(Note: This article was originally published on August 23, 2021).
In this blog, we sat down with our manager of Flight Data Analysis Services, Lisa Bozec, and asked her a few questions about building a successful career as a Flight Data Analyst.
Lisa has had quite the career in Flight Data Analysis, beginning over 30 years ago at British Airways. Today she manages our FDM/FOQA service while continuing to perform data analysis activities.
If you think that you might be interested in a career as a Flight Data Analyst, this blog is for you.
Tell us a little about yourself and your role as FDM Services Manager at Scaled Analytics
I have been with Scaled Analytics as the Flight Data Analysis Services Manager for almost five years. I have spent most of my working life deciphering flight data in one form or another.
My career in Flight Data Monitoring happened by chance over 30 years ago at British Airways. I had been working in accounting and was getting a bit bored when I happened to come across a job for a Junior Data Analyst. The job description sounded really exciting and something I felt would interest me. I managed to get the job and the rest is history. Even after all these years I still find the job interesting.
What are the main tasks of a Flight Data Analyst?
The main tasks of a Flight Data Analyst are to validate flight data and then report on that data. Typically, a Flight Data Analyst only spends a small proportion of their time actually validating events that have been triggered by the system. The rest of an Analyst’s time is spent on customer support, constructing and pulling reports, incident readouts and trouble shooting.
What makes being a Flight Data Analyst at Scaled Analytics different from anywhere else?
Here at Scaled Analytics we are always evolving and improving the way we do things. I do not find any day to be the same and the job still offers new challenges. The Flight Data Analysts can get involved with configurations and problem solving and can take on many different projects, which helps keeps the job interesting. At other places I have worked, politics would get involved and Analysts would only be able to perform data validation.
Can you tell us about a particular interesting event or situation you experienced in your career?
I think that the hi-light of my career was having the opportunity to work with the engineers and professionals that worked on Concorde. I was very fortunate to have numerous opportunities to see Concorde up close and personal. It is a time that I look back on with great fondness.
What types of skills and character traits do you look for when hiring Flight Data Analysts?
When we are hiring a new Analyst, we would look for someone that not only looks good on paper but someone we feel has a love of aircraft, a willingness to learn new things and most importantly a positive attitude. The new hire would also need to display the ability to work well on their own as well as in a small team and have excellent problem-solving skills.
Is there anything else you’d like to tell someone that might be considering a career as a Flight Data Analyst?
I would recommend a career as a Flight Data Analyst to anyone that loves aircraft, looking at data and problem solving. It is a very interesting job and has truly come quite a way in the 30 odd years I have been doing it. When I first started absolutely everything was printed out on paper but now everything is in the Cloud!
For me, taking that job as a Junior Data Analyst over 30 years ago was one of my better decisions!
That’s it for this Blog. If you think that a career as a Flight Data Analyst might be for you, visit our website regularly and check out our careers section.
As we continue to grow, we will be looking for people with a passion for aviation, data, and great customer service!
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