This includes:
- transient nature of ground handlers impacting aviation knowledge
- retention of AROs – continually training as they will often relocate to other aerodromes.
Keeping staff in this sector is a constant problem due to:
- rising living costs
- reduced tourist demand after COVID
- better places to live and work.
This introduces risks such as:
- experience of key personnel
- gaps in training
- standardisation.
Organisations struggling to keep staff may face safety issues if not addressed.
What can operators do?
To help keep staff, you should:
- use a good training system that tracks requirement updates
- give effective training
- have an onboarding process and make sure you include all training requirements
- avoid relying on a single person and make sure there are backups for important roles
- make sure the right people are in the important positions
- offer career pathways and progression to staff.
You should consider how you support crew with limited experience to make sure there are no safety issues.
Training and checking meet the basic regulations, but you should look into additional support for junior crew.
If your crew has low to average experience, you should consider discussing safety more openly. Operators worry about new pilots lacking airmanship skills, and the problem is worse with the high turnover of pilots.
Other options to support inexperienced crew can include:
- Start a mentoring program where junior pilots learn from more experienced ones. This goes beyond basic training and helps junior pilots gain valuable insights from seasoned pilots.
- Through mentoring and safety briefings, focus on sharing information that improves safety and prevents accidents. Discuss what went wrong and how to avoid it in the future.
- Standardise operations as much as possible by using ‘airline’ style SOPs. This reduces variation and crew workload. It also helps focus more on safely operating the aircraft.
- Encourage a positive safety culture to help crew feel comfortable raising concerns. This way, the crew can make better risk-based decisions with your support.
What are we doing or have already delivered?
We introduced the Stay OnTrack series of booklets. They help pilots who are flying under visual flight rules (VFR) become familiar with a specific region.
We have also produced further guidance material to help operators understand and meet the rules.