As you have regularly read in this magazine over the past year, AOPA was instrumental in fostering a new nonprofit industry organization called General Aviation Team 2000. More than 100 aviation companies and organizations have signed on as founding members of the effort. GA Team 2000 emerged from an attempt by industry leaders to reverse the alarming near 20-year decline in the pilot population. The number of pilots has decreased from 827,000 in 1980 to 622,000 in 1996 — a 25-percent drop.
The reason for the manufacturers' concern over the decline is obvious, but pilots also have a stake in all of this. For one thing, without a large constituency, we lose political clout. It's tough to sell Congress on the need to fund and maintain reliever airports if no one is using them. Every time we buy parts or fuel we feel the effect of a shrinking population. The smaller pilot population means that fewer airframes will be sold and less fuel consumed than a couple of decades ago. Smaller production runs mean the cost of producing the goods goes up.
The pilot training process can best be described as a sieve. A lot of students go in the top, but many of them leak out the sides. Only a few of those who start make it through the process and end up with a pilot certificate — captured, if you will, by the sieve. To reverse the trend, two strategies are needed. First, the number of students going into the sieve has to be increased. Second, some of the holes need to be plugged to improve the completion rate.
AOPA actually got on board with the second strategy first. In April 1994, we launched Project Pilot. Under the program, AOPA members become mentors for student pilots. The concern was that too many students dropped out of flight training because they didn't have anyone to turn to with questions and problems. AOPA members could offer an encouraging word and the sage advice that comes from having been there themselves. By every account, this ongoing program is a success. Today, 23,600 students have been — or are being mentored by — 18,250 AOPA members. One out of every seven new student starts in the last three years was a Project Pilot participant. Research has shown that student pilots involved in Project Pilot are three times as likely to complete their flight training as those who are not participants.
Project Pilot is a start, but there is no way that one organization can stop the dramatic slide in the pilot population. An industrywide effort was needed. Like the beef and dairy producers, which joined together to promote their respective products, aviation needed to unite to promote its product: the joy of flying. Thus General Aviation Team 2000 was born last year. The goal is to increase the number of student starts to 100,000 per year by 2000, about the same level as it was in the early 1980s. Last year 56,600 students began flight training.
The group's first effort at a national promotional campaign includes the distribution of more than 1 million $35 coupons for introductory flights. Prospects can take a coupon to one of more than 1,500 participating flight schools for the introductory flight. The hope is that the flight school will return the coupon to GA Team 2000 so that the prospect's status can be tracked. Of course, it is then up to the flight school to convince the customer to take the next step of signing up for lessons. It costs flight schools nothing to participate. They must only sign up by contacting GA Team 2000 at 888/Be-A-Pilot.
Prospects have heard about the $35 flights through a number of media. Aviation magazines, including this one, have included the coupons in their pages in hopes that pilots will give them to prospects. In addition, GA Team 2000 has run 30-second television commercials on selected cable programs. The "Stop Dreaming, Start Flying" commercials have aired on Wings, Extreme Machines, Planes of Fame, Science Frontiers, and other shows. The audience demographics for those programs — on such cable channels as The Learning Channel, Discovery, and Speedvision — are believed to be those most likely to be interested in learning to fly. So far, the commercials have caused some 10,000 prospects to call the 888/Be-A-Pilot hotline to receive a flight coupon or to visit the GA Team 2000 Web site ( www.beapilot.com) where a coupon can be downloaded.
Follow-up research shows that nearly half of those who received the coupons have contacted a flight school and many have taken that first flight.
Still, there's lots to be done. We all know that the typical flight school experience is not all that it should be and that it can be quite a turnoff to prospective students. A major 1998 GA Team 2000 initiative is to help flight schools better serve new pilots. There, too, AOPA has been proactive. Project Pilot Instructor provides flight instructors with materials to help them be more effective with new students.
What can you do? Plenty. Make sure that your local flight school is involved in GA Team 2000. Stay involved in aviation by belonging to AOPA and other organizations. Sixty cents of your AOPA membership dues go to the GA Team 2000 effort. Get your friends involved in aviation by taking them for an airplane ride. Then give them a GA Team 2000 introductory flight certificate to take to the flight school. Mentor them through the training process.
Working together with the aviation industry, pilots can make a difference. With your help, the declining pilot population can be reversed.
