Aviation companies face skills crisis

Thursday, 14 May, 2012 0

The aviation sector is facing a crisis when it comes to finding skilled staff, according to a report by People 1st.

The report by the sector skills council said changes in customer expectations and technology are making it increasingly difficult to find people with the right skills.

Around 25% of employers working in the aviation industry report that at least half of their staff could benefit from additional training.

The highest levels of skills gaps are around the ability to monitor and solve customer-service problems (59%), commitment to security measures and emergency-handling skills (59%), and weather monitoring abilities (58%).

Chief executive officer of People 1st, Brian Wisdom, said the financial impact of these skills shortages is significant as the sector directly contributes £7.2bn to the economy.

"Employers tell us that while they are receiving a lot more applications for jobs, the quality is not necessarily rising because a lot of people just don’t have the skills they want or need," he said.

"This needs to be addressed if we’re going to fill the skills gaps currently present."

The report suggests that introducing more on-the-job training such as apprenticeships would benefit the industry.

Other findings of the report include:

* Aviation has a workforce of 109,500 people, forming 15 percent of overall passenger transport employment
* The average age of the workforce is 41.3
* 20% is aged under 30, 55% is between 30 and 49, 25% is aged over 50
* 56% of the workforce is male
* Aviation has a low annual labour turnover rate of 4%
* 77% of employers in aviation provide training to their staff.

The full report covers the passenger transport sector, which includes organisations working across the rail, aviation, bus and coach, taxi and private hire, light rail and metro, driver training, transport planning and UK waterways industries.

People 1st undertook the research between during October and December 2011 and spoke to more than 2000 businesses from across the passenger transport sector.

Bev

Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.