Airline Pilot Club: leading innovation in AI-powered pilot training, recruitment

Originally, the Airline Pilot Club (APC) was established back in 2019 to create a community of aspiring pilots, enabling Approved Training Organizations (ATOs) and airlines to discover the next generation of aviators. However, through the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI), it has since matured into a more complex entity.

Since APC’s new Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Cedric Paillard, stepped into the role in January 2025, the company has continued to solidify its position as a global leader and innovator in aviation training and recruitment through AI.

During a far-reaching interview, Paillard told AeroTime that embracing AI has enabled APC to help its different stakeholders at a more transformative level from its early beginnings.

“We can scale with AI,” Paillard said. “We can do more with AI than what we used to do in terms of coaching, in terms of advising, in terms of recruitment and training.”

Paillard, who previously held the position of Chief Operating Officer (CCO), replaced previous CEO Andy O’Shea, who remains actively involved in the company’s progress as Executive Chairman of the Board.

Airline Pilot Club“Andy is very much involved on a day-to-day basis. We steer a little bit differently with this implementation and the use of artificial intelligence, but the mission is more or less the same at the end of the day, which is to connect the people that wants to be airline pilots, the flight school and the airlines,” said Paillard.

Paillard has an extensive history working within the tech industry and aviation, and he has played a leading role in the development and unveiling of APC’s new flagship AI platform, Amelia.

Amelia is a multi-layered tool — it’s the foundation of an integrated AI ecosystem that supports purpose-built apps that assist instructors and cadets across their full training journey.

Apps such as ORCA provide in-aircraft performance grading using Competency-Based Training and Assessment (CBTA) logic.

PEBT allows for adaptive, AI-optimized simulator training while MyBriefing provides personalized, competency-focused pre-flight briefing and debriefing.

Amelia also uses a combination of large language models (LLMs) and multimodal inference with systems continuously fine-tuned on anonymized, real-world training data in compliance with GDPR.

At its core Amelia has been designed to elevate aviation training further than ever before, drive deeper profiling, adapt to learning, and provide real-time feedback.   

The platform provides optimum, personalized, evidence-based training that an instructor or head of airline training can validate and implement.

By combining a suite of AI-powered applications, Amelia addresses each phase of a pilot’s journey – from recruitment and training to operational readiness.

“We have the ability to provide personalized recommendations, analyze their strengths and their weaknesses and make recommendations on how they can improve while they are in training in an ATO – or even, for some, when they are in training at an airline,” Paillard said.

‘It’s the ability to recruit the right candidate for the right operation and do this efficiently’

As Paillard spelled out during his AeroTime interview, Amelia allows APC to “cover a lot of ground”, working two-fold on both pilot recruitment and pilot training.

“On the recruitment side, it’s the ability to recruit the right candidate for the right operation and do this efficiently,” he explained.

And on the training side, Amelia integrates seamlessly with Evidence-Based Training (EBT) and CBTA frameworks.

“We’ve made sure that Amelia is learning and has learned everything she needs to know about EBT and CBTA, so she reports using the EBT and CBTA taxonomy and uses the same wording,” Paillard said.

He added: “We save a huge amount of time for the instructor, so they can focus on being an instructor: the teaching part, and the passing of knowledge.”

Amelia has already demonstrated measurable success, helping airlines drive efficiencies in recruitment and enabling them to realize the efficiencies provided by EBT, while improving operational safety and efficiency.

Amelia also helps airlines track competency trends across fleets, reduce training bottlenecks, and prepare candidates for real-world operations faster and with greater assurance.

Early adopter ATOs have seen a 30% reduction in instructor admin time, while airline partners report accelerated decision-making and higher training throughout.

‘Maybe by 2030 we shouldn’t have one training program, but multiple training programs for each of the candidates’

As a leader in aviation training and recruitment through AI, APC – and more specifically, Paillard – has a unique understanding of the technology’s capabilities.

With his high-tech industry background as a foundation, Paillard has been using AI since around 2019 and is acutely aware of how the technology can elevate efficiencies to reach levels previously unimaginable.

“If there is some improvement that you want to do, some efficiency that you want to do, or if there is something that you’re looking for, then AI is probably a right approach,” he told AeroTime.

The swift evolution of AI has even struck Paillard, with APC able to adopt new methods and insights as the technology develops.

“Only six months ago, there were things that we couldn’t do with AI that we can do today. Every month there’s a new technique that comes in and the engineering team and I are sitting down and saying, ‘we could use this’,” Paillard noted.

He believes that, by 2030, APC could be adopting AI predictive adaptive learning, whereby the company will be able to anticipate where pilot candidates will need reinforcement in very specific competencies.

“Maybe by 2030 we shouldn’t have one training program, but multiple training programs for each of the candidates. That would be very exciting to see,” Paillard said.

And for any instructors worried about AI taking over their jobs, Paillard had words of comfort in answer to the biggest misconception he hears.

“It’s not going to happen,” he said. “Not going to happen. This is fake news. It will change, but the instructor will still be required.”

To find out more about how Airline Pilot Club is advancing aviation training and recruitment through AI, visit the company’s website.

View the full video interview with APC’s Cedric Paillard on the AeroTime’s YouTube channel.The post Airline Pilot Club: leading innovation in AI-powered pilot training, recruitment appeared first on AeroTime.

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