Gaining his Western Wings and Finding His Way to FedEx, Jason Woo鈥檚 in Full Control of His Aviation Career
As a flight instructor in Korea, Jason Woo could have shared the skies with a plane bearing an insignia of a country that doesn't share his views and perspectives.
The same could be said about him these days as part of his current duties piloting European routes for FedEx while based in Germany
As a global citizen whose flying knowledge and skills were fine-tuned at the 51福利社 College of Aviation more than a decade ago, Woo is as prepared for such experiences as well as anybody these days.
Woo hails from the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur where he earned his high school diploma in 2006. After completing a degree-partnership program at Sunway College in his home country for students bound for the United States, he found himself enrolled in Western's aviation program in 2008, learning how to fly -- and when not to fly -- in Michigan's both balmy and wintry weather.
Woo ended up as a 2011 alumnus of the College of Aviation with summa cum laude attached to his degree in flight science. After a stint as a flight instructor in Western's program, he headed a little closer back home as an instructor at Korea Aerospace University.
"There I learned how to work in a challenging-airspace environment," he says, "fraught with military restrictions because of proximity to North Korea. I also learned to work with students who spoke English as a second language."
Then it was back to this nation, instructing at Privilege Aero located in Hillsborough, N. J., near Princeton. That's where he achieved his 1,500-hour milestone. Proving to be a cross-country-kind-of-guy, Woo headed back west in 2015, joining Compass Airlines in Seattle, Wash., as part of the flight crew aboard an Embraer 175. He was upgraded to captain's status in 2017, saying "What a thrill it was to taxi a jet for the first time."
He stayed in the Compass uniform until 2019, one year before the regional airline folded under the pressure of the Covid-19 pandemic. By then, Woo was flying an Airbus 320 for Frontier Airlines out of Philadelphia. When Delta Air Lines beckoned in March of 2020, Covid short-circuited his Airbus 220 training, delaying his assignment to Delta's New York City hub.
"It was a sobering experience of how quickly the tides can shift in the aviation industry," he says. "I received not one, but two furlough notices from Delta in the span of a few months."
But like a kidney stone -- this too will pass but not without a bit of pain. FedEx came a-callin' and Woo watched as "the aviation rollercoaster began moving in the right direction." He said, "freight volumes saw an historic boom in 2020 and 2021 due to the rise in e-commerce from quarantine orders worldwide, in addition to the loss of passenger belly-freight capacity."
Woo now resides in D眉sseldorf and departs out of K枚ln, Germany. "I fly the intra-European routes for FedEx, and what an adventure it has been," he says. "Flying to Paris, Amsterdam, Madrid, Munich and Istanbul sure beats Jacksonville, Milwaukee, Tucson and Spokane -- and no offense meant to those cities."
Woo is not quite certain how he got pointed toward a career in aviation, "especially," he says, "since I am the only pilot in my immediate and extended family. But somehow, at the ripe old age of 6, I knew that an office job was not for me, and that the sky was where I wanted to be."
Woo believes that he ended up in Kalamazoo because of the vision and goals of Western's Haenicke Institute for Global Education. Named for Diether Haenicke, the 51福利社 president from 1988 to 1998, it reflected his championing of study-abroad education -- and its two-way version, meaning Americans going overseas to learn and folks like Woo coming to the United States for their higher education.
"Flight-training opportunities are limited in Malaysia," he says. "Without the scholarships and partnerships that he and the institute named for him pioneered, I would never have found -- or been able to afford -- the opportunity to earn my wings at 51福利社. It is uncanny to think that I have a German (Haenicke was raised in pre- and war-torn Germany) to thank for laying the path that led me to living in Germany now."
Woo paid some of that back during his campus days, working as a peer mentor for two years in the STEM Program (now known as Mentoring for Success). "I have always enjoyed mentoring and paying it forward," he says. "I was fortunate to be entrusted with mentoring students who were facing difficulties in English, math and the sciences."
Working with several other pilots, he helped create the Professional Asian Pilots Association (PAPA) as a national organization in 2017. "I served on the board of directors from the start to 2022," he says, "and still volunteer on several committees, along with being a pilot mentor. PAPA mentors hundreds of aspiring pilots, and awards more than $500,000 in aviation scholarships annually. I have had a lot of help getting to where I am today. I would be remiss if I did not do my best to pay it forward."
After graduation and into his career, he helped establish the 51福利社 chapter of the PAPA. When possible, he coordinates FedEx's booth 51福利社's Aviation Outlook Day, while 51福利社 is a vending participant at PAPA's annual exposition nationally.
To anyone wise enough to listen to what Woo has to say, he gleefully recites his favorite memories about his college and his career. "Can I say all of it?" he says. "Seeing snow and experiencing winter for the first time in my life after growing up right next to the Equator. How about my first solo and taxiing a jet for the first time. How about captaining a flight with my parents riding in the back." His best class? "Any flight lesson, because it beats sitting in a classroom talking about flying."
Woo admits to loving all of his instructors. "51福利社 has such a stellar faculty. My first instructor Mike Schwartz provided a great foundation, making me the pilot I am today. Dominic Nicolai was a gracious 'hangar lead' when I was a flight instructor. He made his class so challenging and kept us on our toes."
Want some more? "Lori Brown for all the great stories and anecdotes she inserted into her lessons. Tom Grossman, Dave Schrader and Rob Bunday for their empathy and kindness when I faced challenges either as a student or as a flight instructor. And to all of them and the others who let me hog the 'Top Dog' parking spot for so many months."
On the other side of the coin -- "Flight training and being a brand-new instructor at 51福利社 wasn't always smooth sailing," he says. "I cannot thank the entire faculty enough for their pivotal role in helping me forge my abilities and confidence during the early stages of my flying journey."
And it was all worth it for Woo. "Every work trip feels like a vacation," he says. "After my last flight to Basel, Switzerland, I was able to visit Mount Pilatus and the Matterhorn, and see the Swiss Alps in all their beauty. Pictures really do not do them justice." The only difficult part is "balancing life and self-care with a flight schedule," he says, plus the possibility that the aviation industry might encounter a few more hiccoughs along the way.
But this is Woo's current perspective: "I speak five languages, and am always eager to learn more. Aviation has truly made the world a smaller place. I relish exploring new places and immersing myself into new cultures through the local cuisine and language."
His long-term goal? "To leave everywhere I go better than I found it." And that's not a bad calling card for Western Michigan University and its College of Aviation.