Air France

The challenge

Every year, more than 13,000 Air France flight attendants must demonstrate a required level of competence to the French Civil Aviation Authority (DGAC) to remain cleared for duty. It is a condition of their regulated profession, comparable to other licensed fields where proof of proficiency is non-negotiable.

Passing an annual exam through last-minute preparation is achievable. Staying genuinely competent for the remaining eleven months is a different problem entirely. With traditional training methods based on reading and listening, people forget up to 80% of what they learn within a week. The conventional approach produced a temporary knowledge peak at the moment of the exam that declined quickly afterward. Yet cabin crew need to act decisively in any unexpected situation, not only on exam day. Memorizing manuals is not enough; airlines need committed professionals who can respond immediately when it matters.

For a workforce whose office is the aircraft, the logistics of learning compound the problem. Crew members only spend a handful of days per year at "the office." Many live far from the training center at Roissy, work across multiple time zones, and have limited windows between rotations. The face-to-face program that formed the bulk of training for years could not reliably reach this nomadic population.

A learning strategy built on seven principles

In March 2022, Air France won the Trophee du Digital Learning at the eLearning Expo in Paris, in the category Innovation in Learning. The award recognized a complete transformation of the cabin crew learning program. Anne Grjebine, Senior Advisor Innovation HR, and Alexandre Chiriac, Digital Learning Manager at the Air France Crew Academy (AFCA), developed the strategy around seven core principles:

• Personalization: no more "one size fits all." Each crew member studies only what their profile indicates they need, without repeating already-mastered content year after year

• Hybrid learning: physical presence at Roissy only when genuinely necessary, for example for tutored hands-on exercises or topics under close regulatory scrutiny from the DGAC

• Autonomy: study at home, during a layover, or in the middle of the night dealing with jet lag, at their own pace

• Simplicity: tools that are straightforward to connect to, easy to find content in, and intuitive to navigate

• Benevolence: fostering self-directed learning rather than a culture of permanent monitoring. The training department shifted away from a control-first approach

• Attractiveness and multimodality: diverse, engaging content formats to ensure adoption across all crew, including those less comfortable with digital tools

• Traceability: the ability to prove each crew member's competence level to both the company and the DGAC at any given moment

The program now runs on an equal split: 50% face-to-face, 50% digital distance learning. A genuine cultural transformation for the training teams, and one that proved its resilience during the pandemic when travel and gathering restrictions made the hybrid approach not just convenient but essential.

The hybrid training path

Not everything can be learned on a screen. Safety and rescue training still takes place at Roissy, where crew practise real-life simulations: extinguishing fires in an actual cabin environment while wearing a smoke hood, handling emergency equipment under realistic conditions. Commercial training focused on client relations also remains in the classroom.

Everything else moves to the tablet. All cabin crew are equipped with iPads, which serve as their primary work tool. A custom app developed specifically for Air France provides access to all training modules. The certification process happens in person: during their training day, crew members take a competence assessment covering both professional and aircraft-specific knowledge. If a competence is not sufficiently mastered, they are redirected to the corresponding module and can retest at the end of the day.

Before an in-person training day, crew can prepare using a range of remote tools. Drillster, an AI-based adaptive learning application, presents question banks focused specifically on competences that each individual has not yet sufficiently mastered. Its smart algorithm adapts to each person's pace and knowledge level, automatically focusing on what is most difficult and skipping what they already know. When knowledge starts to decline below the learning objective, crew receive a notification to refresh that specific topic, keeping competence levels reliable over time rather than peaking only at exam moments.

Drillster is complemented by other digital tools: a virtual reality site accessible remotely, SimuPorte (a dedicated app for reviewing all aircraft door configurations, particularly useful for crew who fly less frequently on a given aircraft type), traditional e-learning modules, and an online support chat for any training questions. All revision access is self-service and can be relaunched as many times as needed.

Voluntary by design, adopted by almost everyone

Using Drillster is not mandatory. That makes the outcome all the more compelling: 90% of cabin crew now use Drillster voluntarily.

Adoption accelerated sharply during the pandemic. When crews could not fly, they still needed to maintain their knowledge and competences for the moment operations resumed. Drillster was available anywhere, on any device, making it the natural choice for a workforce that has always needed to learn on the go.

The voluntary nature of the tool reflects one of the seven principles directly: benevolence. Rather than mandating participation and monitoring compliance, Air France created an environment where crew members chose to invest in their own readiness. By learning with Drillster's adaptive methodology, they prove fit for the job at all times and pass regulatory compliance requirements with confidence.

With Drillster, our employees have achieved a high level of engagement in their learning: 30% of users use the application voluntarily after 4 months, and 70% after 8 months. We are getting better-prepared people who feel less pressure at exam time and, more importantly, we are all much safer because everyone has the skills they need. Our goal now is to develop new training programs and expand the use of the platform to more employees. The results confirm that cabin crew training should go beyond classroom sessions and annual license renewals.

Franck Euzet, Cabin Crew Safety Training and Safety Pro Level Manager, Air France