How Minority Students Are Overcoming the High Cost of Flight Training to Become Pilots

Caitlyn Blanco, a young Hispanic American, quickly understood that to achieve her goal of becoming an airplane pilot, in an environment largely dominated by white men, she would not find many people around her to advise her.

“And when I started watching the courses and realized how expensive it was, it got extremely scary,” says the 20-year-old student who still managed to get back to school Pilot from the University of Farmingdale, New York.

A government task force in 2022 identified a “largely untapped” solution to the lack of pilots reported by companies: “young people from currently underrepresented groups”. But he also acknowledged that the cost of training was a “major obstacle” for them.

Air transport companies are however busy recruiting new pilots en masse to compensate for the many retirements incurred during the pandemic.

In this context, the unions managed to negotiate significant wage increases and hiring bonuses of up to $100,000.

But before becoming a pilot, you have to pay tens of thousands of dollars to pay for the flight hours necessary for the various certifications in addition to tuition fees.

– A “deferred dream” –

For Darrell Horton, the financial cost was just too high when he entered college. Instead, he joined the military before working in engineering and project management.

But after an upsetting episode at his former employer, and seeing the headlines about a shortage of pilots, he wanted to try his luck again.

At 37, with the support of his wife, this African-American entered the Aviation Academy set up by United Airlines in October 2021.

“It was like a dream deferred for me,” he says. Flying for him is “a magical feeling”.

Khaled Chebli, 35, also became a pilot late in life.

He was already keen on aviation when he was a child, but because he didn’t meet pilots, he started a career in IT. Before meeting the woman at the controls of his company’s private jet, who became his mentor.

To avoid going into too much debt, he took lessons while continuing to work.

Now employed at United, he in turn wanted to encourage young people and created an association to support high school students interested in aviation and provide them with scholarships.

“It is so expensive historically to become a pilot that it is almost essential to come from a certain background to afford financially to learn to fly,” he laments.

– “It will bear fruit” –

In Farmingdale, less than a third of students starting aviation training become pilots, explains its director Michael Canders.

Many give up after realizing that you have to spend many hours in class before getting into an aircraft.

Being “passionate about aviation” is the most important characteristic for completing training, says Michael Canders.

For Caitlyn Blanco, the passion came when she was about six years old, watching from her home as planes came and went around JFK airport in New York.

Her mother pushed her to participate in amateur aviation groups; a Women in Aviation event at LaGuardia Airport, a few miles away, also encouraged her.

His tuition is covered by a scholarship. But the young girl juggles between three jobs to finance the daily costs and her flight hours, which cost around 18,000 dollars per year.

She has just received a certificate attesting to her ability to use instruments in low visibility, an important step after her first private pilot’s license.

She hopes to be able to continue working as a flight instructor in Farmingdale after graduating so that she will have enough flying hours under her belt to be hired by a regional company within three years.

“Finding out how to finance my studies is very stressful. But that does not discourage me, because I know that it will eventually pay off,” she says.