Virgin Australia enhances professional development of pilots with EBT

When Virgin Australia made the decision to introduce Evidence-based Training (EBT) to enhance the recurrent training of pilots, it recognised the importance of bringing in outside expertise.

As Virgin Australia’s Brian Williams explains: “We spoke to several companies who provided similar services before deciding upon Salient. We felt Salient had real presence and track record in the market, both internationally and locally, having assisted with the implementation of EBT programs for other airlines in Australia, and so emerged as the obvious choice.”

Virgin Australia first considered EBT more than a decade ago. It was after COVID, however, and a time of significant growth and rebuilding, that the idea gained momentum and a project team was established: "We did consider running the implementation program ourselves,” Brian continues, “but we figured that bringing in outside help and taking the guidance, advice and professional services from someone who had done it before would assist with adding credibility to the implementation process, the instructor training and the program itself, and ultimately deliver a better result.”

The airline was not obliged by the Regulator to adopt EBT; it was, instead, something that it wanted to do itself: “We were all aware of the limitations of the traditional type of recurrent training and the fact that the content and methodology have changed very little over time. We believed there had to be a better way to deliver recurrent training, with a philosophy that was more aligned to learning rather than simply passing a test.”

As well as employing an external consultant, Virgin Australia also set out with a clear mission to engage the Regulator right from the start: “It was important for us to demonstrate to the Regulator what we were aiming to achieve, and that we were capable of delivering a similar degree of success that had been realised by other international and local operators who had already gone down this road and were operating successful EBT programs.

“They accepted our invitations to attend our training and development sessions and came as a course participant. In addition to helping develop the relationship with our instructors, we felt this was a clear signal that the Regulator was endeavouring to understand and support what was a significant change in training philosophy and delivery, as well as providing an open forum to acknowledge and discuss some of the challenges involved.?

“Involving the Regulator proactively and allowing them to join us on our learning journey also served to demonstrate our goal with EBT of not just trying to comply with the intent of the regulations, but actually to do better.”

Evidence-based Training (EBT) shifts the emphasis towards a professional development experience that will ultimately make pilots better and safer, especially when confronted with an issue they may never have come up against before and doesn’t feature in any training tick-list. EBT has been developed around the concept of ‘competencies’ supported by ‘assessment’ and looking beyond mere technical skills and outcomes.

As Mike Varney, Chief Executive of Salient explains, from the beginning, he believed that assessing technical skills alone does not support continuous learning: “Experienced pilots undergoing recurrent training could doubtless execute most of the rehearsed manoeuvres without difficulty,” he says.

“The predetermined descriptions of ‘perfection’ are rendered irrelevant in a very safe system where events are extremely rare. The only way forward to is to develop effective processes in the flight deck and improve resilience through exposure to unexpected threats in training.

“Our approach was to take a more holistic view of the human in a technical environment and examine what drives excellence in a modern cockpit,” Mike continues. “Rather than the somewhat nebulous concept of creating a ‘perfect’ pilot, our vision is about creating, growing, and maintaining a more ‘effective’ pilot with much greater emphasis on their non-technical skills where the biggest improvements can usually be made.

“We cannot strive for excellence by simply managing out poor performance against a pre-determined standard. We have to capture the exemplary.”

It was a vision that the Virgin Australia Training and Standards Management team were quick to grasp and instructors and pilots similarly fast to appreciate: “Some ‘check’ pilots are ‘trainer’ assessors and others who are ‘assessor assessors’, and what EBT provides is much greater flexibility in how the instructor can deliver the intended learning objectives while still satisfying any associated assessment requirements,” Brian explains.

Early feedback from many of instructors is that the EBT program allows them to deliver the type of training that they believe they've always wanted to provide to their trainees, but which wasn't always possible within the traditional recurrent system: “They can also already see that the delivery method of training in the EBT program seems to better suit the learning styles of most of our flight crew trainees by better engaging them in the learning process and assigning them more responsibility for their own professional development,” Brian adds.

Feedback from pilots has been equally encouraging: “They see it as a ‘safe’ learning environment,” he continues. “That doesn’t mean that poor performance or significant errors are not called out. Clear learning objectives are still defined, but the manner in which the instructor ensures these goals are met allows the trainees to feel much more inclined to ask questions and to speak openly with the instructor and their other crew member about their good and not so good performances without fear of consequences, and that’s having a positive impact on the learning process.”

Virgin Australia currently has around 1,250 pilots, each of whom will participate in two EBT-based simulator sessions every six months. As well as engaging with the Regulator, Virgin Australia also engaged with the pilots’ unions, inviting them to attend and participate in workshops where the rationale behind EBT, its purpose and intended outcomes were explained to the many other company departments that would be impacted by this change in the training program.

“We recognised that the move to EBT was not just a change for the trainees and instructors, but also change for the policy makers, the development teams building the program, the management and safety team measuring performance, and the executive team ultimately accountable for the safety of our airline operation,” Brian continues.?

“We wanted to be clear from the beginning that this was a positive change for the professional development of our flight crew, and it was the wider team's program for them to contribute to and to share in its ownership.”

Virgin Australia’s decision to work with Salient has not only meant benefiting from the experience of Mike Varney and his team, but also created a close connection with other Salient clients and other operators who have already been through the EBT learning process: “Every operator we spoke to has been very generous with their time and even invited us to send our instructors along to sit on some of their SIM sessions,” Brian says. “It is a very positive, enthusiastic and collaborative environment, and made us feel welcomed as part of an EBT community.”

While it is still very early days in the airline’s EBT journey, Brian and the team are already working with the Regulator, the Salient team, its own flight crew, instructors and Development team to refine, standardise and develop the program for our next phase: “It's a path of continual improvement, as we strive to deliver an effective, practical and even enjoyable learning program that is aimed at not only ensuring our pilots continue to meet the minimum standards but also helps good pilots become even better."