#155 - The New Reality of Aviation Hiring with Nik Fialka

[00:00:00] Hello everyone, welcome back to Passive Income Pilots live from the Pilot Network's TPNX Conference in Dallas, Texas. I'm here with Nik Fialka of Spitfire Elite and host of the Ready for Pushback podcast. How you doing? Hi, my name is Nik Fialka. I work for Spitfire Elite Interview Consulting. I run the Ready for Pushback podcast

[00:00:25] and I'm an avid listener of this amazing podcast. Thank you, Nik. I've been trying to become a passive income pilot for a long time. Mostly it's just like passive like outflow from my family. So I'm glad to be here. Well, we're happy to have you on, you know, the Pilot Network Conference here. It's called TPNX. It's mostly a job fair. We have sponsored this

[00:00:49] conference for the four years running now. And we wanted to sit down with you and kind of talk about the state of the industry. You know, if you're listening to this show, you're probably flying for a major and you want to learn about passive investing strategies. But I'm sure that everyone here that's listening today has a son, a daughter, a niece, a nephew, or a family member who is getting into aviation.

[00:01:15] And we want to talk about the state of the industry, the state of hiring. So with that, do you want to give us a little bit more about your background? You are Nik Fialka. Give us that story and then maybe talk about what Spitfire is, which is an interview prep company. And no one is better suited to talk about the state of the industry and the hiring trends and how many pilots are hiring right now and tips and tricks. So before we get into all that, who are you?

[00:01:43] All right. And what's up everybody? What's the story about the Sir? So yeah, I fly for a major airline, sitting in the left seat over someplace I live in Georgia. So that's great. And yeah, I was, I was a Navy pilot and transitioned, did a bunch of other stuff, some real estate investing and ran a couple of small businesses before I realized I should probably

[00:02:09] work less. And so I got into aviation so I could just be gone more and work less. And it's been really awesome. But one of the things I did in the military before I got out was I worked in Africa with Department of Defense and the State Department doing some liaison work and helping further the objectives of the United States government. We also did a lot of humanitarian aid

[00:02:34] with different events and disasters that would happen out on the continent of Africa. And I worked really closely in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. And from that, I got involved with the Prince of Ethiopia. He actually contacted me after I was back in the United States and his people contacted me and they offered, they asked if I would be interested in this being knighted to the Order of the Star of Ethiopia,

[00:03:00] which, you know, my kids get half off at the University of Wakanda. So that's cool. But no, I mean, it's just, it's an honorary thing. And it's very, it's very special to me, because if you can't see me, like I'm a six foot four white American, and I have a beautiful connection with the country of Ethiopia, and the people that are there and the things that there's a lot of different things going on in Africa and managing that is really difficult. And so, yeah, it's real

[00:03:30] special. That's, yeah, that's how that came about. That's incredible. Yeah, man. Well, so tell us more about Spitfire. Okay. And the interview prep. I mean, how many clients have you served? Oh, man. At Spitfire to date? So we started, we started in 2024. And our main focus is to serve pilots. We, we decided to begin by focusing on pilots from other countries, pilot with English as a second

[00:04:00] language, pilots of disaffected groups. And, and the idea was, if people are underrepresented in the world of professional aviation, if we can help them get hired, we can help anybody get hired. And from that, it's absolutely exploded from just a couple of us doing some prep on the side to having over a hundred coaches doing interview prep five, seven days a week, three, four, five,

[00:04:30] six times a day. It's absolutely crazy. But we've had last year, we had 4,500 pilots or something like that come through. And each year it just kind of grows and grows and grows. And the good part is, it's not like, if you are listening to this, like I listened to this, we've been flying for a long time. We're sitting in, we're sitting in a narrow body or wide body where we're doing our thing on the overnight and we're kind of disaffected. And disconnected from, from the hiring trends.

[00:04:58] You know, people ask me, you know, Hey, when's the hiring window open? I'm like, I have no idea. Sorry. Um, yours opens, yours opens at the end of July. We'll get into that. So 4,500 in the last year, what for, you know, someone listening to this, that, that maybe has a family member that is up, up and coming. Why is interview prep important? You know, we talked yesterday about one, the concept of one shot, one kill. There's very few pilots that, that get a

[00:05:26] second shot if they bomb their United interview, right? I get, they like probably 25% of our clients are the people that just went ahead and bombed something. And now they're like, Oh man, what do I do? I should have totally done it. But if you think about it, when we were going through it, interviewing was, interviewing is pretty rigid. It's still pretty rigid, but it's set up like a football game. It's you, you're asked a question, there are rules to the game. You may or may not be

[00:05:54] familiar with what the rules are and you're scored on whether or not you can complete the objective. And each thing you do and each thing you say is scored. And then at the end of, at the end of your time there, they look at your score and see if it's good enough to get a job. Right. The, first off, the competition is very stiff and we are paid for safety. We are paid for leadership and we are paid for crew resource management. That is it. And if you want to sprinkle on some customer service,

[00:06:23] you can put that in there too. That's all you're paid for. You are not paid to articulate yourself. You're not paid to come around and be able to discuss your feelings with a panel of people, but you have to, in order to get into the job. And so to be able to do that, just like anything else, if you're going to go do your ATP class, you're probably going to go to Shepard Air to try to get good at the test and make sure you crush it. If you're going to go to interview prep,

[00:06:49] or if you're going to interview, you're going to use prep because if you don't, and you're always what if-ing, if you've got one shot to go to Delta, if you've got one shot to go to American or to Envoy or Republic or SkyWest or whatever, what is it worth to you for peace of mind? Right. And one of the things I think I feel obligated to say my big problem, the reason I ended up a Spitfire client

[00:07:15] as when I was going through is because it is super difficult to be able to interview and talk authentically and speak about who you really are, because that's what you've got. You have 45 minutes to tell somebody that you are the person your mom thinks you are. And, and so if you, there are companies out there that are infamous, like everybody's done, everybody that came up in the past 20 years

[00:07:45] used one of two companies. And those companies are using the same product that they were 20 years ago. And that product is teaching you say this, then say this, then say this. And I don't teach that. I teach you to know who you are. I teach you to be able to answer anything, no matter what the question is, because you know how to be yourself. And you've thought about the stories that convey meaning effectively. And you're not afraid of pregnant pauses and you're not afraid of making eye contact

[00:08:15] or smiling or keeping your arms on cross or not fidgeting at the table or so on and so forth and so forth. Sorry. I took over your podcast. No, this is great. This is great. I love it. What's the craziest thing? You know, I'm sure you get, you get people that, you know, you'll ask a question, somebody gives an answer and you're like, don't say that. Yeah. I talked, I had a guy talk about his, they asked like, what was the greatest struggle in your life? And he talked about like his night

[00:08:40] in prison. Oh boy. That was not a good one. That was not a good one. No. Listen. Uh, so I do this show. My show is not about interview prep. The show is ready for pushback. We haven't, we haven't actually discussed that yet. Right. So, uh, who, who is your core demographic listening to your show? So it's funny, my demographic, the show, the show is tremendous. I cannot, I cannot believe how it has

[00:09:08] grown and evolved over time, but I speak, I put out two episodes a week. I've got 350 something episodes, but the show is focused on that person that's interested in flying all the way until they get their job. And it's funny cause now I'm starting to, I'm starting to get a little bit of the, Hey, I'm 64 and three quarters. I want to go work for DPS or I want to go do, you know, whatever, what's the off ramp for the next thing. And I'm starting to talk to those guys and gals right

[00:09:37] now, but it's all about what's happening in the aviation industry. How can you get to a flight school? What flight school should I go to after flight school? How do I find a low time pilot job? I'm a low time pilot. Nobody's going to hire me until I like, I've got my ATP, CTP course done. I've got my written done. Do I need to go pay 5,000 more dollars, go get a type rating or this or that or the other. And it's all the things for all the people I talked to blue angels. I talked

[00:10:03] to astronauts. I talked to directors of hiring. I talked to vice presidents. I talked to just the pilot that's trying to figure out how to start flight school. I talked to the person that's failed five things. I've talked to the person that's crushed everything. And so, and then I do a lot of motivational speaking every Thursday as a motivational episode that is just geared to keeping you focused, that you can do it, that you should do it. That aviation is the best job.

[00:10:30] Why? Because we have passive income pilots literally like think about, think about it. Okay. Like you, you have a company that is built to leverage the fact that we have a part-time job and we're paid like gods to do this part-time job. And we're doing this job so much that our taxes are so high that we're making, we're paying more in taxes than we made our last year in the military every single

[00:10:54] year. But we have to have ways to pivot and to think about different strategies to shelter that money so that we can have a legacy for our families. Like when I worked at Booz Allen Hamilton, there's not a podcast on mid-level management that spreadsheet warriors to like, but this is it. And like, this is like, so if you know somebody that's thinking about flying, like there's no other job, like what the hell could you possibly do that pays you better, that works less?

[00:11:23] Well, so keep that in your back pocket. Ready for pushback podcast. We all mentor, right? We all mentor up and coming pilots. I've mentored friends through it. And a lot of times, you know, they'll ask questions, you know, what should I do about my written? What should I do about this? You know, and what flight school should I go to? I don't know. I've been, you know, I went through flight school 20 something years ago, right? So I'm so far removed.

[00:11:49] Time's flying. So keep that in your back pocket. Ready for pushback podcast. We'll link to that in the show notes and bookmark that so that you can send it to any of these aspiring aviators that you're mentoring. Also, I'm, I'm here for everybody's super hot takes on the Facebook page after this episode airs. Okay. I will be cruising all of them. I love you guys. All, all of you. Well, let's pivot to the state of the union, right? State of the, state of the

[00:12:16] industry. You know, we've got oil prices over a hundred dollars a barrel. Wild. Some people are more excited about that. That wasn't on my bingo card. Yeah. Yeah. Than others. No. Um, obviously that's not a, a good thing for the aviation industry. Well, Ed Bastion likes it way better than Scott Kirby likes. I can see that they own a refinery, right? Let's go Monroe. So what is the state of the industry? What's the hiring prospects look like? Okay. What do the hiring prospects look like? And where are we? Here's where the Facebook comments start. Okay. Okay.

[00:12:47] So where are we? This is, this has been, so this, if you talk to me in November, I would say we were going to be in a banner year, like things are going, we are, when you look at the economy and you look at the projections of, of the majors, cause where, where the majors go, everybody else will follow. They're the end of the spigot. And S and so when you looked at that and you looked at the results for the year and you saw everything kind of moving forward and you see

[00:13:15] Elliot starting to back out of Southwest and all the things are starting to move in the right direction and all the doors are, are opening. Everybody's feeling good. Everybody's in the zone. There's words, you know, American and United both said that they were going to hire more than 2000 pilots. And is that growth or is it, is it attrition? Well, that is a very good question. The, both of them, United has a bunch of wide bodies on order and they're getting, and their

[00:13:42] deliveries are, are starting. Um, American has so many retirements. Um, the, the pilot group is growing incrementally. Um, I really think Delta kind of bungled the past year of hiring. They turned it off early. They brought in 800 and something pilots, but their net gain was like 200 or maybe a little bit more. Um, don't quote me on that y'all, but it was, there was not a big net gain as I think

[00:14:06] the point of that is. However, over the next 10 years, those net gains are supposed to increase as more deliveries start happening, uh, as you know, Airbus and Boeing, Boeing's trying to dig themselves out and Airbus is trying to get their supply chain firing on all cylinders. Again, they're still, they're doing much better from when we had, when after COVID and all the supply chains

[00:14:34] were a disaster, but you know how that goes. And so, yeah, there was, there was a growth forecast as 2026 started. The, the fuel thing and the Iran war and all of that is really, we don't feel it as much here. Like the gas pump is the gas pump and four and a half bucks versus six bucks for,

[00:15:00] per gallon for a pilot is probably putting gas in your tank and not looking at the total and driving away when you're done. Um, the airlines, they're looking at those numbers and those are really, really, um, nerve wracking to them. And then in, in, uh, the middle East and in parts of Asia, the actual supply of the aviation fuel available is at risk and roots of roots have diminished. You

[00:15:28] can't fly over Iranian airspace or any really kind of that big Gulf circle, all you three 50 and seven, eight and triple seven guys and gals and seven floors know, know that more than I do. I don't, I don't do mid East flying from the continental U S but, um, so all of that is in flux and effect. And, and so I will also say that fuel is near, is a near term problem for financial people. And so futures are futures, but, but fuel costs are, are, are, you know, this is, it's a, this year

[00:15:57] problem. And if that starts getting forecasted out, like, Hey, well, we're in this for the long run, and it's going to be the next five years, that's when big changes in hiring are going to happen. But until then they're going to keep going as long as the consumer can absorb the increase in ticket costs. And it's my understanding that demand has been fairly resilient, uh, based on what I've, what I've read that, you know, ticket prices have increased and there has not been as

[00:16:26] much demand destruction as a lot of airline CEOs had expected. Yes. Also airlines don't shrink to make money. So they have, if you got 500 pilots hitting 65 and we're not going to 67, then you've got to replace 500 pilots for those seats. And it's way cheaper to hire a new pilot than it is to try to go to 67. And that's what they're thinking. That's what the airlines are thinking. Um, whether I, I don't have one opinion, one,

[00:16:56] one way or the other, do I think it could happen? I do think it could happen. And if the war in Iran drags on, that could be a leverage point for the groups that are angling for that. So something to consider, uh, clarify that point. If you could, if the war in Iran drags on fuel prices are high and you've got all of this chaos, then you, I think that it helps the case for keeping people flying

[00:17:22] and doing less training cycles and things like that. I think that it would be a less of a logistical nightmare. And, uh, you know, when I look at it, when I zoom out and look at a big picture argument for it, it would be, cause it's usually something you're saying, this is the argument to, to, to raise the retirement age to 67. And you know, that's, that is a hot take in, um, the YouTube comments. I'm sorry, but that is straight up a hot take. I don't, I don't have one opinion one way or

[00:17:51] another. I probably shouldn't have even opened that box, but here we are. Well, it's interesting. So obviously it'll affect the hiring cycle. So, uh, let's talk numbers. So who's hiring in what numbers and when? Okay. So the numbers I say today are going to change by the time they're out of my mouth cause it's a moving target. Um, but we'll talk in kind of generalities. When you look at,

[00:18:15] uh, Delta American and United, they're all going to be right or just under 2000 or just over 2000 pilots, which is a hell of a lot of pilots. That is excellent hiring. Now we are almost half, halfway through, uh, you know, we're, we're mid Q2 of 2026. How much of that has already taken place and how much is yet to go? I would say that the numbers are on track, but then everybody's waiting

[00:18:43] for me to say the word spirit airlines. Right. And so those numbers I think are going to bolster because of spirit. And the, uh, like I, I can see a scenario where if we flash to the end of the year right now with the status quo that we have, I could see them needing, like wanting to hire more pilots because the opportunity is, is out there, but that's, you know, I'm talking to the, to the spirit

[00:19:10] pilots. That's not a guarantee that you can pick up a job just willy nilly. And it's super easy. Well, and our deepest sympathies to our spirit brothers and sisters out there, uh, absolutely devastating for, for these people, um, for these pilots and, um, you know, our condolences go out. Yeah. So if you're listening to this and you know, a spirit pilot, you are a spirit pilot, what, what are the best things that they can do today to secure their future?

[00:19:36] So last, let's see, the spirit shutdown was on Saturday and today is Thursday, Wednesday. Today's a, we're recording this on Thursday, May 7th, Thursday, May 7th. So we're a few days off from spirit shutting down on Tuesday. I hosted a webinar for spirit pilots at over 500 spirit pilots on that webinar, talking about strategies on, on things to do. Uh, I have also put that on my

[00:20:03] YouTube page. So if anybody wants to toss that out to a spirit pilot, um, you know, it's, it's all about our, the world we, we have at ready for pushback and spitfire is like, it's all about building community and it's all about lifting up the pilot group and helping people get to where they need to be. And so as of Saturday, I have 2000 more people that need a job and, but I'm not talking to 2000 people. I am talking to hundreds of them. Um, but they're, they're out there and they're trying to

[00:20:33] figure out what they're going to do. And some of the people listening to show have been in the same scenario in their aviation career and they've suffered through it. And a lot of people did 9 11, a lot of people did the bankruptcies and the mergers and like all the mess that we've had. And, and so first off, yes, like I have a ton of compassion for them. Also, I'm really telling them that we've got to focus. You've got to get ready. Imagine it's like they just bought a tax lien

[00:21:01] auction. Okay. Let's talk passive income pilots. This is what it's like. It's like you bought a tax lien property and you weren't, you were at the count of the county steps and you paid your money and they gave you the keys and you've got the deed and you opened the door for the first time and you don't know what you're about to see. And it could be a trap house. It could be absolutely amazing, but you don't know, you don't know what skeletons are in what closet and what you're going to find. And you're like, you've signed up for a bigger ride than you thought was going to happen.

[00:21:30] And that's exactly the same thing. Right. They are like the way a senior captain, the 20 year captain at spirit interviewed at spirit is way different, way different than what we do today. Also, I'll tell you this spirit has the hardest training of any airline. It is. And if you can pass spirit training, you can crush any other training. It is, I will put it head to head with any training in the world because you basically get four Sims and a check ride. Wow.

[00:21:59] And, and you have an oral, you have like a three hour oral. Yeah. That sounds awful because it's really hard. Um, so the spear pilots are awesome pilots. They've got to be able to, but you're never guaranteed anything. You have to show how you match the culture of the company that you want to work for. You want to work for United. Like you need to know about United. You need to know like you're yes, there's preferential hiring for these pilots, but they're not going to bring people that are opposite of what they believe. Scott Kirby's not

[00:22:27] going to hire you. If you go, if you're, if you're trying to get to American, I mean, I was just talking to their director of hiring last night and we were having a discussion about like a lot of the people here, the people that are here today are the people that heard the call, right? That knew where to go. But there's, I mean, there's only 500 of them here, but there's thousands of them out there that need to hear like, Hey, it's time to start thinking about the next step. You're owed nothing,

[00:22:54] but let's work together to make sure that we can get you and your family settled. What does this do for the regional pilots that are maybe at Envoy SkyWest that who, who were hoping Yeah. That they were knocking on the door and now there's this flood of, of pilots coming onto the job market with Airbus type ratings. Yeah. You've got to let the possum get through this, the Python. Yeah. Like it just is, it's what it is. And they're going to, they're going to have to compete

[00:23:20] extra hard. And so it's going to be, I'll tell you what, the thing that's not going to get you hired is flight time. The thing that's going to get you hired are the extra things. Where are you spending your time when you're not flying? How are you volunteering to the pilot community? This is TPNX, the pilot network expo. And they're like, there's a guy in a black shirt. There's a guy in a black shirt. There's a girl, there are two girls in black shirts and those black shirts are volunteers

[00:23:46] that are here to get, like, they're not, they're not here to get anything. They're here to give. Right. And so you got to find the way to get involved with the aviation world. If like, go do civil air patrol, be a mentor, go join, join the local organization at the airport where you are, you've got to be bigger than yourself. Don't, don't go become an Instagram influencer and think that's the thing that's going to get you hired because no shade on, on them, but it is,

[00:24:16] it's company dependent on whether they like it or hate it. Yeah. And then it just is, it's, it's a whole can of worms. This is the show, like the show that I do, I've been super thankful that it's only to increase, like to be positive towards pilots and to be, to be life giving to aviation. And like, I've not really taken any heat from my coworkers about, about doing the show. It's

[00:24:42] actually kind of been the opposite, which I love. That's wonderful. Well, everybody knows an up and coming pilot. Send this episode to them, please. Uh, because this is gold and, uh, and there's a lot more resources behind it. If you link out to the ready for pitch back podcast, uh, reach out to the Spitfire guys. How do people get in touch with you if they would like to work with Spitfire? Yeah. Or get involved in some way. So our website is spitfireelite.com and all the information's on

[00:25:09] there about how to join up. They can, if somebody wants, like we'll do, like, I have a code R4P ready for pushback R4P 2026. We'll get them a discount. My show is on all the podcast platforms. It's on all the YouTubes and, um, you know, my social media presence is, is not amazing because I am, I don't know how to do a TikTok video, but, um, yeah, you can also email me podcast at spitfireelite.com.

[00:25:38] I will talk to you. I, I literally talked to probably 200 pilots a week trying to talk to people about where they are or that like, we didn't even talk about military people getting out, but like you've got, it's all the cans of worms. So go over to the show. I got all the things there, but also I do want to say that this, I've been listening to this podcast for two and a half years. Thank you. And I've listened to every single episode and it's, it's my go to,

[00:26:03] I love it because, so I have a big family. I have five kids and we're kind of doing our things. And I went, I went regional route. And so I was, I was broke as a joke until I finally made it to a major and seeing what opportunities you bring forward has been so helpful and beneficial to me. I like, and I used to own an RV park. So we were talking about that yesterday. Yeah. But what you do this, like the way you bring the people in, because you have like,

[00:26:33] nobody that invest wants to listen to me talk, but you like all these great guests that you had, like the dude, the dude that did his self-directed HSA to the cattle farm. Like what? That's awesome. I love that guy. So if you're listening, I love you, dude. That's the coolest thing I've ever heard. Mark J. Kohler from Directed IRA. Bro, go talk to him. He's so cool. Anyway, this is awesome. I could do it all day and all night. I know. It's a pleasure at finally having you on. So thank you, Nick. I'm the least of us. So thank you so much.

[00:27:02] Thank you. So please reach out to Nick and the Spitfire team for this episode on to, to those aspiring pilots and the spirit men and women out there, our condolences, but Hey, the best is yet to come. Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next week.