Internships as a Workforce Pipeline

Have you ever considered an internship program as a means of developing your organization’s pipeline but thought your company was too small for an internship program? While airlines and major maintenance repair organizations receive many headlines for their internship programs, these opportunities are not reserved for large companies.

Boeing’s Pilot and Technician Outlook 2022-2041 predicts long-term demand for aviation personnel to remain strong, with 602,000 new pilots, 610,000 new maintenance technicians, and 899,000 new cabin crew members needed to fly and maintain the global commercial fleet over the next 20 years, not to mention general and business aviation demand.

Internships can be a highly effective way to recruit new employees and can be a way to bring a new perspective to your organization.

In fact, Business Aviation Group (BA Group) launched its own internship program in 2022, onboarding Caleb Rosenberg and Brandon Sukin as the first participants.

How can you develop a successful internship program to feed your own workforce pipeline and give back to the next generation of aviation professionals?

Don’t Recreate the Wheel

Reach out to universities, colleges, and trade schools. Most have resources for companies looking to establish internships and can provide guidance to get you started. Others have a plug-and-play internship framework in place and are looking for industry partners.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has excellent resources for employers to set up internships. Your state Department of Education or Department of Commerce might also have guidance for developing an internship program.

The National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) and other trade organizations provide resources for establishing an internship program.  

Finally, ask organizations with successful internships for tips on how they started their own program, what makes it successful, and any lessons they learned the hard way.

Plan Ahead

Be sure you have a work plan with milestones and deliverables in mind for your new interns. A program resulting in academic credit might require a very robust plan. Still, even a more casual internship should be well-defined to keep interns engaged and ensure both the intern and the employer benefit from the experience.

Don’t expect interns to work for free. While some internships are purely for job experience and are not paid, the industry norm is paid internships. Some even come with housing subsidies or other benefits. Also, be sure you comply with state labor laws.

Don’t start an intern on Monday and dump them off at a random employee’s office. Instead, train the interns’ supervisors on how to work with an intern. It’s especially important to remember that this might be an intern’s first job or at least their first job in aviation. Working with an intern requires instilling some professional and industry norms, so your expectations should differ from those of an employee new to your organization but not new to the workforce or industry.

Start Small

If your company is a small organization of one or two people or even a dozen people, don’t bring in an internship class of ten. Instead, start with one or two interns to test your program.

Look Beyond Aviation

Don’t just focus solely on aviation disciplines. For example, while Rosenberg is a senior studying airport management at the University of North Dakota, Sukin is a senior studying finance at the University of Denver. In addition, local colleges, universities, or trade schools can be great resources for interns with accounting, marketing, web design and content, and other experience.

Learn from Your Interns – and Employees

Once your first internship is complete, ask the intern for feedback on the program. Was the work challenging and interesting? What can the company improve on for the next interns?

Debrief your employees, too, then use the feedback to improve your program for the next year.

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Developing an internship program is a great way to be an ambassador for your own organization and aviation as a whole. These programs aren’t just for big corporations. Use outside resources and create a solid work plan to start a successful internship program at your company!