Reflection on the Value of People in Flight Training
In aviation, we are taught fundamental principles: speak up, question norms that compromise safety, and protect people before ego.
This article addresses a subject that is deeply important to me and occupies much of my thoughts.
In August 2018, I obtained my flight instructor rating, and since then I have taught with passion to many students. I worked full-time as a flight instructor for four years. Years during which my social life outside of work almost disappeared – working two weeks straight, sometimes more, without days off, often 12 hours or more per day. Balancing family life with lesson preparation – unpaid. Spending 12 hours or more at the school (8 a.m. to midnight) to be paid, at best, for 6-8 hours total. Working in +35°C as well as -35°C. Constantly thinking about my students and my schedule, being creative in managing expectations and filling the gaps that weather, mechanical issues, and last-minute cancellations created in my calendar — all in an effort to optimize my income. At the peak of my creativity and talent: $35,000 per year, working relentlessly. Especially on holidays, evenings, and weekends — when students prefer to fly.
To exercise the privileges of a flight instructor, you must first become a professional pilot. We are talking about $100,000–$150,000 in training. The instructor rating costs an additional $12,000–$15,000 depending on the location, aircraft, and training environment.
Across Canada, some flight schools are built on values of quality, community, and passion for aviation. These environments have fostered deep attachment among many employees, past and present, who invested themselves fully. What I observe today is not unique to one school but reflects a broader reality within the flight training environment.
What we all share — students, members, and employees — is a love of flying.
What distinguishes employees from those who participate as students or members is not greater passion, but the decision to go further. We chose to turn that passion into work. We chose to dedicate our time, our energy, and a significant part of our professional lives to it.
For many of us (I speak primarily as a flight instructor), this work is, above all, a labor of passion. It is not work that makes you wealthy. Often, it barely allows you to make ends meet. And yet we are present — with rigor, professionalism, and a smile. We offer the best of ourselves so that others may learn, progress, and flourish in this shared passion for aviation. This passion should be better compensated so that even those who are deeply passionate can earn a living and live with dignity.
Flight training is not the work of a single role. It is a collective effort.
Flight instructors carry the responsibility of transmitting skills, judgment, discipline, and safe decision-making — often under pressure. Dispatchers ensure aircraft availability, documentation, scheduling, and the fluidity of daily operations. Ramp attendants directly contribute to safety through ground handling and operational vigilance. Administrative staff ensure organizational continuity — compliance, finances, communications, and stability. Chief flight instructors and supervising instructors are responsible for oversight, mentorship, standardization, and safety culture.
Every role matters.
Every role contributes to safety.
Every role deserves respect.
Flight instruction is not limited to teaching maneuvers. It is built on responsibility, judgment, mentorship, and safety. It demands human presence, professional integrity, and deep respect for the people occupying the various seats that make up aviation — on the ground and in the air.
Behind every lesson, every booking, every first solo or license obtained, there is a team. There is unpaid preparation, stress carried in silence, significant professional responsibility, and constant vigilance in matters of safety.
What I describe here is not unique to a single flight school. Similar realities exist in many training organizations. The truth is simple: the way employees — particularly those responsible for training and operations — are valued must change.
When employees feel ignored, unsupported, replaceable, or dismissed, it affects far more than morale. It impacts retention, training continuity, decision quality, and ultimately, safety. As Stephen Covey so aptly stated: “When trust goes down, speed goes down and costs go up.”
When employees are respected, treated fairly, and recognized as professionals, the quality of instruction improves — and so does the safety culture.
Millions of people are willing to buy fair-trade coffee. A major advertising campaign targeted us years ago to promote its virtues. Minimum wage is enshrined in Canadian law. Yet we accept that highly educated individuals with critical responsibilities are underpaid. Some must work seven days a week or hold a second job simply to cover basic living necessities.
This letter is not written in anger. It is written out of concern — and out of a sense of responsibility.
Concern for an environment that matters deeply to me.
Concern for a profession that carries immense responsibility.
Concern for the future of flight training.
This is therefore a call to action — simple, but necessary.
If this message resonates with you, share it. Discuss it with other students, instructors, employees, or friends in aviation. Use your voice, your position, or your influence — however modest — to encourage respectful, professional, and equitable treatment of those who dedicate their professional lives to flight training. Share your ideas for solutions. Share your experience when you learned to fly, or if you are currently in a school, your past and present experiences with flight instructors. Let us raise our voices to affirm that this is more than “just” an instructor. It is a professional who dedicates energy, time, and resources to the ecosystem that contributes to everyone’s safety — and to general aviation as a whole.
Remaining silent, even unintentionally, often amounts to acceptance.
And acceptance allows unhealthy practices to persist.
If you wish to share your reflections, experiences, or comments, you are invited to do so. You may leave a public comment to foster collective reflection, or contact me privately if you prefer a more confidential exchange. Dialogue is an integral part of cultural evolution.
We need one another.
Be the change you want to see in the world. – Mahatma Gandhi
Do we not all want safer skies? Quality instruction? And an environment where our children — the next generation of pilots — will grow within a culture that is fair, professional, and respectful?
We are here because we love to fly. We stay because we believe in it. Let us speak up today because what our love of aviation deserves is attention — and courage.
5 réflexions sur « Reflection on the Value of People in Flight Training »
Beautifully written, Nathalie. And a message that needs to be shared. Every passenger that takes a plane trip to visit family, conduct business or go on a well deserved trip to sunnier climates relies on the safety of our aviation industry. And this means we rely on professionals like you to train those who we are depending on to make sound judgements and difficult decisions to make our flights uneventful. The quality of your work can be directly related to the safety of our worlds. So we need to take care of those who take care of us. Our aviation professionals deserve no less. Thank you for sharing your special insight with us.
This was a really well-written and deeply felt post. I shared the link with others and they read it too and were likewise impressed! All best wishes, Nathalie. We’re thinking of you.
I’ve always noted how it seems there are few career GA flight instructors, most are recent grads and retirees. In the current arrangement, instructors building hours take a compensation discount equal to the market value of these experience hours; all in an effort to get an airline job. Which means there is no room for someone looking for a normal job as a GA instructor, since those experience hours don’t carry the same expected future value.
I agree it’s not a great system, but I also have a hard time visualizing how else it could work? I don’t think experience requirements for transport flying are coming down. Instruction and « aerial work » jobs to build hours are a limited supply, for which there is steady demand. Not much of a market to drive wages.
Lets suppose this situation is a market failure… where resources are wasted training new instructors over and over again, instead of retaining a dedicated professional cadre of experienced personnel. Resulting in a drag on productivity and injury to the industry. Market failures are corrected by rule making… so what rule/regulation/policy would push the market in the right direction? Unfortunately, I don’t know either.
Worse yet, I don’t think I even believe that supposition… it seems like good efficiency to « double up » the same aircraft hour to achieve primary instruction and « time building » for those who are going for an airline job. Where a dedicated career instructor wouldn’t make as good use of the resource.
I work on the other side of aviation, the engineering and airworthiness side. I have participated aviation privately, mostly flying at gliding clubs. I do know the industry in Canada… I also have a passion for general aviation… I’m sorry Nathalie, the deck is stacked against the career flight instructor.
Thank you for taking the time to write such a thoughtful and nuanced comment. I appreciate your perspective, especially coming from someone who understands another side of aviation and still clearly cares deeply about general aviation. Contributions like yours are exactly what make these conversations worthwhile.
I think you are absolutely right to point out that the current structure creates a distorted compensation model. In many cases, instructors building hours are indeed accepting lower pay because the “value” of the job is partially tied to future airline opportunities. That reality makes it very difficult for flight instruction to exist as a stable, long-term profession in its own right.
Where I would gently challenge the current model is around the idea of efficiency. It may be efficient from a short-term market perspective to “double up” one aircraft hour for both primary instruction and instructor time-building. But I am not convinced it is efficient from a training quality, continuity, mentorship, retention, or safety culture perspective. Aviation depends heavily on judgment, consistency, and the transmission of experience — and those are not things that can always be optimized by market logic alone.
I also think one of the deeper issues is that in aviation, we often say we are seeking experience, when in practice we sometimes end up rewarding only the accumulation of hours. Those two things are not always the same. Building hours should ideally mean building meaningful experience. If someone flies the same cross-country 200 times — perhaps repeating the same habits, shortcuts, or errors along the way — are they truly developing the breadth of judgment and operational depth the industry is actually trying to cultivate? That distinction matters.
The absence of a single perfect regulatory or policy solution should not prevent the industry from taking the issue seriously. Complex problems do not become less important simply because the solutions are not yet fully clear. Sometimes meaningful progress begins by recognizing a structural blind spot that has quietly become normalized. The more one reflects on it, the more difficult it becomes to ignore just how central instructors truly are to the health, continuity, and safety of the aviation ecosystem. For that reason alone, their role deserves deeper reflection, greater respect, and a more serious conversation about how experience is valued and retained in flight training.
I believe there is hope. Other parts of aviation — and even other sectors — have evolved when enough people began to question long-standing assumptions. For the sake of aviation safety, continuity, and the next generation of pilots, I think this is a conversation worth continuing.
Thank you again for contributing so thoughtfully.