Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2025

Abstract

In the flight training environment, Certified Flight Instructors (CFI) experienceinconsistent schedules, long hours at the airport, and limited organizationalsupport in their roles. These factors can contribute to fatigue and burnout whichcan also impact Flight Students. This study explores such experiences of CFIs andflight students through semi structured focus groups across three collegiate flightschools. Analysis of these focus group transcripts revealed five themes:organizational issues, financial pressures, fatigue, burnout, and trainingeffectiveness. Our findings identified how systemic stressors, like rigidscheduling, financial stress, and lack of career infrastructure, degrade the CFIs’wellbeing which leads to compromised training quality and flight safety. Flightstudents also observed signs of the CFIs’ fatigue and lapses in instruction. Tomitigate such detrimental spiraling effects, we suggest interventions includingscheduling flexibility, revising pay scale, compensation structures, and careerdevelopment pathways, to better support CFI wellbeing and enhance the overallquality and safety of flight training.

Comments

Presented at the 23rd International Symposium on Aviation Psychology, May 27-30, 2025, Hosted by Oregon State University

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