The Voice for Flight Schools

New prospects and customers are far more likely to find you online before they ever walk in the front door.  The key for a flight school is to capture your visitor's attention, stay top of mind, and convert them into a customer.

Fly-ins are a great resource for flight schools to attract local pilots and enthusiasts and to build a community among their customers.  They're also a great excuse for area pilots to get up in the air and go flying!  But in most areas of the country there just aren't that many of them out there.  Which is strange when you think about how easy it is to arrange a fly-in.  So let's bust some myths about fly-ins and get more of them on the calendar in 2012!

As flight schools, it may be tempting to think that sharing flights will take money out of our pocket.  After all, the reasoning goes, if I encourage two people go out and share a flight then I've lost the hours I would have gotten if they rented separate airplanes.  I can't do this - I'm going to drastically reduce the amount of flights and rental hours!

Instead of being a flight school first, most schools out there should consider being a flying club first, and a flight school second.  Here's why.  

Reaching the non-flying public is the number one challenge facing flight schools and general aviation.  And in a noisy and crowded market, flying is competing with hundreds of alternatives for the free time and disposable income of our prospective student pilots and active pilots.  To reach the consumer, our aim has to get better.

You may think of Twitter as a toy used by teenagers following Ashton Kutcher, and that using social media tools isn't a good business strategy for reaching prospects for your flight school.

I was talking to a flight instructor acquaintance about how to help student pilots and active pilots get the most out of their investment in the private pilot certificate.  I quickly realized this particular individual, who shall remain nameless, is part of The Old School.  You know: iPhones are too fancy, Facebook is just a fad, and when you ask them about favorite apps they say "try the coconut shrimp".

A friend of mine owns an airplane in the Peachtree, GA area.  I was talking about how much fun I had at my latest fly-out event and he said, "I wish there was an active flying club near me".

As a student pilot, all I knew was that I loved to fly - and I used to think my first flight school was great.  They weren't, but I was blinded by the joy of flying.  And while I still have that joy, I'm no longer blind.  There were signs they weren't that good but I didn't know any better and they were hard to spot at first.  Why?  Because it's what they didn't do that spoke to their priorities.