Thank you. I will also read, and I'm going to do this presentation in French.
Good morning. Thank you for having me today.
I am Caroline Farly, owner of the Aéro Loisirs flying school. I am Chief Pilot and Chief Instructor, as well as the person in charge of aircraft maintenance and authorized agent for Transport Canada. I became an instructor in 2011 in order to pursue it as a career.
I want to thank Louise Gagnon, who was a pilot and class 1 instructor at Cargair for 25 years, and Rémi Cusach, founder of the ALM flying school, also class 1 instructor for 25 years and now retired. Both are currently delegated examiners at Transport Canada and helped me prepare this presentation.
Lengthy student admission delays are a problem for flying schools. Behind the problem is an instructor shortage, which is not improving. It is urgent to address our inability to meet the current and growing demand of commercial pilot licence candidates.
It is no longer necessary to go through the training process to accumulate flying hours. Only pilots who truly show interest will become instructors. Inspiration should be drawn from the conclusions of this study to promote the value of the flight instructor profession, the current perception of which is definitely impeding candidate recruitment.
Pilots who have decided to pursue a career as instructors are few in the network and are mainly school founders, examiners and chief instructors. They have an immeasurable wealth of knowledge in training and aviation and have been playing a leading role over the past 30 years in the establishment of flying schools. However, they are approaching the age of retirement, selling their schools and leaving an enormous void in the field.
That is what happened with the school I took over in 2013. Until the founder retired in 2018, we were two career instructors, but now it's just me. I like to think that our enthusiasm has strongly influenced and inspired pilots we have trained to become instructors, as access to role models or mentors has always been a key to success in professional recruitment.
Instruction is the least valued and the lowest paid aspect of aviation. That is the harsh reality. Schools are paying wages to independent workers instead of salaries to employees. Weather-related loss of income is considerable, both for flight schools and for workers, not to mention the negative impact the loss has on the region where our students live. The demand for our services increases significantly when students are on vacation during the summer and during holidays. Last-minute cancellations because of the weather or mechanical failures make the enforcement of labour standards difficult and costly.
Although instructors at our school are relatively well paid because they receive a significant bonus, the fact remains that our operations impose a ceiling on us. The cost of maintenance and the purchase of aircraft parts and fuel are increasing while we face income variations. Pilot training is expensive, and we are trying to keep its cost at acceptable levels that make aviation accessible. Those costs fluctuate and increase, but the cost of service cannot follow suit.
The big question is: who will train the instructors of tomorrow? Only the most senior instructors—those in class 1—who have accumulated 750 flying hours as instructors can train flight instructors. That is essentially what is stated in standard 421.72 of the Canadian Aviation Regulations.
Today, it is possible to become a class 1 instructor after only one or two seasons. Airlines compete for experienced pilots—all experienced instructors and class 1 instructors—over other instructors and professional pilots lacking additional qualifications. We will witness a gradual drop in the quality of training and a disappearance of role models and mentors with a wealth of experience and operational and practical knowledge.
The reality is also that experienced instructors were running flying schools across Canada. Declining experience levels in that area are certainly likely to affect the quality of the training of new instructors. Currently, Transport Canada is mobilizing class 1 instructors to deal with those challenges, and that highly significant and constructive initiative shows that the department is serious about taking action.
The majority of class 1 instructors currently working are over the age of 50, and I am concerned about becoming one of the rare class 1 instructors with more than 10 years of experience. I am already one of the few, if not the only, woman who owns a flying school.