Expert: David A. NewMyer - 4/27/2007

Question
Hello, I am currently trying to plan the best way to become an airline pilot and had some questions I hoped you could answer. First, what education would be best to be hired in the industry (business degree, BA - ECON, Aviation - advanced diploma) Secondly would an airline prefer that a pilot was trained by a private flight school or a college?

Thanks in Advance,

Matthew Stubbs

Answer
Hi, Matthew:

Nice to hear from you, I will try to assist!

First Question:  What education?

I am biased, but, I think that the best education that you can get to enter the aviation industry is a degree in aviation (aviation flight, aviation management or aviation technologies).  The reason for this is that these degrees give you specific, aviation industry-related preparation and other general business degrees or economics degrees do not.

Second question:  Private flight school or college?  While I have seen few surveys in the last couple of years, the statistics through 2002 indicated that airlines tended to hire people with college degrees (about 90 percent of those hired as pilots by the larger airlines had degrees).  Private flight schools prepare you to do one thing:  Fly.  A university education that includes flight prepares you more broadly with a general education that includes mathematics, science, speech communication, English, social science and other areas plus your aviation-specific coursework.  The key thing for the future of any industry is that you must be prepared to adapt and change with it....and, believe me, the aviation industry is changing!  You need to have a multi-dimensional background.

I hope that this answer helps!

Best wishes to you,

David A. NewMyer, Ph.D., Professor and Chair
Aviation Management and Flight
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
http://www.aviation.siu.edu