Competent and confident pilots are crucial for your flight school and the aviation industry as a whole. Aside from the apparent – proper training and sufficient flying hours, there are other things you can do to ensure your pilots are at their optimal best.

Keep up to Date with Industry Trends for your Flight School

This should be a no brainer given how fast the pace of change is in aviation with both technology and the digital age.  But you still find some flight schools that fall behind and are not updated with industry trends. When this happens, you’re seen as outdated, and it’s not a good look for you or your pilots. After all, when your pilots talk about your flight school, you want them to speak of you with pride. Your flight school should have an excellent reputation that inspires the next generation of pilots to fly. Some of the things you can do to keep up to date:

• Get on top of your digital marketing (if you are not digital, you don’t exist- we live in the age of Google). Polish up your digital presence.
• Have a solid social media presence (again, just like with Google, it’s essential).
• Have a killer branding strategy in place (this torpedoes your reputation).
• Use text messaging for your student pilots (training updates, alerts, reminders, etc.).
• Have virtual flights both here and internationally.
• Incorporate virtual reality and augmented reality in your training.
• Stay up to date with all training.
• Stay up to date with all aspects of aviation.

Insider Tip – Get expert help with the above by hiring aviation marketing experts that are trained and qualified to help you with all these and more. You can focus on running your flight school, and they’ll do the rest.

Create a Great Culture at your Flight School

No one can dispute the importance of a good culture at work, which applies to your flight school. Do all you can to be a genuine and respectful flight school that has your students’ best interests at heart. It should be so much more than just making a profit. Be inclusive of all your students and make them feel like family. Encourage a culture of respect and integrity. It encourages confidence and competence, which transfers to their flying careers. A flight school plays a more significant role than they realise in a pilot’s development. Make it a great one!

Don’t Ignore Mental health in Pilots.

A good flight school dedicated to producing confident and competent pilots can’t ignore mental health. For so long now in aviation, mental health, for the most part, has been swept under the rug. Given the high stakes in aviation, pilots have felt scared to speak up about mental health struggles. With mental health comes stigma and discrimination. For the most part, aviation as an industry hasn’t actively encouraged speaking up about mental health struggles, but times are changing, and there is more awareness. Provide your pilots with resources they can turn to if they are struggling. Some of these are:

• Lifeline
• BeyondBlue
• Careline
• Griefing
• Actively encourage pilots to speak up about mental health
• Ask your pilots Are U Okay?

Some Great Incentives to Offer as a Flight School

Everyone enjoys a good incentive, and pilots are no different. As a flight school, consider offering the following incentives to your pilots, which will go a long way:

• Provide world-class training with great competitive pricing. Offer discounts and giveaways.
• Have a referral program (for every new pilot student referred, there is a significant discount and bonus)
• Celebrate your pilot’s achievements. Be encouraging and show you care.
• Don’t forget to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries etc. It’s all part of creating an inclusive culture.

Let’s keep your cockpit seats filled and your student flying with world-class marketing strategies.

Contact us today for a free consultation on how we take your flight school to the next level. Grow your brand and revenue!