Τhe 2023 Hermes AGM & Leaders Forum that took place in Istanbul, kindly hosted by Pegasus Airlines, thanks to the initiative of our esteemed Hermes member and Chairperson of Pegasus Airlines, Mehmet T. Nane.
On Wednesday 7 June 2023, Hermes – Air Transport Organisation held the “Hermes AGM & Leaders Forum – Recruiting and Retaining Talent: The Key to Success in the Aviation Industry”, hosting prominent leaders of the global aviation industry.
Dr Kostas Iatrou welcoming the participants said: “I am pleased to welcome you to the 2023 Hermes AGM and Leaders Forum in Istanbul, a city that has always played an important role in the history of humanity as it stands at the crossroads that connects the East and the West. The recent health crisis had a negative impact on the industry workforce as many jobs were lost. The fast recovery of the industry, faster than expected, caused a chaos last summer. Hermes being the organisation that represents the leaders, the human factor, of air transport industry believes that the success of our business is closely related to this parameter.”
In his annual report Dr Iatrou made an analytical presentation of the key activities, including the formation of International Aviation Forum (IAF) and events that Hermes organised in the last 12 months.
During Hermes AGM, Mehmet T. Nane, Chairperson of Pegasus Airlines was unanimously elected member of the Board of Directors of Hermes.
Hermes also welcomed 5 new members namely (in alphabetical order):
-Tamara Archuadze, Member of Supervisory Board, United Airports of Georgia
-Mara El Filali, General Manager, Moroccan Aerospace Industries Association (GIMAS)
-Levan Karanadze, Chairman of Supervisory Council, Georgian Air Navigation
-Riccardo Lambiris, Chairman, Athens International Airport
-George Lioumbis, General Manager, SkyExpress
Keynote speakers of the Leaders Forum where Salvatore Sciacchitano, Presdient of the Council of ICAO (virtually) and Luis Felipe de Oliveira, Director General of ACI World.
Angela Gittens, President of Hermes moderated a round table discussion with the participation of:
-Patricia N. Vercelli, SVP, General Counsel and Secretary, A4A
-Abderahmane Berthe, Secretary General, AFRAA
-Montserrat Barriga, Director General, ERA
-Maria El Filali, General Manager, Moroccan Aerospace Industries Association (GIMAS)
-Haydar Yalcin, Senior Expert, EUROCONTROL
They all stressed the need and the difficulty to retain and to recruit well trained and experienced personnel, including pilots and technicians. Realizing this problem, there is now closer cooperation not only between the different sectors of the industry but also between the air industry and the universities to establish specialized training programmes and to make the industry “attractive”. This is especially more important now for the industry that has increased safety standards and economic and financial pressures. At the same time there are a lot of different interests with different priorities which makes consensus difficult. They admitted that in terms of recruitment the air industry is not the “sexiest” one but there have been significant improvements in diversity and sex equality and technology. Companies need to get better at retraining people to work with the newest technology. They stressed that some of the air traffic management issues are not due to staff shortages but to lack of training. As the most attractive sector is at the moment technology, the sector needs to show and promote the idea that it is at the forefront of technology, to “rebrand” the recruitment sector to make it “more creative, more forward looking”. It is the industry that needs to locate the workforce to be hired.