CFI's Needed

United Flight Systems, located in Houston, Texas is in need of instructors. I personally am an instructor at UFS, but my stay here will be ending in a week. I was recently hired by an airline, along with nearly every other instructor that has been at our school in the last few months.

We are a large flight school, with a fleet of 17 planes, and over 50 full time students, along with over 150 part time students. To operate efficiently, we need between 10-15 full time instructors. After the latest hiring wave, we are very depleted. I can personally attest to the professionalism, and quality work environment provided at UFS. Our chief pilot is an FAA Examiner and 25+ year captain at Continental. Our assistant chief pilot also flies for Continental, and our business manager flies for Express Jet. We have very good connections with both Express Jet, and Skywest, if either of those two airlines interest you.

Pay starts at 12 dollars an hour for your first 20 hours, and jumps considerably every 10 hours after 20, topping out at 27 dollars an hour for anything over 70 hours. Also, ground instruction varies between 12 and 15 dollars per hour. There is a 200 dollar bonus awarded to the instructor who flies the most hours every month, along with a bonus for the top seller in the pilot shop. You can easily make 2500-3000 dollars per month if you are willing to work hard. You can also easily get 100 hours of flight time per month. It's a great, great place to work, and would encourage any instructors out there who are looking to build a ton of flight time, in a professional environment, and make a living doing it, to fax/email your resumes to:

Attention: Laura Watts
Fax: 281-320-8431
Email:laura_watts@swbell.net
Phone: 281-376-0357 (ask for Bob Watts or Laura Watts)
Website: www.unitedflight.com

PS- We have an even bigger need for instructors with their CFII ratings.

Flight Training is way to cozy for the commission system, something just feels wrong about that.

Hmmmm....

Agreed...the more I think about that payscale system the worse it becomes...for many reasons.

Yea, I was really liking what I read until I got to the payscale.

Maybe it is just becvause I woke up 20 mins ago and my brain isn't fully up and working yet. But what exactly is wrong with that pay system. Besides the commission system for selling, the hourly amount for instructors seems more than fair.

Don't most flight schools pay CFIs more than that? I was thinking the average was 20 to 30 dollars per hour.

I'm forgetting some of the reasons right now, that was pretty late last night,

but one of them I remember thinking was a dangerous pressure to fly no matter what, no matter the weather, no matter if the student is prepared. Sometimes its best to say,

"no we're not going to fly today, we're going to go over this other stuff instead of wasting your money"
(notice the pay scale is only for flight hours...not ground)

I might be weird but I dont think its an instructors job to push/motivate students. All my students are at least 30 y.o. but I wait for them to call me, not the other way around. It's probably different for the young wannabe pro pilots, I guess I didnt take that into account.

I see what you're saying, but I don't think this necessarily corrolates to happening because of a variable pay scale.

Who's to say an instructor wouldn't do the same thing on a fixed pay scale, simply because they wanted to make more money? In fact, I've seen this happen...not so much an instructor doing anything dangerous, but she just milked her students for WAY more time than they needed. One of her private students had 20+ hours cross country time before doing a solo cross country. And that instructor was on a fixed pay scale.

good point. It seemed like a much worse idea last night...and I cant remember why!

There's only 2 reasons I can think of for that scale:

1. High turnover rate, so why not save the company some money by starting the pay low and bumping it up every few hours?

2. They just want to skim some $$ off the noobs


Overall, not too bad though

Isn't this located at DW Hooks airport?

Okay, first off the payscale is pretty decent, only because we have so many students that you're able to fly a substantial amount of hours every month. However, bad weather can affect that a bit, and that's the downside. I know a lot of places that pay 15 an hour...and that's it. This system is much better than that. I've had paycheck for the second half of the month be near 2 grand (for 15 days). Typically when I look at my paycheck, my average hourly pay is right around 20 an hour. Overall, lets face it, the best situation is a salary, because instructing is too affected by bad weather. I hate wondering if I'm going to pay bills because there's a cold front moving through! Anyway, it is a really solid place to work, but if it doesn't sound like the kind of place for you, then obviously don't submit a resume.

PS- The flight school has season tickets the Rockets, 10 rows up. I'm a big sports fan, so I like going to the games...especially since T-Mac is ridiculous righ now! He's putting up nearly 40 every single night!

The pay scale is one of the fairest on the field for sure. I currently work at UFS and am pulling in around $3,000 every month -- definitely not overworking myself either!

If $12 to start is what passes as "fair" nowadays at a flight school, then I'm glad I switched to Indepenent instruction a long time ago. Well, on second thought I guess it might be fair for CFI's with no experience, or who'll be itching to leave when that first puddle jumper job comes along. That price will not buy quality Instructors who actually know what they are doing, and who'll want to stick around.

Man, I'll bet they're even charging students somewhere in the range of $60-$70/hr for the CFI too.

When you are independent (like me), it is all on commission, no?

Is this school still hiring?

They put up an ad for cfi's yesterday so it is likely they are.

http://www.UnitedFlight.com/rates.htm

Yes, you can fax and email resumes in to Laura Watts, our chief pilot.