Etienne Cote joined Bombardier as an instructor and pilot in 2007 and went on to become a customer liaison pilot and a production test pilot. In early 2020, he joined Bombardier’s Demonstration Flight Operations team and took over as chief pilot in January 2023.
Cote began his aviation career as a flight attendant for a major carrier. He went on to complete his pilot licenses and aviation degree to begin flying in the business and corporate world. Cote has held positions with a line and ground operation and has been an airport manager, a training captain and manager of training. He also owned a training and consulting company.
What is the size of your team?
The demonstration team varies between 13 and 20 pilots, a number of flight attendants, and we’ve got maintenance personnel that are dedicated to the aircraft. . . .We do have to supplement as well from outside sources to help us out. The flight department itself . . . is about 40 people that support the demonstration flight operation.
How have things changed since COVID in the demonstration department?
COVID for us was not a stop. For a while we turned into a bit of a corporate shuttle, helping support our company divisions internally, because we had a challenge traveling by airlines. We used our own product line and said, ‘Let’s do what we promote to our customer base. Let’s use them as corporate shuttles a little bit and keep the business going, keep delivering aircraft and keep on making aircraft.’
We also started getting into business as usual. We turned our aircraft into mobile labs. We had the capacity to run tests on the aircraft for the crew so we could meet the different requirements around the globe—the PCR tests within 48 hr. It was definitely a disrupter. But it turned out to be something that forced us to become creative. We had to limit a few things on how we conducted demos in terms of capacity and aircraft, with the spacing and so forth. But in the end, we navigated these interesting challenges.
And now?
In the last year, the floodgates just opened. And we started going back to places we hadn’t really visited in three years like Asia-Pacific. But we’re there a lot now, and it’s posing a whole series of different challenges with regard to crew management, fatigue and things like that. Fatigue management is a big one when you have ultra-long-range aircraft.
We keep on shuttling as much as we can, but we definitely shifted gears back to the sales and support model. We also support customers that are in need because of an aircraft-on-ground situation. That can happen to any aircraft. If they’re in a bind and if an asset is available, we try to help the customers that are stranded and keep their missions going. We do our best to make sure that doesn’t happen to begin with, but when it does, we try to be there to support for sure.
What is your biggest challenge?
I won’t hide the fact that it’s when you have ultra-long-range aircraft and everybody wants to see them. We want to promote them; we want to show them, to keep the aircraft rolling whether it’s with the maintenance that’s required or with the crewing levels that we have. To change a flight from one airport to another, it seems very benign when we’re in the U.S. and Canada. But when we’re operating across the globe, it involves flight permits. It involves authorities who are not exactly speaking the language. It involves a lot of moving pieces that we don’t control. And that’s a big challenge. It’s also a big challenge to make sure we understand these challenges internally. It’s to make sure we support the mission that’s given to us while maintaining the safety aspects. We have very high standards at that level. It’s also an education to our own people. The collaboration is there; the understanding is there.
What is the climate for hiring pilots? How are you doing in that area?
We’re finding the same challenges as the rest of the industry. Everybody’s competing for the same good talent. We’re no different. We have a twist that makes it a little bit different. On top of that, not only do we need to find people who are qualifiable, but they have to become experts in the product. We are going to tell them to operate it to its design capabilities.
When we talk about short-field landing and somebody wants to demonstrate the capability of the aircraft, we have to be masters at this on the first shot; it’s not let’s practice three times and then you go. It involves a specific mindset. It also involves people who are socially engaging pilots and flight attendants.
Usually flight attendants have no difficulty in this. But some pilots don’t fit the bill because they’re not necessarily people who can interact on a continuous basis with our customers. At an airshow, for example, you can spend 14 hr. sometimes standing at an airshow, trying to showcase the aircraft and talking about performance, talking about a number of things. And you’re running out of voice before the end of the day. Most of the people who we employ have got a drive for this.
The airshow scene is unique. You need people who are able to do this aspect on top of being really good pilots. It’s a little bit more work. We vet our pilots very carefully. We make sure they fit with the philosophy of the OEM but also with the group as a whole.
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