By: Laura Nunez
Posted: Oct 29, 2020 11:00 PM CST
Denton - United and American Airlines have sent nearly 32,000 employees furlough notices after the airlines simply could not afford to pay them.
It’s no secret that the pandemic has hit the aviation industry hard with less people relying on airlines for travel.
But right here in Denton, there is still a glimmer of hope for aspiring pilots at the US Aviation Academy.
The academy is one of the largest flight schools in the nation teaching students from all over the world the skills they need to become pilots.
Admissions Director Erica Garland has worked with the academy for nearly 10 years.
“We definitely excel in a fast-paced program, I think there's a lot of misconceptions with becoming a pilot, people think that you have to be former military, they think that it's a lot of years and years of training, a lot of times people think you have to be male and none of that is true,” she said. “We can actually take students, and if they're full time, go get all their training done in about nine months,” said Garland.
US Aviation Flight and Ground Instructor, Katie Shields was one of the pilots furloughed due to the pandemic.
“I was working here at US Aviation to get all of my required flight hours to become an airline pilot, and I made it to the airlines,” she said. “And unfortunately, because my seniority was so low, I ended up getting furloughed, but I'm very thankful that US aviation took me back to be a ground school instructor and a flight instructor again,” said Shields.
Shields says despite the unknowns presented by Covid-19 it’s actually a good time to become a pilot.
“Every airline pilot has to retire at age 65, and there's been a lot of pilots that have actually taken a lot of early retirements because of COVID-19,” she said. “And the retirement number hasn't changed, so in the next few years, starting maybe in 2023 or 2024, we're going to see mandatory retirements from all major airlines as much as 900 a year from each airline, so that's going to be a lot of pilots that are going to be needed,” she said. “And I think that right now, the flight schools are slowing down, which is only going to widen the gap even more,” said Shields.
US Aviation lead A&P mechanic instructor, Tony McCurdy says the academy offers a full immersion experience as a very busy class delta airport.
“The nice thing about this school is we could take somebody with zero knowledge and turn them into an A&P mechanic in 12 months,” he said. “The way the curriculum is written, is for you to start at the ground level and we teach you everything about the airplane,” said McCurdy.
For more information on the academy, be sure to visit the US Aviation website.
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