Flight Department Show

Employment regulations are one of those leadership responsibilities aviation directors know they cannot ignore. But knowing they matter is not the same as knowing where the real risks are. A flight department can be highly disciplined about FAA compliance, safety, training, maintenance, and operational standards, but still have blind spots. These can be around how employees are classified, how ove...

Flight departments often feel the pressure of hiring only after someone leaves. But by then, the real work may already be overdue. In business aviation, attracting and retaining talent is no longer just about compensation, type ratings, or filling an open seat.  The strongest departments are thinking much earlier: Why is this role open? What does the team actually need? What kind of culture are pe...

  Leadership in business aviation carries a weight most corporate leaders never have to think about. Aviation directors aren't simply managing schedules, aircraft, people, and budgets. They are leading an operation where poor decisions can have life-and-death consequences, while often reporting to executives who may not fully understand aviation at all. That creates a unique leadership challenge....

For years, business aviation has relied on familiar hiring patterns: the known network, the same backgrounds, the same assumptions about who is "qualified," and the same narrow definitions of merit. But in an industry facing real talent pressure, that approach is becoming harder to defend. The conversation around diversity often becomes politicized before the real business issue gets addressed. Je...

Most leadership roles in business aviation aren't earned; they're inherited. The best pilot becomes the chief pilot. The strongest technician becomes the manager. And suddenly, someone trained to execute is expected to lead. But leadership isn't an extension of technical skill. It's a completely different discipline. As flight departments evolve into true business units, accountable for performanc...

Flight departments are no longer operating in the environment they were built for. It used to be a CEO-aligned function.  Now it's often pushed deeper into the organization. Reporting to leaders who may not even use the aircraft, competing for budget, and forced to justify its existence like any other business unit.  At the same time, the expectations placed on aviation directors have expanded dra...

Flight departments are stretched thin. Aviation Directors spend more time fighting fires than leading. Organizations are going through massive shifts in culture and reporting structure. When Mike and I looked at this landscape, we knew something was missing. A resource needed to be created. So we split the workload in half and rolled up our sleeves. Two years later, we realized we'd made a fundame...

A Vietnam-era fighter pilot who landed in a mud pit. A 34-chapter encyclopedia of business aviation wisdom.  A new data-driven method for analyzing flight department compensation.   It took all those factors…and years of flight department leadership…to create one epiphany. A breakthrough insight into business aviation's current crisis.   I'm your host, Dr. Chris Broyhill. In this first episode, I...

The only business aviation show that will make you a better leader…so you make more money, get your people treated fairly, and stay in the business you love. We have a leadership crisis in business aviation. But through conversations with Aviation Directors, leaders and experts, you'll come away with practical, actionable steps to become the leader you were meant to be. From inside secrets to mana...