RAF veteran Mike Langley is enjoying the dynamism of his subsequent career at training organisation Oxford Aviation Academy, but remains vexed by airlines' short-term approach to pilot recruitment
How did you start your career in aviation, and what was your route into Oxford Aviation Academy?
I spent 37 years in the Royal Air Force. I was a navigator - I've got a pilot's licence, but my role in the air force was as navigator, mostly in the transport force. When I decided it was time I left the air force I was stationed at Shrivenham - the Royal Military College of Science, and I had one or two contacts at Oxford.
A job opportunity came up as an instructor, which I elected to go for. As an aside, I assured my wife that I was going to do that for a couple of years and never, ever again was I going to do anything remotely managerial. Anyway, here we are 12 years on, having broken all those promises.
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What does your current role - as director of commercial and employment services - entail?
It's twofold, really. I'm responsible for corporate links as far as the ab initio division of Oxford Aviation Academy is concerned, so I work closely with airlines and other flight training organisations, military organisations, governments on occasion, and I also am responsible for all career development aspects of the training we do here.
What would you consider the best aspects of your job?
It's a dynamic set-up. We have about 300 students here at any one time, and they're young, they're enthusiastic, they're committed. It's a good place to work from that point of view. Everybody's here because they're interested in aviation - staff as well, of course. We're doing a real job, we're helping young people get on a career ladder, and that's fun.
And the worst?
The most frustrating aspect, I suppose, is the reluctance of airlines to think ahead when it comes to pilot recruiting.
To watch people spending £80,000 ($130,000) or more, or in some cases £100,000-plus - 60% of them have to pay for the type rating - to receive training with no job security at the end is quite frustrating at times.
Two years ago, we placed just over 250 students with 38 airlines worldwide. I'd be very surprised if we make half that this year.
How has the range of training courses evolved?
I suppose the big change has been since 9/11, actually. We were in the process, in 2001, of introducing a new course because we recognised that the training we did then, although it met all the regulatory requirements, didn't actually produce a first officer able to go into the right-hand seat of a 60t jet.
So we introduced a new course in 2003, aimed firmly at producing a first officer, not a pilot, and the course has been extremely successful in doing that.
Now, of course, we are just entering the world of the multi-crew pilot's licence training, with Flybe. We see that as a very effective way of carrying out the training, but again, the reluctance of airlines to commit 18 months to two years ahead, certainly in the UK, is going to limit the numbers that go through that particular route.
I think that, before the recession, airlines in the UK were beginning to realise that there was not an infinite number of people who wanted to become pilots, and that of the people who wanted to become pilots, not all have the necessary ability and personality to do it, so there was going to have to be a shift of some sort to more forward planning.
Unfortunately, the recession has thrown us back a few years and we're back where we were in 2002.
Source: Flight International
