CFI working conditions

[Big Pistons Forever]

I would suggest the OP's question is hard to answer in the general. What "YOUR" work experience will be can vary dramatically depending on the school. The best way to find out is visit a few schools and talk to the instructors.

As a general comment with hiring picking up in every sector, schools are starting to lose instructors so there is more opportunity than in the last few years where COVID stopped the movement up and out of schools. Now there are a lot of instructors with enough hours for an ATPL and who want to move on.

Personally when I was a new hire instructor I practically lived at the FTU. I was often the only one there when somebody walked in the door thinking about learning how to fly. I had a good sales pitch and consequently built a relationship with new students who wanted me as their instructor. I ended up very busy right from day one and did quite well as an instructor.

Always being around also got me pop up maintenance test flights, airplane retrievals, ride alongs etc etc all of which built my experience base.

At the end of the day the instructor jobs is like any other entry level job, it will be what you make of it.

Good one. I appreciate what you've said there, thank you much. Once thing to ask is how you managed to live in the FTU for the whole day practically, isn't it tiring as you have students constantly coming in every hour asking to go on a scheduled flight or probably ground school?. Since you've mentioned that you were busy and stuff how many hrs did you get to fly and do ground school an average a month. And lastly if there's any more advice that you would give a student pilot then what would it be

I did 879 flight hours in my first year and taught the navigation section of the ground school in the evenings (2 nights a month). There were lots of days that had a poor forecast but turned out to be flyable. I would call students and tell them the weather was flyable and there were plenty of airplanes available. So the instructors that cancelled all their flights and stayed home made nothing and I got at least a few billable hours. Over the year it added up, not to mention the students that decided that they wanted to fly with me not their present instructor....

As for advice to students, I give them the same talk. How much the course is going to cost and how long it will take is directly related to how much effort you put into. Show up rested, on time, and prepared for their lesson and they will spend the least and get finished the fastest.

[Aspiredtofly]

I would suggest the OP's question is hard to answer in the general. What "YOUR" work experience will be can vary dramatically depending on the school. The best way to find out is visit a few schools and talk to the instructors.

As a general comment with hiring picking up in every sector, schools are starting to lose instructors so there is more opportunity than in the last few years where COVID stopped the movement up and out of schools. Now there are a lot of instructors with enough hours for an ATPL and who want to move on.

Personally when I was a new hire instructor I practically lived at the FTU. I was often the only one there when somebody walked in the door thinking about learning how to fly. I had a good sales pitch and consequently built a relationship with new students who wanted me as their instructor. I ended up very busy right from day one and did quite well as an instructor.

Always being around also got me pop up maintenance test flights, airplane retrievals, ride alongs etc etc all of which built my experience base.

At the end of the day the instructor jobs is like any other entry level job, it will be what you make of it.

Good one. I appreciate what you've said there, thank you much. Once thing to ask is how you managed to live in the FTU for the whole day practically, isn't it tiring as you have students constantly coming in every hour asking to go on a scheduled flight or probably ground school?. Since you've mentioned that you were busy and stuff how many hrs did you get to fly and do ground school an average a month. And lastly if there's any more advice that you would give a student pilot then what would it be

I did 879 flight hours in my first year and taught the navigation section of the ground school in the evenings (2 nights a month). There were lots of days that had a poor forecast but turned out to be flyable. I would call students and tell them the weather was flyable and there were plenty of airplanes available. So the instructors that cancelled all their flights and stayed home made nothing and I got at least a few billable hours. Over the year it added up, not to mention the students that decided that they wanted to fly with me not their present instructor....

As for advice to students, I give them the same talk. How much the course is going to cost and how long it will take is directly related to how much effort you put into. Show up rested, on time, and prepared for their lesson and they will spend the least and get finished the fastest.

That's some great effort and experience to have especially in the first year of instructing. It was nice meeting you, thank you very much...

[Aspiredtofly]

It would be best to find a salaried position. Or at least a monthly guarantee. Otherwise you're spending way too much time and brain power on finding (and keeping) students.

For an hour's flight you're likely looking at an hour of pre flight briefing stuff, which includes getting the plane ready, an hour of flying and half an hour post flight stuff. Likely only 1.5 hours of that 2.5 hours is billable, but that depends on your school.

A CFI in Canada is a Chief Flight Instructor.

It might seem pedantic, but if you use the term cfi on a resume to find that first job, you're unlikely to get a call.

People make fun of you a bit here because of that mistake, but it is an important distinction if you want to make a good first impression in a job interview process.

Good advice. I'm not very much concerned or offended just cause of that but atleast you could be nice to people right?

[digits_]

For an hour's flight you're likely looking at an hour of pre flight briefing stuff, which includes getting the plane ready, an hour of flying and half an hour post flight stuff. Likely only 1.5 hours of that 2.5 hours is billable, but that depends on your school.

It should all be billable. Why would you do an hour of pre-flight briefing and not get paid for it? If you're at a school that expects you to work for free, move on as fast as you possibly can.

I'm not describing what it 'should' be, I'm describing what the situation was in my area when I was instructing.

An hour before the flight likely consisted of half an hour PGI/preflight briefing, then finding the plane, possibly fuelling it, walk around etc. Not all of that could be billed at the FTU I was working at.

[photofly]

I've never heard that PGI should be provided to a student for free, and If it's billed to the student, the instructor is paid for it.

[digits_]

I've never heard that PGI should be provided to a student for free, and If it's billed to the student, the instructor is paid for it.

Neither have I. That's also not what I wrote.

For the 2.5 hours I spent with a student in my example, I could bill the student (and got paid) for:

half hour spent on pgi + pre flight briefing
one hour flight

what I could not bill for:
- walking to the plane, fuelling it, walk-around
- putting the plane away, filling out the PTR

[photofly]

I've never heard that PGI should be provided to a student for free, and If it's billed to the student, the instructor is paid for it.

Neither have I. That's also not what I wrote.

For the 2.5 hours I spent with a student in my example, I could bill the student (and got paid) for:

half hour spent on pgi + pre flight briefing
one hour flight

what I could not bill for:
- walking to the plane, fuelling it, walk-around
- putting the plane away, filling out the PTR

Noted. But - filling out the PTR is part of the debrief, and I would have considered supervising the student walk-around and fuelling to be part of the teaching activities, too, and included them in billable time.

[digits_]

I've never heard that PGI should be provided to a student for free, and If it's billed to the student, the instructor is paid for it.

Neither have I. That's also not what I wrote.

For the 2.5 hours I spent with a student in my example, I could bill the student (and got paid) for:

half hour spent on pgi + pre flight briefing
one hour flight

what I could not bill for:
- walking to the plane, fuelling it, walk-around
- putting the plane away, filling out the PTR

Noted. But - filling out the PTR is part of the debrief, and I would have considered supervising the student walk-around and fuelling to be part of the teaching activities, too, and included them in billable time.

Good for you and your colleagues if you are able to do so. Again, I'm just reporting what my experiences were, not what the ideal should be.

I can add though that as a student I would have been pretty pissed off if I got billed instructor time to fuel the plane.

[photofly]

I can add though that as a student I would have been pretty pissed off if I got billed instructor time to fuel the plane.

One day we can have a discussion about the propriety of customers nickel-and-diming instructors. I would expect to be paid for the time I spend with a student, and I expect the student to pay for the time they spend with me!

[digits_]

I can add though that as a student I would have been pretty pissed off if I got billed instructor time to fuel the plane.

One day we can have a discussion about the propriety of customers nickel-and-diming instructors. I would expect to be paid for the time I spend with a student, and I expect the student to pay for the time they spend with me!

Well, are you fuelling up after or before every flight? Or is the student at 2 pm the one who always gets dinged for refueling the plane?
Should a student pay while he is spending time with you waiting for the AME to troubleshoot a mag drop?

Am I allowed to fuel the plane myself? Do you expect me to fuel it myself? Are there usually dedicated fuelers? What if I fuel plane A and we have to swap to plane B?

[photofly]

I can add though that as a student I would have been pretty pissed off if I got billed instructor time to fuel the plane.

One day we can have a discussion about the propriety of customers nickel-and-diming instructors. I would expect to be paid for the time I spend with a student, and I expect the student to pay for the time they spend with me!

Well, are you fuelling up after or before every flight? Or is the student at 2 pm the one who always gets dinged for refueling the plane?
Should a student pay while he is spending time with you waiting for the AME to troubleshoot a mag drop?

Am I allowed to fuel the plane myself? Do you expect me to fuel it myself? Are there usually dedicated fuelers? What if I fuel plane A and we have to swap to plane B?

Lots of questions, to which different answers can be given. In your example:

what I could not bill for:
- walking to the plane, fuelling it, walk-around
- putting the plane away, filling out the PTR

It sounds like your students expect to start a stopwatch the moment you begin speaking wise words about flying and stop it again the moment you complete your last sentence. Again, in your example, you were doing two hours of unpaid work out of every five. So this is not a question of troubleshooting an occasional mag drop, or spending 10 minutes at the end of the day to push the plane into the hangar to help dispatch out. This is every single flight, and for just as much time as you would spend wheels-up. If you're paying someone to teach you to fly but you refuse to pay for the time it takes them to walk to the aircraft with you, that's a problem.

[digits_]

One day we can have a discussion about the propriety of customers nickel-and-diming instructors. I would expect to be paid for the time I spend with a student, and I expect the student to pay for the time they spend with me!

Well, are you fuelling up after or before every flight? Or is the student at 2 pm the one who always gets dinged for refueling the plane?
Should a student pay while he is spending time with you waiting for the AME to troubleshoot a mag drop?

Am I allowed to fuel the plane myself? Do you expect me to fuel it myself? Are there usually dedicated fuelers? What if I fuel plane A and we have to swap to plane B?

Lots of questions, to which different answers can be given. In your example:

what I could not bill for:
- walking to the plane, fuelling it, walk-around
- putting the plane away, filling out the PTR

It sounds like your students expect to start a stopwatch the moment you begin speaking wise words about flying and stop it again the moment you complete your last sentence. Again, in your example, you were doing two hours of unpaid work out of every five. So this is not a question of troubleshooting an occasional mag drop, or spending 10 minutes at the end of the day to push the plane into the hangar to help dispatch out. This is every single flight, and for just as much time as you would spend wheels-up. If you're paying someone to teach you to fly but you refuse to pay for the time it takes them to walk to the aircraft with you, that's a problem.

Fair enough. Now I don't blame my students for that, it all depends on how management/sales is selling the PPL course. I don't think those 2 factors should be related, although unfortunately they often are.

Instructors should be paid by the company when they are at work, regardless on how the company markets the courses. That's why the billed hourly rate is higher than what an employee makes. If management won't let me bill for post flight briefing or fueling, then give me the full (or at least a lion share of) 75 dollars billed to the student and I'll throw in those services for free, instead of the 20 dollars you're paying me now, making me earn less than minimum wage.

But now we are talking about how things should be, not how they actually are

[Conflicting Traffic]

For an hour's flight you're likely looking at an hour of pre flight briefing stuff, which includes getting the plane ready, an hour of flying and half an hour post flight stuff. Likely only 1.5 hours of that 2.5 hours is billable, but that depends on your school.

It should all be billable. Why would you do an hour of pre-flight briefing and not get paid for it? If you're at a school that expects you to work for free, move on as fast as you possibly can.

I'm not describing what it 'should' be, I'm describing what the situation was in my area when I was instructing.

An hour before the flight likely consisted of half an hour PGI/preflight briefing, then finding the plane, possibly fuelling it, walk around etc. Not all of that could be billed at the FTU I was working at.

That's a fair point. But instructors should be encouraged to push back against such FTU behavior. If you're working, you should be getting paid. Some schools pay a base to cover work that is difficult to track and bill to an individual student. If this isn't happening at a particular school, the instructors should be billing everything they do.

I can add though that as a student I would have been pretty pissed off if I got billed instructor time to fuel the plane.

Who's fueling the plane? Is it the instructor, the student, or the student under the supervision of the instructor. If it's the instructor, the instructor should be getting paid. If it's the student under supervision of the instructor, the instructor should be getting paid. If it's the student while the instructor waits, the instructor should be getting paid. If it's the student and the instructor is completely uninvolved, then there should be no charge.

If management won't let me bill for post flight briefing or fueling, then give me the full (or at least a lion share of) 75 dollars billed to the student and I'll throw in those services for free, instead of the 20 dollars you're paying me now, making me earn less than minimum wage.

If management won't let you bill for post flight briefing -- or any other part of your job -- you need to find work elsewhere fast.

Instructors should be paid by the company when they are at work, regardless on how the company markets the courses. That's why the billed hourly rate is higher than what an employee makes.

At the risk of over-generalizing, this isn't why the billed rate is higher than what an employee makes. The billed rate includes marketing costs, overhead, supervision costs, administration costs, margin, etc. Whatever rate you agreed to, whether it's too low (by whatever standard you're choosing) or not, you should be paid for all of your worked time. Companies that offer an hourly rate and then enforce some policy of not billing (and therefore getting paid for) all of your hours should be avoided at all costs.

But now we are talking about how things should be, not how they actually are

Again, fair point, and you're right to make this distinction. But if we're talking about how it *is*, and how it *is* is not ok, we should also include commentary on how is *should be* -- if for no other reason than to encourage new instructors coming up behind us not to put up with this BS.

I would expect to be paid for the time I spend with a student, and I expect the student to pay for the time they spend with me!

This. very much this.

[DHC-1 Jockey]

It should all be billable. Why would you do an hour of pre-flight briefing and not get paid for it?

Because it teaches you to get accustomed to doing work for free, just like at the 705 carriers in Canada?

At my last airline job, you showed up at the crew room 1:30 before scheduled departure, and you didn’t start getting paid until you released the parking brake.

That’s a lot of “free” work.

[Bede]

A lot of FTU's employ their flight instructors as contractor ie contract for services similar to how you would hire a carpenter to build you a deck. Most likely you are not eligible to be a contractor and the employer must follow all applicable labour laws.