Advocates Worry That Changes To GI Bill Will Make Pilot Crisis Worse

Veterans groups representatives and the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) have raised concerns about legislation that would cap the educational benefits of the GI Bill for those pursuing careers as pilots, discouraging interested veterans at a time when aviation faces chronic pilot shortages in the U.S. and around the world.

The military has been a source of new pilots for private and commercial aviation for decades, but changes to pilot training programs at the Navy and Air Force, and a change in tactics favoring unmanned aircraft, have made it much harder for the military to train and retain qualified pilots. As a result, fewer trained pilots are available to serve, fewer are available to train, and fewer will be available to join the private sector in the future.

But some veterans who are interested in training for pilots careers after leaving the military will rely on the GI Bill to cover the costs. Caps for pilot flight training might prove a disincentive for those veterans, advocates worry.

NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 27: Over 700 hundred Continental and United pilots, joined by additional pilots from other Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) carriers, demonstrate in front of Wall Street on September 27, 2011 in New York City. The pilots want to draw attention to the lack of progress on negotiations of the pilots' joint collective bargaining agreement ahead of the one-year anniversary of the corporate merger close date of United and Continental airlines. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Overcharging the GI Bill

It all started when news came to light about the fees paid to some private flight schools working as contractors to public universities, which aren't subject to spending caps under the GI Bill. One student was charged over $534,000.

According to Stars and Stripes, 1,700 veterans had enrolled in flight training in 2016, costing the GI Bill $48.5 million.

In 2015, U.S. Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, proposed capping flight training fees for payouts to $20,235 a year and classifying some flight classes as non-degree electives.

The GI Bill Education Quality Enhancement Act of 2015, H.R. 476 excluded flight training fees from the cost calculations of the degree, and passed the House despite objections from aviation and veterans advocacy groups, but was dropped in the Senate.

An amendment followed under H.R. 4149, to address objections, but several aviation organizations, including AOPA, say the restrictions essentially treat pilot careers differently from others, discriminating against veterans who would want to be pilots.

"Capping funds available for flight training degree programs virtually guarantees that veterans seeking to use their GI Bill benefits to enter the aviation industry will have insufficient funds to achieve their goals. They will either abandon their pursuit or be burdened with significant personal debt through either expenditure of personal funds or taking on of student loans. This will harm veterans and limit their employment opportunities in the aviation industry," AOPA wrote in a November 2017 letter addressed to leaders of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs. "It is unfair and discriminatory to single out for these funding caps veterans seeking employment in aviation. These caps deprive them of the ability to pursue collegiate flight training, a common path to a career as a commercial pilot."

To add another layer of complexity, the wording of H.R. 4149 was rolled into bill H.R. 5649, under Section 201, allowing public schools to offer flight training, and allowing veterans to access the GI Bill funds more quickly—so that they could finance concurrent study and training—but the cap on flight training remains.

"We support the need for improved fiscal responsibility by the government and strongly support tightening the existing regulations of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to curb abuses by a minority of flight schools affiliated with collegiate degree programs," AOPA wrote in a follow-up letter to the Committee on Veterans' affairs sent this July. "However, despite these positive improvements, we cannot support this section as written. Unlike how other degree programs at public colleges or universities are treated, the bill caps payments for flight training programs which unfairly impacts the ability of veterans to pursue well-paying jobs in the civilian aviation sector."

Some veterans' advocates have raised similar concerns and are lobbying for a fresh start that addresses cost overruns, without disincentivizing veterans who want to become pilots.

The Budget Blind Spot

Some suggest there is a blind spot among some parties involved in the costs-review who may not understand the requirements of the pilot career.

For example, in the Stars and Stripes article, Will Hubbard, vice president of Student Veterans of America is quoted as saying, “While some veterans choose to pursue a vocation in flight programs, these programs continue to operate at levels requiring vastly more resources than limits on vocational training costs.”

But vocational training implies something different from the course of study for pilots, which is a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) career. Pilots working for airlines have to have a Bachelors degree and complete studies in physics, aeronautical engineering, and mathematics, along with basic courses towards a secondary diploma. That's in addition to the 250 hours of flight time to obtain the commercial pilot's license, the 1,500 hours of flight time required to receive an ATP (Air Transport Pilot) certificate, and the type-rating to operate a particular aircraft. It is because the career path is so demanding that qualified pilots are scarce.

Two relevant provisions in the Harry W. Colmery Veterans Educational Assistance Act, the Forever GI Bill, which was signed into law in 2017, are more pertinent to pilot careers than the contentious Section 201 restrictions.

One is the "pilot programs for technology courses" provision. It aims to give veterans more opportunities to enroll in high-technology education programs that offer skills sought by employers in a relevant field or industry. The other is a provision to increase benefits for STEM careers with up to nine months of additional Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits for qualifying educational programs. The pilot career is more aligned with these two fields, but not categorized as such by the provisions of Section 201.

In an Op-Ed published by The Hill in November of last year, advocates wrote:

"Rather than confronting and addressing the actual problem (lack of VA oversight), Congress is proposing to implement broad-based funding cuts for veterans in aviation training, effectually treating an infection by removing a limb."

Iraq War veteran Christopher Neiweem, president of lobbying firm Neiweem Group, who co-authored the Op-Ed on The Hill, characterizes the problem as a lack of understanding by Congress of the scope of the pilot problem.

"Congressional budget advisors have developed reports that rely, at best, on assumptions about aviation industry conditions, and at worst are completely at odds with the reality of the costs of aviation training, and the impact it would have on veterans students preparing for this career," Neiweem said.

Becoming A Career Pilot Is Expensive, No Matter Where You Fly.

The Embry-Riddle University, which has a well-established history of educating students for a host of career paths in aerospace, explains the variability of flight course training on its website stating: "There are many variables associated with the training and no two students will have the same flight training experience. The Flight Department staff works hard to give each student the best training available, but students have different learning styles and progress at different rates."

The University has published a flow-chart of median costs for the different pilot career pathways which shows median costs can exceed $69,000, just to obtain the AeroSci degree or Flight Minor. The university also provides median requirements for flight training with hourly rates for various courses ranging from $65 per hour for oral instruction to $244 per hour—not including fuel—to fly a Diamond DA-42VI plane, to $523 an hour for Frasca simulator training for the CRJ200.

The U.S. Department of Transportation has set up a research initiative to study ways in which it might be easier to train qualified veterans so that they can earn certificates needed to be hired as flight instructors while earning flight hours to qualify for an Airline Transport Pilot Certificate (ATP). The Forces to Flyers program awarded contracts valued at a total of $1.8 million to four educational institutions around the country to launch the study. Slots are limited to 40 students and, to qualify, participants have to have already earned their pilots certificate.

The $500,000 flight training charges that led to all of this are still dwarfed by the costs to the military of training pilots.

According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, it takes the Air Force about five years to train a fighter pilot and can cost anywhere between $3 to $11 million. That may be justified given the type of equipment used in training—fighter jets are never cheap—as well as the far more stringent requirements.

But the ongoing civil aviation pilot shortage is also luring pilots away from the military. Airlines are offering less stressful working conditions and better pay. The military is fighting attrition by increasing financial incentives and addressing other causes of job dissatisfaction.

All of aviation, civil and military, will need creative solutions and investment to avoid a looming crisis. The FAA's 2018-2038 Aerospace Forecast shows the number of civil aviation pilots moving in the wrong direction, relative to the demand projected by the aviation industry.

FAA Aerospace Forecasts 2018-2038

The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), the Coalition of Airline Pilots Associations (CAPA) and the Independent Pilots Association (IPA), and other unions representing pilots have declared strong opposition to policies that would reduce the number of pilots required in the flight deck. This week, they published a statement objecting to FAA Reauthorization Section 744, which would authorize a study of single-pilot operations for cargo airlines, with autonomous technology serving as a virtual first-officer.

"Cargo and passenger carriers operate the same high-performance jet aircraft, share the same congested airspace, and fly over the same densely populated areas. There's no logical reason to apply different standards to each," said Capt. Dan Carey, president of the Allied Pilots Association (APA). "Given the threat posed by computer hacking and the accident rates for autonomous vehicles and military and civilian drones, it's astonishing that policymakers would even consider this notion. APA is adamantly opposed to the language in Sections 744 and 703(a)(xviii), and we urge Congress to remove it to help preserve public safety."

Some level of automation of flight operations may be inevitable in future, as pilot numbers decline. For now, signs point to a holistic strategy that includes regulatory changes that help pilots stay in the career longer, a more accessible path to qualify that still maintains an emphasis on safety, and the recruiting, training and retention of a large number of candidates.