VERNON TOWNSHIP — A local business is teaming up with a regional education partner to address a significant labor shortage in the aviation industry.
North Coast Flight School announced a partnership with the James M. Johnson School of Aviation Sciences at Community College of Beaver County ( CCBC) in a press conference held Thursday inside the North Coast hangar at Port Meadville Airport.
The agreement will allow students to do their flight training at Port Meadville while earning an associate’s degree online through CCBC’s professional pilot program.
“You get used to hearing stuff all the time,” said North Coast owner Greg Hayes, “but this is something a little special.”
Joining Hayes alongside the lectern, Jim Best, an instructor with CCBC’s dual enrollment program for high school students, noted two recent 21-year-old program graduates who exemplify just how special the opportunity is for local students. One, Best said, recently finished his pilot training with Skywest Airlines of St. George, Utah, and the other with Republic Airways of Indianapolis, Indiana.
“There is no faster way to get your college degree, all of your ratings and an airline job,” Best said.
If hopping in the cabin of a plane piloted by a 21-year-old doesn’t sound appealing, Best, who spent a career as a pilot for the former Pittsburgh-based Allegheny Airlines and later US Airways, offered reassurance.
“I would have no problems,” he said of flying with either of the two recent graduates, “no problems with walking on and seeing any student that I have taught that has completed the program — I don’t have any qualms about walking on that airplane.”
Program graduates will earn their private pilot’s license, instrument rating, commercial certificate and multi-engine or certified flight instructor ratings, according to the school. They will also receive a restricted privileges airline transport pilot certificate, which reduces the minimum age requirement to serve as a first officer from 23 to 21 and the number of flight hours required to qualify from 1,500 to 1,250, according to Thomas Hupp, chief ground instructor at CCBC.
Pennsylvania residents in the program are also eligible for partial reimbursement for flight costs from CCBC’s Pennsylvania Flight Discount Fund. The reimbursement rate varies with enrollment but is typically around 20 percent — a significant reduction in flight expenses that can cost as much as $200 per hour.
High school students who participate in the program for two years can earn up to 28 college credits, Hupp said.
The partnership with North Coast is part of a larger expansion by CCBC, which currently has 285 students in its pilot and air traffic controller training programs and partnerships with 14 flight schools, according to Hupp. The school hopes to be up to 300 students by fall 2026 and to eventually have at least 18 flight school partnerships as several across the southeast are being finalized.
The expansion of the aviation program that has been operating for more than 50 years is fueled by current and anticipated demands for pilots and air traffic controllers, according to Leslie Tennant.
“The United States continues to experience a significant piloting shortage with Boeing alone predicting strong long-term demand for newly qualified aviation personnel, including a need for nearly 650,000 pilots in the next two decades,” Tennant said, referring to a Boeing forecast for positions around the world.
The expanding opportunities for entry into the aviation industry in the face of anticipated shortages are like nothing Hayes has seen in previous decades.
“Flight training is something that has always been so oppressive and hard for people to get into, hard for people to go through,” he said. “This is the best possible programming that I’ve seen. Twenty years of doing this, I’ve never seen anything where the government sends you a check in the mail.”
The program’s reimbursements for flight instruction costs make the program more affordable but still significant. The 250 hours of flight time required to obtain a commercial pilot’s license will likely cost about $50,000, Hupp said, of which $12,500 would be reimbursed.
CCBC’s 66-credit associate’s degree program in aviation would cost a Crawford County resident about $83,000 without the reimbursement, according to the school’s website.
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