The committee led by Professor Martin Dresner, President, ATRS, met in Ekali on the eve of the Hermes AGM & Leaders Forum in order to prepare the 2019 report on the topic of Education and Performance in Aviation. The members of the committee were:
Professor Martin Dresner, President, ATRS – Chair
Robert Deillon, Vice President, Hermes – Air Transport Organisation
Professor Triant Flouris, Provost, Hellenic American University
Professor Andreas Papatheodorou, Journal of Air Transport Studies
This year Hermes received seven position papers from the following organisations:
-ICAO
-IATA
-EUROCONTROL
-AACO
-AFRAA
-ALTA
-AASA
The highlights of the report are:
- Air traffic is expected to double over the next twenty years. Hiring and retaining aviation personnel is therefore essential.
- Education and training in aviation should be considered as an investment based on three major factors, namely cost, return and risk.
- Major industry challenges include: meeting the needs of a growing industry, competing for and retaining personnel, filling the gender gap and addressing training in automation and artificial intelligence.
- It is important for the industry to conduct studies in order to gain comprehensive situational awareness of its status and future needs.
- Effective industry-education partnerships must be developed to provide a framework for addressing future educational and training priorities.
- Best practices should be adopted from other industry settings for the aviation industry to successfully compete for personnel.
- Training and education programs should be developed so that current aviation employees can be usefully re-deployed or re-trained.
- Education and training in aviation must address diversity imbalances in order for the industry to attract and retain the required personnel.