Geoff Collis traded the flight deck for a bakery bench in Melbourne's north-east

Geoff Collis’s logbook holds about 42 years and 25,000 hours of flying. These days his hours are counted in pastry, at a bakery in Eltham, in Melbourne’s north-east.

Collis, a former Jetstar pilot, fell for aircraft at 10. “Instead of rock and roll band posters on my walls when I was a teenager, I had pictures of planes,” he told ABC News. He started pilot training towards the end of high school and spent about four decades in aviation.

A pause that became a trade

The change began by accident. When the pandemic grounded much of the airline industry, Collis, then 55, was partly stood down. He asked a bakery in Melbourne’s north-east about an apprenticeship, and within months he was learning to bake bread and patisserie.

In 2023 he paused the apprenticeship and went back to the flight deck. It did not last. He had grown uneasy about the fuel his flying burned. “It was a 2.4 million litres a year jet fuel habit,” he told the ABC.

He left aviation for good and returned to baking about a year before the ABC met him in August 2026. Along the way he found Safe Landing, a group set up by current and former aviation workers in the UK to support pilots troubled by climate change. “Knowing there are other people out there who came to the same conclusion as myself was reassuring and reaffirming,” he said.

Some people asked what difference one pilot could make. Collis told the ABC he sees it as leading by example. “I don’t miss it for a day,” he said, although looking up when a plane passes overhead is, he says, almost automatic.

Why this matters

What stands out is how ordinary the first step was. Collis did not wait for a grand plan. He asked a bakery a question during a strange year, and the skill was there when he wanted it.

Baking is unusually open to that kind of start. The National Careers Service, the UK government’s careers advice service, lists three routes into the trade: a college course, an apprenticeship of about two years (Baker, Lead Baker or Pastry Chef), or starting as a trainee or assistant and learning on the job. The one certificate it says you need, food hygiene, is a short course.

At home, it is simpler still. The Real Bread Campaign, run by the food charity Sustain, makes the case that good bread needs only flour, water, yeast and salt, and no added sugar or fat. Its advice for anyone who wants to get better quickly is to learn beside an experienced baker, by taking a course or visiting a bakery, because judging when dough is ready is something you learn by touch.

How to start

Your first loaf. The Campaign’s basic recipe uses 500 g strong flour, 340 g hand-warm water (about 25°C), 5 g dried active yeast and 5 g salt. Mix, knead by stretching and folding for 10–15 minutes, and let it rise until doubled. Shape, rise again for 40–60 minutes, then bake at 230°C (450°F) for 15 minutes and at 200°C (400°F) for another 30–40. The dough will be sticky. Resist adding flour: wetter dough gives a softer loaf that keeps longer.

Once you are hooked. Slow it down by resting the dough in the fridge overnight, and bake it in a heavy lidded pot for a crisper crust. The Campaign suggests that a home baker making 10 to 20 loaves a week can supply a bread club or a market stall.

If you want it to be work. Ask a local bakery the question Collis asked. In the UK, look at the apprenticeships above; anywhere, a food hygiene course is the first box to tick. Our story about Alex Worsick, who went from the BBC to train driver school, shows how another career changer went about it, and our guide to cooking for one has more for the kitchen.