I came across an interesting article written in 2006 that is more relevant today than ever. Published by Veer Marketing on their Sport Aviation Marketing website, it discusses marketing strategies for general aviation and more specifically how to grow the pilot population.

The author refers to one of the most popular business book available: Blue Ocean Strategy written by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne. According to the authors, “red oceans” are crowded with competitors while “blue oceans” represent untapped market space with the opportunity for highly profitable growth.

For years, women have been a flight school customer by accident. I cannot recall any program or advertising specifically targeting women as the desirable customer. Even flight schools owned by women often do not have specific advertising campaigns to attract women pilots.

Our goal is to grow the percentage of women pilots from its current 6.5% to over 20% in the next 100 years. If we achieved that, the overall growth of the pilot population would be tremendous.

To read the Sport Aviation Marketing article, click here.