Entrepreneur and staunch aviation advocate Jamail Larkins talked about Aviation Start at the 2025 NBAA-BACE in Las Vegas that ran from October 14-16.
Larkins has attended hundreds of aviation events around the country engaging with young people and encouraging them to get involved in aviation. He related how at those events that almost all young people, who represent the next generation of aviation professionals, by far their number one most asked question was: How can I afford it and how and where do I get started?
So Larkins created Aviation Start out of his need to help the next generation get involved in the industry and to inform them of the thousands of resources that exist that most people are totally unaware of.
Larkins and his team compiled more than $20 million worth of resources into one place that makes it easy to find and to get them started on their aviation journey.
Aviation Start was launched in April 2025 and contained all the information in one site. At NBAA-BACE 2025, the team released the Aviation Start AI program that enables people to enter some basic information about themselves such as their age, where they live, education, and what area of aviation they’re interested in. Within minutes, a person will have a complete list of every eligible scholarship that they match up with around the country.
And the best part is: it’s completely free!
Larkins goes on to detail the incredible amount of need aviation has for bringing in more young people. 83 percent of all aviation maintenance technicians are scheduled to retire in the next ten years. Similarly, during the same period, about 50 percent of all commercial pilots are scheduled to either retire or legally age out of the airlines at age 65.
Because of those numbers, aviation has a huge issue looming in terms of workforce, but at the same time it presents a great opportunity for anyone who wants to get involved in aviation.
There is a huge opportunity for advancement, but young people just need to be connected to the resources to get their start in aviation.
The AviationStart.org website will be up and running by November – it’s actually live now – and anyone interested can sign up for a free account. That will then provide access to Aviation Start’s AI program that connects them to any and every eligible scholarship around the country that will help them get their career started.
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