Making a difference and creating opportunities for the next-gen workforce
With decades of industry experience, Alex Durand is a champion of aviation – commercial, general and business, and now as one of the DfT’s Aviation Ambassadors, he wants to challenge the perceptions of the sector to help build a diverse aviation workforce fit for the future.
How it started…
I never meant to have a career in aviation. Having completed an English and American Studies degree and graduated into a brutal recession in 1990, my plans to move to Hong Kong to pursue a career in publishing were substituted to working in a packing factory and living at home again. Apparently, this is what we now call a pivot.
My aviation experience at the time amounted to making the odd Airfix model as a kid and enjoying Robert Duval’s helicopter Ride of the Valkyries scene in the iconic film Apocalypse Now.
However, after clambering through a few temporary jobs, I saw an operations job advert at the local airport which, while badly paid, had the perk of half price flying lessons.
Two years and a PPL later, I then decided to become a commercial pilot, so I joined the local air taxi company as their only employee, for a pay cut, but more reduced price flying in a more advanced piston-single aircraft.
After 80 hours I had to commit to becoming a commercial pilot, or not. This meant either finding a lot of money that I didn’t have or indulging my interest in growing a charter business. I chose the latter and never looked back; although to be honest I never really looked forward either – I was so immersed in the day-to-day.
Lessons learned
That company grew, then was sold to a client, grew exponentially, but then failed due to splintered leadership and lack of consolidation. In hindsight I know the lessons I learned then have helped in everything I’ve done since. But at the time it was the hardest of times; resilience doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of what it took, and there wasn’t – and still doesn’t seem to be – anything to teach you how to manage a business in distress.
I had the additional challenge of bringing up small children while my job was falling in around me. In some ways it may have helped, by reminding me about the important things in life – the difference between a toddler and a multi-millionaire screaming at me started to blur.
It did teach me that being in control is key wherever and whenever you can, or a business will control you. ‘I have control’ isn’t just for the cockpit, so I took control by working for myself.
Of course I can
There’s no better way of having independence, apart from the bit where you need income.
I set myself up as a charter broker, but in reality, as the person who says ‘yes’. “Can you set up a UK charter airline?” Of course I can, despite never having done it. “Can you audit our operation?” Of course I can, despite never having been an auditor. “Can you advise options to relocate our business?” Of course I can, and don’t even bother asking someone who’s done this before!
I learnt that the way to do this without letting anyone down is to work with other people that have the expertise and the right connections. Sharing the opportunity means sharing the benefits, but most importantly means working with people I want to work with, and some of those people have turned out to be my best professional friends. We did things together I’d never have done on my own. There’s also nothing more efficient than getting the right consultants working together – they’ve always got something else to do, so there’s no time wasted.
Fast forward 30 odd years, and I’m still immersed in the day-to-day. It’s an industry of contradictions: bury yourself too much in the everyday and you miss the opportunity, but look too much to the future and the present will bite you very hard. It’s fun yet incredibly serious. Its life affirming yet life threatening. It’s about being patient but electrically responsive. It’s understanding that when busy we yearn for the quiet times, yet when it’s quiet we miss being busy. It offers a kaleidoscope of opportunities, but beware the career cul-de-sacs. It has minimal barriers to entry, but somehow excludes so many people.
Becoming an employee again
Accepting the job of chief executive at SaxonAir in Norwich over 11 years ago was another major career decision; stay in the idyllic Oxfordshire village where we had established deep roots, or move to what many of my friends saw as the edge of the map and to work for a company I hardly knew. And, become an employee again – something I never saw myself doing after seven years of working for myself.
The deciding factor? What if we didn’t do it – would it be something we would regret not doing later on? So I took the leap and in doing so I triggered significant family upheaval – moving across to Norfolk was one of the most traumatic experiences I can recall; four sobbing kids in the back of a car for over three hours doesn’t tend to make one feel great about a decision to take them away from everyone and everything they know.
However, we’ve never looked back. I work for wonderful owners, in a privileged environment, and in a wonderful part of the world. There is a sense of being part of a wider community that I’ve not experienced elsewhere, and which has made a profound difference to how I approach work now.
Once upon a time it was about survival, and doing the best job you can for your clients. Now it’s about bringing everyone with you and doing the best job you can for everyone you work with – not just your customers, but your colleagues, your supplier partners, and perhaps most importantly those who haven’t yet had the opportunities I’ve had. Norwich is a city that’s historically welcomed ‘Strangers’, but it’s for the Strangers to add to the cultural tapestry. And there is a lot of strange people in the aviation industry, so the category definitely fits!
Creating opportunities
We’ve started to create opportunities not just for the next generation, but also for those that have fallen out of the system. Look between the cracks and there is a lot of people who are lost – it shouldn’t take that much effort to at least show them what they could do in the aviation industry.
We are now developing Aviation Skills Bootcamps, putting together as inclusive and meaningful work experiences as we can, and visiting schools, FEs and universities to explain just how many opportunities there are in the aviation industry: no qualifications, no problem – start as a baggage handler or aircraft cleaner and then perhaps gain qualifications missed at school. Want to become a pilot, no problem – come and learn to fly in aircraft fit for the 21st century, using the low- or zero-emissions Pipistrel training aircraft we now have.
Bringing the DfT’s Generation Aviation programme to life
And of course, let’s not forget that we are at the forefront of an avalanche of new aviation innovation, which creates so many new opportunities. This is why the UK Department for Transport’s Generation Aviation programme is so timely; we’ve never had such visible government support before. Appointing 10 Aviation Ambassadors as partners brings it to life and engages with the applied world in the best way possible, and hands responsibility to people that want it. I’m lucky enough to join nine other inspiring individuals in this role, and it’s our job to energise the programme, and bring it to life.
I’ve got several roles in the company, the business community, and our industry, but what I particularly like about the Aviation Ambassador group is the demonstrated difference already made across a diverse selection of individuals. Each has achieved amazing things by wanting to make a difference, and accepting the risks involved. Nothing stands still, be the change, and not let change happen to you – and guess what, you’re in control.
While I still think that one day I’ll have to get a ‘proper job’, every time I walk into SaxonAir HQ it gives me the same excitement I had when I walked into the Oxford Ops office in 1992.
If we can share this career excitement with as many people as possible, the rest should take care of itself.