportion of very young and green graduate pilots, without the life experience gained from ever having a job or further education. Lack of maturity is definitely an issue.

But, as of late I've heard that the youngest integrated graduates (19 or 20 years old) are having much more trouble finding jobs. And around two years ago I was told by a recruiter that an airline job becomes extremely hard to find if you're over 30 years old. So in my experience I would agree that it's a young man's game at the moment, with mid-20s being the peak age.

I could talk about this all day.

I'm an MCCi and TKI and instruct at several ATOs.

The students I see have an incredibly wide range of skills, knowledge and attitudes. Literally incredible, as in I have difficulty believing that some of these people have ever sat in an aircraft (no scan, no R/T, multiple basic handling errors, no knowledge) while at the other end of the scale some of them you'd think already had 6 months on the line.

This suggests systemic problems in training and examination standards.

Yes, it's anecdotal, but based on the cohort of students I've seen (trained at many different ATOs) then if it was down to me to dole out jobs at airlines the breakdown is something like this:

10% just terrible. No chance of passing a selection or a type rating course, and fundamentally untrainable. (how did this person pass an IR?). Recommendation: Give up.
40% to varying degrees with serious gaps in capability. Far too much of a training risk to be given a job (if my neck was on the block over it) BUT trainable. With proper remedial training could be brought up to a reasonable standard given enough time.
35% pretty reasonable. Trainable albeit with a few weaknesses. Slight risk, but ought to be ok on a type rating with decent training support.
10% Good. Shouldn't be any training risk at all.
5% Excellent. Forget the type rating, I'd fly the line with this person right now.

Age is much less of a factor than previous quality of training.

It is not that at all.

There is a proportion of people who may not be.

There are lack of decent instructors / trainers in airlines that are able to train. Too many so called pilots who have no ability to instruct then become and provide substandard training...

but its the pupil then is blamed.

Inherent problems in the airlines

The notion that younger people will always tend to pick up skills quicker is not necessarily true in my opinion. Where I work in another industry we have ab-initio fifty year olds out performing people in their twenties and thirties. Quite a few of the older folk have a phenomenal attitude to work and this more than carries them through. I really feel that the airlines are missing out here. In the 30s-50s age range you can find ex-NCOs, ex-emergency services and all sorts of other people with tremendous amounts of life experience doing sfaety-critical stuff.

Also, in my line of work we have very thorough aptitude tests which you can only fail once in your life, fail twice and you cannot apply again. Historically the failure rate in these tests was approximately 90%. That is another thing the airline world could learn from I think. It's not fail-safe but it would be a good start.

With your description of how good Hamble students were you have not mentioned the very thorough selection process they had to go through to be accepted to Hamble back then. As mentioned by others, for a lot of students today, this selection process is VERY superficial, basically to quote Major Bloodnok:-

"Now take the Regimental oath... Open your wallets and say after me 'Help yourself'".

Rottweiler22;

I would think it is because the people who their careers to pursue flying have more motivation to 'make it' in the industry, as they have taken quite a bit of risk to leave everything behind and pursue something which may not eventuate in the end.

Compared to some kid who has his flying paid for and is just interested in the glamour of flying.

As my instructor used to tell me, everyone can fly given enough time to a PPL or even a CPL standard. But beyond that, not everyone has the ability to do it.

I’d have to agree with you wholeheartedly.
In my years of instructing I came to a similar conclusion.
3 out of a 100 can’t be dragged through a Private pilot course. At least not by me. 3% of the population cannot learn how to fly. They lack mechanical aptitude and a general lack of intuition. These are also the people that can’t use a screwdriver, hire somebody to change a lightbulb and are generally not very good with anything that involves motion. Be a motorbike or a car or a boat.
Interestingly enough, these tend to be very brainy people, very booksmart.

Then there’s the 3/100 that are naturally gifted intuitive with being in motion. You show them and they basically teach themselves with guidance. Not a garantee for success as some get lazy, don’t study and fail academics. I’ve seen a kid dumb as a box of rocks and simply gifted in the airplane. Very intuitive and his landings were better than mine.
Never finished his Private as he failed his written test 5 times then never came back. Parents blamed us as ‘Johnny wanted to be a pilot’.

The remaining 94% are a sliding scale between very mediocre to very good and all shades in between.
Nurture and nature.
Shy and insecure students that solo late can blossom and turn out great.
The initially better too cocky students generally need a reality check somewhere along the line. Usually a failed exam.

Chop rate
 

We were kept in line by a high chop rate..33% on my course..I had three chop flights and eventually got through and although I was third on my course the insecurity and lack of confidence stayed with me as it did with many others. You could add to that the non socialising with instructors, being watched most of the time and the stories of the security services presence.
So it wasn’t that simple. Several of those chopped went on to be wide bodied captains.
The bullying was worse in the airline and a some left especially from BEA where the accident rate mirrored the poor instruction. 8 hull loses in my 6 years. The stories from the BOAC cadets with the Atlantic barons still shock me.
For me it was the dream of flying and sticking the industry out to attain the dream. I was very lucky to get on the experiment of putting BEA copilots straight into the RHS of a BOAC aircraft..the VC 10 ..an absolute dream job and mainly good instructors, most were from the first Hamble course, although I had one for a repeat base training detail after I failed a check who should have recognised my problem and didn’t.
I left to fly for the Swiss and can honestly say money was no object which left BA in the shadows especially in the training department.
Unlike my time at Hamble and in BEA where I was permanently skint, SR paid cadets a proper salary as they did to new entrants. They also equalised rosters so that the managers and trainers did their fair share of the work and we got a taste of the cream...motivation is about the whole package.

Capt Pit Bull (16/3/18) analysed the ability of junior birdmen aspiring to be professional pilots, describing what looks similar to a standard deviation curve.

So if any old Tom, Dick or Harry is allowed to train, the outcome is going to produce such a spread. No formal selection, just the ability to finance the initial training phase.
And of course the unethical ATO unwilling to chop the "no hopers" who struggle throughout the course and achieve a marginal pass with significant extra training. Determination YES; advisable QUESTIONABLE.

Added to that aircraft such as the DA42 are used. They are perfect ac for PPL/IR schools where they are training the weekend flyers, but I would question whether they are entirely suitable for bringing out the qualities necessary for a professional pilot. They are simply too easy to operate; the very marginal trainee will succeed, only to be bitterly disappointed later downstream.
I do appreciate how difficult it can be to ask the question. But training progress against minimum course hours is clue for the customer.

So having passed the light ac skill tests comes the MCC course. The proposed EASA 'APS MCC' will integrate the JOC element into the course and will indicate to the junior birdmen whether they are the right stuff; or have they been wasting their money.
There is a strong correlation in assessing ability between the training for CPL/IR issue and the MCC/JOC phase.

Difficult decisions to be made by the aspiring professional pilot with marginal ability.....

TBH Parkfell I don't think it is necessarily a standard deviation of the students.

A lot of it is hugely influenced by quality of instruction. The flight training industry is largely inhabited by self selected instructors. Commercial considerations currently preclude most organisations from having a comprehensive standardisation effort.

I keep encountering students who aren't stupid and are trainable but who have massive gaps in knowledge. Or worst of all, have been told that what they are learning is "90% bullcrap".

And when you get a student who has just passed an IR but doesn't have a scan that includes heading, or doesn't know which way to turn to track an RMI, or who never seems to consider wind and drift, then there is something seriously wrong with the system.

This is the key point.

If you read the above post by Chris the Robot he makes some good, valid points that I will try and expand on. My background is as a retired train driver/instructor/manager who had a fair amount of input regarding the selection and training of new drivers, for fun I can just about get a weightshift up and down without breaking it.

As Chris alluded to, the selection procedures are rigorous, and in my experience it was close to an 8% pass rate in the psychometric and trainability tests. This is before face to face interviews and after sifts and telephone interview. The selection process is not cheap and after having more failures than usual in the school it was decided that the training department would have an input in the recruitment from the application stage. The reasoning behind this was that as efficient as HR were, they were looking at candidates without having any experience of what the job entails and were probably rejecting people that had what we were looking for. As to the training cost and timescale, it is probably on parity with putting someone in the RHS of a bus and we paid them about £30k while training.

The difference today between the industries is that the railway has total control of the process from initial contact to sending the new driver out on his own. There has been in recent years attempts by private companies to emulate the big integrated ATOs but apart from a few offering to sell you the psychometric tests it has met with resistance from both companies and unions with good reason. It doesn't matter how much money or educational qualifications you have, if you do not have the qualities that are required then the door is closed.

There are always going to be in both industries a surplus of those that want to and those that actually can do. The process must start with selection on potential ability and personal qualities. Perhaps other airlines could follow the BA self sponsored cadet scheme?

You can probably trace the reduction in instructing standards of basic flying skills to the number of RAF A2 instructors leaving the service aged 38+, and being employed at what was the Commerical Flying Schools. Hamble/Oxford/British Aerospace FC/Cabair to name but a few.

A Standards Dept were the Quality Control. Once the critical mass of ex-A2s were not present then standards could not be guaranteed, as more "self improvers" were employed to keep up with the demand.

WilliumM is 100% correct about the undue influence of the HR department. It is the Training Dept who should be the controlling influence over selection. If HR were charged through budgetary control for their howlers, they would appreciate the merit of pilots having the casting vote.

Besides lack of initial selection replaced by money, "old school" FI's, and ATO's total control of the process, what about the impact of the 14 ATPL theoretical exams which "Unemmployable " candidates can pass with good mneumonic memory, rote learning, without even one face to face assesment interview ?

That's why the FAA and Transport Canada have an oral exam.....

Negan

Firing any employee "on the spot" might well prove very expensive for the employer should it end up at an Employment Tribunal. There is a clear due process to follow when dealing with suspected misconduct.
You, as the customer, can always complain if it directly impacts on your training.

Your Flight School does not seem to be a very happy place, with a possible lack of control by management. It surprises me that your stay. You could always vote with your feet ?

Good point about written exams, especially multi-choice. I do find that when it comes to written exams, one thing that is really important is technique and they teach that at secondary school these days. I couldn't tell you a great deal about Shakespeare's plays though I could tell you how to obtain all four marks in a four mark question about them.

The post about HR influence is pretty valid too I think. Where I work, the final interview is done by local management who have direct experience of the role in question. At the end of training it's the same management decision as to whether someone is allowed to become qualified, the decision comes after a four/five day process known as the Initial Competence Assessment.

Until the law changes that requires a minimum experience level before flying aircraft over certain weights, then a newly qualified CPL/IR straight from L3 or whoever, will occupy the RHS with low hours.
It is exactly what BA, Aer Lingus, Easyjet etc do. If it didn't work they would not do it. And you don't need to be a "wonder kid". Just a hard working competent junior birdman.

BA have been sponsoring cadets for years. Remember Hamble?
AerLingus likewise training at Oxford & BAe?

If the "white tails" wish to spend their money on a CPL/IR, that is a matter for them. Whether it is wise in all cases, that is the risk they take, knowing that employment is never a certainty.

As for T&Cs, a function of market forces, and what the Unions achieve through negotiations with the employer in a democratic European society.

And finally, not all Turbo Prop Captains are capable ( a small minority) of making the transition. Some have actually tired it, and given up the unequal struggle, returning to the turbo prop world.

Like the old adagio says " BU****IT talks, money walks...There is no point arguing, the accident record is good, computer flies the a/c, crews are cheap and quickly available from zero to hero in 2 years, fares are competitive and low....

Everybody is happy, of course until S**T hits the fan. Then the debate is revived again and soon forgotten.....

What no-one has so far mentioned, is the skills they think companies should be looking for?

Anyone can learn to fly an aircraft if they are duly motivated, same as driving a car, neither are evolutionary skills, so there is nothing that cannot be picked up. Smoothly and perfectly maybe not, to a safe and acceptable level, absolutely.

What exactly are people discussing when they mention what students are lacking?

I don't like the concept that someone high and mighty would be able to make the decision of what someone could and couldn't do, an aptitude test will in no way give you an indication of if I can fly an aircraft, nor will it give you an indication of if you could spend 6 hours in an enclosed space with me.

Have you ever instructed?

The other consideration in the long term is the demographic spread of the pilot workforce where ideally the bulges (retirement year/s) do not exist.

The last weight restriction to be removed was for the SENIOR COMMERICAL PILOTS LICENCE which required 900 hours experience with the ATPL exams passed for issue. That allowed pilots to be in command of ac up to 20,000kg.

Last issued in 1989, with a transition period of 5 years for holders to upgrade to the ATPL or revert to CPL.

As one of the 50% being referred to (Ryanair rejected my application, I didn't get as far as an assessment) I take statements like this with a pinch of salt. What is their definition of "not employable"? In my case someone over 40 with several thousand hours of instructing on single-engine aircraft.

Not once. I don't have the patience or capacity for instruction, it wouldn't be fair on the student.

I'm pretty sure this 50% figure is relevant for people having taken the sim assessment.

There is a huge spectrum in ability for those attending the sim assessment sessions.
Capt Pitt Bull mentioned those attending MCC/JOC courses and the varying quality of customer.
The same is also true post MCC/JOC where airline selection occurs, and the varying quality in the initial exposure to multi crew operations which shows itself in the sim rides.
Choose your ATO carefully........

How much is down to the individual and how much is down to the training? Do some training schools who have quite a few poor students ability-wise get a reputation for poor training when actually selection* is the culprit?

It's interesting that there have been mentions of airlines wanting some life experience but not too much (i.e. too old).

*I use the term "selection" reluctantly because true selection based on ability to fly is non-existent.

It will come as no surprise that word of mouth plays a large part in where junior birdmen choose to train.
Those who succeed are far more likely to recommend the ATO.

Those who fail to make the grade are less likely to recommend the same ATO.

Really depends how the customer is handled. Often the failed customer is in denial, with fault never lying with them in any shape or form.

Selection of modular students is essentially one of ability to finance the course.

Regular management assessments & reporting goes a long way to keeping the customer aware of the HOWGOESIT.

Ahh if only Ryanair knew how many high quality pilots they rejected and considered ''not employable'' and how easily the same ''not employable'' guys got offered jobs in much better companies and with much harder selection processes afterwards...

Times have changed. Now the big schools want quantity of students, not quality. More fee-paying students and more income. At the sacrifice of of training quality and speed. Classrooms full, planes over-worked and instructors swamped. It doesn't matter if they get a handful of no-hopers, some may eventually scrape through, or will leave of their own accord. Their fees are more important to the school than a few critical comments on this forum when the graduate can't find a job. Reputation means nothing, and money talks.

On my integrated course the ground school phase was the time when most people were chopped. The school took quite a strict stance on failed ATPL exams, and they terminated students with more than four failed exams. The school considered self-sponsored students with more than four failed exams to be totally unemployable. Even with a single failed exam the student had to have a meeting with the HOT. Thankfully I never found myself in that situation, but the school took a firm stance on failed ATPL exams.

It was the flight training phase where it became ridiculous. The school just kept people there who were completely useless, and didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of making it to the line. There were guys who failed the first check-ride three or four times (take-offs, landing, basic circuits and radio calls), and then eventually scraped through because they had a sympathetic examiner. Four or five months later these guys were still limping along with a list of failures as long as their arm. Some were beyond help, but the school just kept pushing them on. In my opinion the school should have been much firmer with failed check-rides, and chopped the hopeless students. Surely these no-hopers would do more harm than good to the school's reputation, especially when they start openly criticising the school after their training, or making complete fools of themselves in sim checks?

A large majority of students got through their training scot-free, and credit to them. My issue is that most of a big school's output are 19 or 20-year olds with very little life-experience, work experience, and little or no applicable soft skills. If I conducted an interview in my old line of work, and came across these typical integrated graduates, my initial judgement would be "privileged background, wealthy parents, private school, wants a bit of instagram candy, and to tell his friends that he's a airline pilot". I trained with these lot, and I know what they're like. Generalised, yes, but that's the way I saw it. A lot want everything around being a commercial pilot, but don't care much about actually doing it.

You'd think it would be sensible for all of the UK-based airlines to group together and open their own integrated flight school to handle all of their cadet needs. Complete quality control from day one and much lower costs. I believe TUI Belgium reckoned it costs €60-70k to get someone from the street to the RHS now that their cadet scheme is on an in-house integrated course.

That way there would be very few unemployable trainees and probably a higher standard of training. I doubt it'd be quite like the days when they did circuits around Shannon in a real VC-10 (though I did hear somewhere that Swissair had even better training) but I imagine it'd be pretty good.

The only real barrier would be a lack of willingness amongst the airlines to finance it properly, though given the cost-cutting shenanigans at one or two places this could actually be quite a big problem.