Definition
Operator conversion training exists because a credential proves a standard while an operator runs procedures. A cabin crew member arriving with a valid cabin crew attestation has demonstrated the European standard; they have not yet been trained on how this particular airline does things, nor on the aircraft types in this particular fleet. Conversion training closes that gap.
For cabin crew the requirement is at ORO.CC.125, which pairs aircraft type specific training with operator conversion training — the rule treats them together because in practice they are delivered together when somebody joins. Around them sit the rest of Part-ORO Subpart CC: the conduct of training courses and their associated checking (ORO.CC.115), the initial training course (ORO.CC.120), differences training where a variant differs from the type already held (ORO.CC.130), familiarisation (ORO.CC.135), recurrent training (ORO.CC.140) and refresher training (ORO.CC.145).
The content is a mix of the operator-specific and the type-specific. Operator-specific covers the operations manual, the operator's standard procedures, its safety and security arrangements, its reporting culture and occurrence reporting routes, and crew resource management as that operator practises it. Type-specific covers the aircraft: cabin layout, door and exit operation, emergency equipment locations and use, and the safety and emergency procedures drilled on that type.
The same concept exists for flight crew, where an operator conversion course likewise sits between the licence a pilot holds and the line they are cleared to fly. In both cases the shape is identical: a portable credential plus a non-portable operator layer, with the operator responsible for evidencing the second to its authority.
That non-portability is the operationally important part. A crew member moving between operators repeats conversion training even when nothing about their competence has changed, and an operator adding a type to its fleet puts its existing crew through type specific training before any of them can be assigned to it.
Conversion is not complete when the course ends. The conduct of training courses and the checking associated with them is governed by ORO.CC.115, so the course closes with a check rather than with attendance, and familiarisation under ORO.CC.135 then covers the step from a training environment to the actual operation. Only after that sequence is the crew member releasable to the line. An operator that records conversion as a single completion date loses the intermediate states — trained but not checked, checked but not yet familiarised — which are exactly the states a crewing department needs to see during an intake.
Why It Matters for Flight Schools
Conversion training is a bottleneck that becomes visible at exactly the moments an operator can least afford it: a recruitment intake, a fleet addition, or a seasonal ramp-up. It requires instructors, training devices and the aircraft-specific equipment the drills depend on, and it has to complete before anybody joining can be rostered.
It is also where a joining crew member's record is at its most fragmented. The individual arrives with prior history from elsewhere, some of which the new operator must verify and none of which it can simply adopt. What follows — conversion, type specific training, and the checks that close them — is the operator's own record and the start of a recurrent cycle that will run for as long as the person stays.
Schools and operators that run several intakes a year describe the same problem: the training itself is well understood, and the administration around who has completed which element, on which type, and what that means for assignability is where it goes wrong.
How Aviatize Handles This
Aviatize models conversion and type specific training as configured courses with their own events, examinations and practical elements, so an intake can be run as a cohort while each crew member's completion is recorded individually.
Progress is visible per person and per element rather than as a single pass or fail at the end, which is what lets a training department see who is ready to be released to the line and who still has an element outstanding. Because the records feed the same document and validity tracking as everything else, completion of conversion is what starts the recurrent clock rather than a separate note somebody has to remember to make.
Course structures are configured against the operator's own approved training and checking programme.