Roei Ganzarski 2011 APATS speech

Sawatdee khrap and thank you for your kind introduction.

I am excited to be in Bangkok talking about an issue that binds this industry

together: the need for a seamless pipeline of professional and competent, pilots

and technicians to ensure the continued safety and performance of our industry.

But first allow me to thank our hosts - Halldale - for the great work they continue

to do in bringing us together.

Last year, I was honored to speak at APATS in Kuala Lumpur, where I highlighted

the generational and technology changes that are taking place in our industry…and

in our flight decks… and what we as an industry, and as training providers, must

do to adapt our training methodologies, philosophies, and tools, to the learning

styles of this new workforce.

And make no mistake about it, our children’s generation—the next generation of

airline professionals—is very different than most of us in this room, in terms of

how they learn, how they communicate, and what their expectations are.

[show slides]

These advertisements show how we once portrayed the best of the best, and how

we created a passion for our industry. Looking at these advertisements, who

wouldn’t want to be a commercial airline pilot and be part of an industry that has

changed the way we work, the way we live…and the way in which we think about

and experience the world.

To those of us who grew up with these posters, our industry is THE industry to be

in. Yet today, we are seeing fewer and fewer people wanting to join our ranks.

Instead, people under the age of 35 are opting for careers in high technology,

software development, medicine and yes…even law.

Let me give you some perspective on the world of those under 35 years of age. By

the way if you were not sure, let me clarify, I am not under 35 anymore…

If you counted the under 35s in China, it would create the fourth largest country in

the world, twice the entire population of the United States. The third largest

country, by the way, would be the community of more than 750 million worldwide

Facebook users. In this region, as well, the demographics are similar: half the

population of Thailand, as well as neighboring Malaysia and Vietnam are under 35

years of age.

The United States is no different. I recently visited the Google campus in Seattle.

Almost everyone was under the age of 35. Many had their dogs with them at the

office. There were ping pong tables, game consoles, and lounge chairs throughout

the site. The walls were colorful and employees were walking around in sandals

and t-shirts. The place felt alive and fun. Everyone had a smile on their face.

When is the last time anyone in this room walked around their own work area in

search of fun from the perspective of the new generation we are trying to attract?

Compared to global icons like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple to name a

few – we in aviation must seem dull and boring. We have lost the luster and the

magic that brought most of us into this industry all those years ago. In the words of

a younger pop icon Justin Timberlake, we need to “bring the sexy back” in order to

enlarge the pool of people entering our pipeline. And let me assure you, we need a

large pipeline.

According to the Boeing Flight Services 2011 Current Market Outlook, over the

next 20 years, to fly the more than 30,000 new commercial airplanes that will be

added to our skies, the industry will need 460,000 pilots, or nearly double the

number of pilots flying today.

That means, on average, we will need to add 23,000 new pilots every year for the

next 20 years…pilots who first need to be attracted to our industry, and then

trained. We have an even larger need for technicians.

Who will train all these people? I don’t mean what training company or what

airline. I literally mean – WHO will train these people?

If we are having a hard time finding pilots to fly the line – in fact according to

recent news there are more than a few airlines in this region alone that have either

reduced flights or even grounded aircraft for lack of people to operate them – then

how do we expect to take those precious pilots and divert them to teaching in a

classroom or in a simulator?

By Boeing’s estimate, to meet the demand for new pilots, the training industry will

need a minimum of 1,200 new pilot instructors every year. And every year for the

next five years, that number will increase by 250 instructors. Let me repeat that –

1,200 new pilot instructors next year, and almost 2,000 new instructors by 2015.

These are in addition to the 5,500 instructors that are teaching around the world

today.

The question for us as individual airlines, training companies, and as an industry is:

where will we find them?

Let me pose the question another way…if we are expecting a different result, is the

way we have been doing things to date, the same way we should be doing things

going forward? Or is that not the definition of insanity?

Given the fact that the pool of pilots is being depleted at a significant rate globally,

is our current system robust enough to meet the future needs of our industry?

The question I challenge us all with today is very simple: as leaders in our

industry, are we ready to accept a new generation of professional instructors,

selected and put in place based on their teaching aptitude and ability rather than on

the number of hours flown or the number of stripes on their sleeves? A generation

of instructors that are not necessarily experienced pilots?

What a radical concept… Selecting, qualifying and judging professionals based on

their competencies rather than on the number of hours flown. The concept sounds

similar to another program Boeing led the industry with called MPL, doesn’t it?

So as an industry, it is possible to change our thinking and our actions!

A recent survey conducted by Boeing in conjunction with the International Airline

Pilots Association provides some interesting observations about pilot training

around the world. When asked if over the past five years, pilots had had a negative

experience in training, more than half of the captains and first officers said - yes.

Of the negative experiences, the most commonly mentioned were instructor

intimidation, lack of instructor knowledge, lack of instructor standardization,

inapropriate assessments, and airline SOPs being violated by the instructors

themselves.

The list goes on and on, but it points to a common thread…even the best of pilots

do not necessarily make the best of, or even good instructors. That is not a

criticism, it is reality…pilots are not traditionally trained on how to teach or

evaluate students. Rather we spend a lot of time and resources teaching them to

efficently and safely fly airplanes.

I am reminded of a world in which this topic is a non-issue, the world of academia.

I have been fortunate in my life and in my career, to have attended some of the

world’s best business schools where in fact, the best instructors I had were not

necessarily titans of industry or CEOs of large companies; rather they were people

with a passion and ability to teach, who were trained in the various arts and

sciences of the business world.

They were professionals who were well organized, who were patient, who

understood how to communicate, and understood when to challenge their students

and when to let students find their own way.

They were people who could intuitively connect with their classes at any given

moment and come up with the best way to transfer knowledge and increase

retention.

In academia we call them professors, and we take for granted that they do not

necessarily have practical experience in the topic in which they are excellent

teachers.

And yes, like in every place of work, some are better than others, and some are

very bad. But that usually does not have much to do with their technical

experience, rather it is based on the quality of their teaching.

Interestingly, in a study of the top 40 professors under the age of 40 at American

and UK business schools (as ranked by their students) , the majority of them did

not have significant business experience outside of the university.

And listen to how some of their students described them: “He challenges you to do

the best you have ever done”; “she encourages deep reflective thought, conflict and

uncomfortable conversations”; “he brings complex topics down to basic concepts

and propositions”.

For the most part, the words used to describe them are simple like: passionate,

dynamic, respectful, approachable and supportive.

I, like many of you, and in fact a large number of our industry leaders, were trained

and educated by some of these great teachers.

Given the current status of our industry, the great demands on it from a workforce

perspective, and the generational challenges we face, I believe it is time we took a

professional approach to teaching. We must make it attractive enough where

aviation instruction is viewed as a worthy career and not as a default position or

one to cconsider only upon retirement.

But that is not enough, because as we now know, the pilots of tomorrow are

different from the pilots of today. They are more tech savvy, they are more

connected, they are more worldly, and they are less patient.

So our professional teachers need to be trained to understand that learning is an

intensely personal pursuit, and that the way to get a student to reach their fullest

potential is to stop the “one size fits all” model and move to a more individualized

training program adapted to the student’s strengths, the student’s weaknesses and

the student’s experiences. Maria Montessori figured this out in Italy in 1897, and

today there are more than 7,000 accredited Monetssori schools around the world

where students learn at their own pace.

And like Montessori schools, these new instructors we will be introducing, must be

able to themselves, constantly adapt to the students, learning styles, and tools that

they will encounter in the future.

As an industry, we have made great strides with regards to technology both in the

airplanes and in our training devices. As a large user and conveyor of those

technologies, Boeing Flight Services has never waivered in our support of them…

we may have questioned the costs, as have our clients, but we have never waivered

in our support.

As an industry, we have also developed and improved our technologies to meet the

needs of the industry, and we have done it with greater accessibility than ever

before. On the 787, as an example, Boeing together with Thales has taken the

fidelity and operability of the full-flight simulator and built it into lower cost

training devices and portable desk-top devices. So this is not about technology.

And this is not about courseware. As an industry, we are indeed addressing the

operational and safety issues that pilots face by developing specific courses for

specific needs, from CAT II/III landings to Polar Operations to RNP-AR .

Courseware is not the issue I am addressing today.

This is about the plain and simple—and critical—task of teaching; no matter what

the technology, no matter what the courseware. I don’t know about you, but if

given a choice, I would rather have a great teacher and poor tools, than a poor

teacher and great tools. We at Boeing of course strive to deliver both great teachers

and great tools…but I digress.

This is about developing a new generation of professional aviation instructors.

This is about understanding that there is a large difference between being a great

pilot and being a great instructor.

This is about making an instructor’s position as valued as that of any job in the

industry, perhaps even moreso.

To meet our commitment to the flying public, to the government agencies and to

each other, it seems to me that we have three waypoints to meet our critical need

for professional instructors.

First, in the near-term, we could and should continue to partner with airlines to

encourage pilots to instruct on their downtime (or post retirement or medical leave)

either for their specific airline or with other airlines or training organizations.

But, as I have said before, being an experienced pilot is different than being a great

instructor. That means we have to spend the time and resources to train those

pilots who want to be instructors, on what it takes to be a great teacher, and then

evaluate them to see if they fit the role.

Second, we need to formally establish and upgrade global requirements of

Certified Instructors at training academies and schools around the world. Having

flying experience or going through a generic technical course should not be enough

to qualify someone as an instructor.

At Boeing for example, we take our instructor candidates through a very rigorous

and lengthy training program that includes everything from technical knowledge

through best practices of instruction and ongoing recurrent training sessions, and

not everyone (including those with tens of thousands of hours) necessarily makes it

through.

Yes, it does indeed increase our costs. But there is little substitute for quality

training, as it is reflected in ongoing safe and efficient operations. By the way even

after completing their training, we continuously monitor and audit the performance

of our instructors in the field.

But we are only one organization and we need to make the qualifications of

instruction rigorous and demanding globally and equally, so that we know only the

right people are allowed to teach our current and future employees.

And let me be clear…I believe there will always be a need for veteran pilots to

mentor and teach our new young pilots on the job in the flight deck. Just maybe not

upfront in the classroom, or in the simulator.

Third, we need to make the profession of the pilot, the technician and more over

the instructor, comparable to alternative career paths. For example, academically

why shouldn’t candidates exploring a career in aviation, be able to earn academic

degrees as their counterparts in other industries do?

I am not talking about students, who go to well regarded aviation universities like

Embry Riddle in the United States, to get a full standard 4-year degree and a pilot’s

license.

I am talking about the standard ab-initio, the type rating, the recurrent training, the

MPL program. These are all programs that teach both theory and practice and yet

for the most part, provide the student no academic credit.

Not only does this reduce the perceived value of our education and training, it also

limits the funding available to young people evaluating their career path. And these

days as we all know, with limited funding comes limited attraction.

In United States universities , for example, 66 percent of all undergraduate students

receive some type of financial aid. And by the way, these are loans provided

directly to students and do not include loans that parents take to finance their

children’s education.

This financial aid for the most part is approved only for academically accredited

programs… which at this point does not include aviation training. That in itself

limits the potential students that will come into our industry and detracts from our

industry’s attractiveness and reputation.

I believe that by addressing all three of these options in tandem, we can help

ensure our collective commitment to a safe and efficient air transport system.

In my opinion, by doing this, we will enhance the industry’s position on the critical

issue of what ICAO calls “the next generation aviation professional”.

As an industry, we can transform this from an industry initiative…into what is

really needed, an industry imperative.

I would like to think that next year, at APATS, we will have already been exposed

to the kinds of advertisements you saw at the beginning of my remarks…but they

would be focused on professional instructors.

But what would be nicer, and perhaps more realistic, is to see the kinds of

advertisements that rekindle the magic and the majesty of our industry.

(show slides)

This is a great time to be in our industry. We are growing, we are expanding, we

are making the world smaller and smaller by the day. We need to work hard to

make our industry attractive and alluring for the young, the talented, the creative,

and the passionate.

Thank you