The Impacts of Covid-19 on Staff Training Within the Aviation Sector

Abstract

Aviation is among those industries that were most heavily impacted and disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic. The impacts were most severe in passenger traffic where the amount of seats offered dropped by 50% during 2020 causing airline revenue loss of 371bn USD. Air-traffic cuts exceeded 90% in some areas. Covid-19 pandemic had many indirect impacts on air travel services, including how staff training is carried out. Although the pandemic has had massive negative influences in different areas of life, it has opened doors to new innovations and developments as well. A giant leap forward has taken place in online education, which this study focuses on from the specific viewpoint of air travel service providers. Attempts to contain the spread of Covid-19 lead to school closures and by the beginning of April 2020 the pandemic had impacted over 90% of the world’s total enrolled learners. Similarly 188 country-wide school closures took place globally. This led to boost in online education – possibly the greatest growth of all time was seen. In aviation sector the impacts are evident as well, mostly reflected by the ways how staff training is delivered at airports. Organizations in air traffic chain had to adapt to the changed operational landscape, new health and safety risks and learn to comply with new regulations. Staff skills and competences were in the middle of this. This case study examines these developments in international air transport context during 2020 and 2021. We will look at various examples in aviation industry organizations related to staff training, focusing specifically on how training practices have changed due to Covid-19. From the basis of these findings and experiences, the paper attempts to draw a future scenario of digital transformation of training in the industry. Case studies are based on courses developed and provided by Airport College (AC) which is a private online training academy serving the global aviation sector with digitally enhanced training solutions.