Civil Air Patrol Aviation Business Academy

CAP and Evergreen teamed up recently and launched the first annual Capt. Michael King Smith Evergreen Aviation Business Academy held at the amazing Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon.

Well that’s superb, and rare that youth have an opportunity to learn about aviation entrepreneurship in this way. Innovation is closely related to entrepreneurship and a way to eventually improve the aviation industry.

Parts of the aviation industry tend to treat their machines better than their customers. Customer service at the airlines is awful, but not because the pilots or management (or the TSA) lack a certain technical knowledge. Likewise, in General Aviation it’s hard to find and retain a good Flight Instructor. Again, not because the CFI’s lack a technical knowledge, but many lack a focus on the customer.

On the other hand, many Air Charter operators seem to be experts in meeting and exceeding customer expectations. These companies are also much smaller than the one-size-fits-all airlines and also tend to be rather entrepreneurial. In fact, you can find several air charter pilots that own the charter business and the airplane they’re flying.

This new Aviation Business Academy is very interesting but there’s currently very little information about it on the web. Here’s a press release written prior to the academy at this link
and some cool pictures of the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum here, but that’s about it.

The article in CAP Volunteer shows cadets presenting their aviation-related business plans. I bet that each cadet remembered to include a website in their business plan. It’s strange that the Aviation Business Academy apparently does not have one.

You can get the short article, and actually the entire Sep-Oct 2008 issue of the CAP Volunteer here.