Martyn Fiddler recently had the pleasure of welcoming Alexandra Kirin to the team, a Chinese and Economics student studying at the University of Edinburgh.

Alexandra found MFA via the Isle of Man STEP, a programme that offers undergraduates such as Alexandra, the opportunity to work at a host company that relates to their degree.

During her time at Martyn Fiddler, Alexandra took on the project of investigating the feasibility of new direct flight routes from the Isle of Man to Europe. Her mission was to gather raw data from passengers flowing through Ronaldsway airport and consolidate her findings to determine whether new direct flights paths are justifiable.

At the end of Alexandra’s internship, the MFA team asked what she found valuable about her experience with us, and as a Gen-Z we were interested to know what she thought the business aviation industry needs to do to entice younger generations into the industry and solve its ongoing talent crisis.

Alexandra told us:

“For a gen-Z who spent her last year of school and first year of university in lockdown with very little face-to-face interaction, just being in an office environment, surrounded by so many people in a professional manner was a daunting prospect. I can’t speak for all of us, but personally, I feel the pandemic cost me crucial social development years, so being able to learn how to interact with others in a professional setting has been invaluable and I can’t thank the Martyn Fiddler team enough for making me feel so comfortable.

My project gave me the opportunity to research topics that interest me and develop valuable IT skills, the ability to collect data efficiently and build confidence in public speaking.

Throughout my time as an intern at MFA, I’ve gained awareness and insight into areas of business aviation I previously never knew existed – a wide range of job offerings scoping way beyond the more familiar roles such as pilots, air traffic control, flight attendants etc. I’ve since realised how limited my knowledge of the industry was and to some extent still is; I am aware there are still many more roles that I am completely oblivious too.

The best way I can describe Gen-Zs lack of awareness about the business aviation sector is:  ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’. As with any industry, lots more goes on behind the scenes than an outsider could possibly imagine. Unless you are actively educated about such sectors and roles, you would never know they exist. To bring the younger generations into business aviation, it must start quite simply by educating us! Attend grad fairs, contact schools and universities to do welcome talks and open days and let yourselves be known; create more graduate schemes and let us know where to find them. So much of our lives are spent on online platforms yet introductory roles into business aviation specifically are currently difficult to find; we need to find you just as much as you need to find us!”