Working as a flight attendant is a lot of fun, and we all know the terrific benefits of the job. Yet for some, there’s the inner desire to do something different temporarily or to move permanently into inflight management and/or training. The instructor position is an exciting new job when leaving the line, and it too comes with great rewards of personal satisfaction watching your trainees know nothing about being a flight attendant, to graduating with a high amount of knowledge. It’s exciting to watch and listen to them doing their best to absorb all that’s being taught to them and hearing their questions to correlate all that they are responsible for understanding in their upcoming career. As you know, or should know, working as an instructor also comes with a lot of responsibility as well. As an instructor, you’ll want to perform at your personal best and become a great instructor. How does one go from being a good instructor to becoming a great instructor? Read on, and you’ll learn!
You may be on a temporary assignment as an instructor, and there are airlines that offer opportunities for a set period of time to leave the line, work as an instructor, then return to the line. You may have decided to take on a career change and become a full-time instructor. Regardless of why you are changing roles or the temporary duration of working as an instructor, the requirements of being a properly qualified and trained instructor are the same for everyone. There isn’t any shortcut or exemptions for short/limited term instructors.
In the United States, per 14 CFR 121.401, All certificate holders are required to provide adequate ground training facilities and properly qualified ground instructors for the training required to work as a flight attendant. There are additional responsibilities that come with working as an instructor, as each instructor or supervisor who is responsible for a particular ground training subject, course of training, or competence check under this part shall certify as to the proficiency and knowledge of the crewmember upon completion of that training or check. That certification becomes part of the crewmember’s record. In other words, after all of the required training and testing is completed, you attest to the successful completion and knowledge required of each flight attendant by signing off on their training record. In order to ensure all recordkeeping requirements are appropriately fulfilled, instructors should receive training on their new responsibilities.
Inside of Order 8900.1 Volume 3, Chapter 20, Section 1, you will find information about the requirements to work as an Air Transportation Ground Instructor and Air Transportation Supervisor. There are two distinct positions, with two completely separate responsibilities.
Air Transportation Ground Instructor: An individual must meet the certificate holder’s training and qualification requirements to conduct ground instruction.
Air Transportation Supervisor (ATS): A certificate holder conducting part 121 passenger-carrying operations must establish and maintain a program to train and qualify F/A ATSs. An individual must successfully complete the appropriate curriculum, including the required competency check, to qualify as an F/A ATS. To maintain qualification, F/A ATSs must successfully complete recurrent training, including competency checks.
An F/A ATS, when qualified and authorized by the certificate holder, may conduct the following:
As you can see, in both positions, each Ground Instructor or Air Transportation Supervisor must maintain appropriate qualifications in order to work in their respective position. A specific training program to qualify someone for each position is not defined within the guidance, but there must be a training program that addresses what instructors and supervisors will encounter. This includes all the elements of training facilitation, department testing and performance standards, recordkeeping requirements, and how to accurately complete those records, as well as other subjects. The airline you work for will have you go through their designated training program for the position you are hired.
Regardless of the fact that there isn’t an explicit framework of course content in place for an airline to qualify its instructors, there is an explicit end result that must be met. From the regulation:
(a) Each certificate holder shall:
(1) Establish and implement a training program that satisfies the requirements of this subpart and appendices E and F of this part and that ensures that each crewmember, aircraft dispatcher, flight instructor and check airman is adequately trained to perform his or her assigned duties. Prior to implementation, the certificate holder must obtain initial and final FAA approval of the training program.
(2) Provide adequate ground and flight training facilities and properly qualified ground instructors for the training required by this subpart;
Knowing this, each airline must develop its own program to provide properly qualified ground instructors. The end result, observed by the aviation authority in your country, assesses the knowledge and performance of that airline’s instructors and effectively assesses whether the instructor qualification program is adequate or not. The aviation authority may need to review the training program taught to instructors to ensure it adequately addresses a variety of responsibilities an instructor has upon them.
Each airline will have their own way of qualifying their newly selected ground instructors to eventually be signed off and work independently. There is no specific method for achieving this, it is up to the airline to decide what they believe is the appropriate method for getting you qualified. In no specific order, some qualifying methods for new instructors are:
Not every airline is able to provide two instructors inside of every classroom. It certainly is an added benefit and improved level of consistency of training by having a second instructor present to critique and correct anything not appropriately covered or missed.
In addition to learning about becoming an instructor and how to facilitate effectively, there are other benefits to the training department and the new instructor. Some key benefits training departments receive by having new instructors observe only and not participate are:
As you have read, while there are requirements that need to be fulfilled to work as an instructor, there isn’t any specific guidance in order to meet those requirements. In December 1999, I became an instructor at Tower Air. Today, as was back then, airlines had to formulate their own instructor qualification programs. I have to give credit where credit still, Tower Air wanted to ensure they had well-qualified instructors prior to teaching alone. Here’s what we had to go through:
Their instructor qualification program was very thorough, and it helped make me a better instructor by receiving an extensive amount of oversight prior to being allowed to teach my own. While some airlines may not have the luxury of going through a few months of instructor qualification, there are methods that provide a suitable amount of oversight to ensure the new instructor is appropriately qualified to teach initial new hire flight attendant training.
Depending on the type of approved flight attendant training program, you may have initial training, recurrent training, or other designations under the Advanced Qualification Program.
Although once a new instructor completes the required training program, they are then qualified to teach.
Just because something can be done doesn’t mean you should do it.
Newly qualified instructors on paper may be eligible to teach recurrent training, but it is of my personal opinion that optimally, new hire instructors should exclusively teach initial training for one year, or at minimum teach six full initial training classes before being permitted to teach recurrent training**. You might be wondering, why? To begin, new hire instructors need to become familiar with the course content. All in-flight training departments should be setting up their instructors for success for a few reasons.
It’s not as easy as getting in front of a classroom and starting to talk! It takes advanced preparation on the part of the instructor, and the inflight department providing the time, resources, and support to new instructors to make them successful and grow into the role.
** This scenario may not work for small airlines with very few annual training classes, so there are other considerations that can be used in determining if your instructor is ready to teach recurrent training. For example, your newly qualified instructor may have prior instructor experience from another airline. You have to assess each new instructor’s performance to determine when they are ready to begin teaching recurrent training. Some new instructors may be excellent right from the start, while other instructors are good, but need additional oversight and/or refinement of their skills before either teaching initial new-hire training on their own or before teaching recurrent training.
There is one other thing to keep in mind about teaching recurrent training – time management becomes even more important. Recurrent training is a much more condensed and parsed-down course than initial training. It can become very easy for a new recurrent training instructor to significantly exceed the programmed hours when considering the depth of instruction for initial training, compared to the shorter and straight-to-the-point aspects of recurrent training.
There’s more to come for the instructor’s corner – check back periodically!
Recordkeeping is critical to an airline’s operation. It is, in fact, just as important to have accurate training records as it is to conduct a thorough, well-taught training course. Without training records, it’s as if that training never occurred. With inaccurate or missing training records, the airline may be in violation of regulatory requirements and necessary corrective action will need to be taken. Additionally, the airline will need to evaluate its current procedures and modify its record-keeping system to prevent reoccurrence of the error.
§121.401 Training program: General.
(c) Each instructor, supervisor, or check airman who is responsible for a particular ground training subject, segment of flight training, course of training, flight check, or competence check under this part shall certify as to the proficiency and knowledge of the crewmember, aircraft dispatcher, flight instructor, or check airman concerned upon completion of that training or check. That certification shall be made a part of the crewmember’s or dispatcher’s record. When the certification required by this paragraph is made by an entry in a computerized recordkeeping system, the certifying instructor, supervisor, or check airman must be identified with that entry. However, the signature of the certifying instructor, supervisor, or check airman is not required for computerized entries.