Will there be a shortage of staff in the Aviation industry in 2023?

Roundtable and World Aviation Festival

It was a pleasure for our MD Markus moderating the Roundtable Airport 2 on the World Aviaiton Festival 2022 in Amsterdam - A lively discussion about the shortage of staff in 2022, the reasons behind and how can we avoid it in the future.

The shortage of staff not only appeared in operational areas but as well is known for digital talents or maintenance engineers.

A big thank you to all participants: Manon ten Have from #icelandair, Ioannis Anagnostakis from #Emirates, Joyce Hu from #KLM, Felisa Pérez Luengo #Vinci, Arash Abed from #Aviationsource and Francesco De Toma from #SAP and Michelle Gossen from #aviationworks

Please find the results of our very exciting round table. We could have talked for a much longer time, because it is one of the basics challenges of our industry. It was a pleasure.

What where the reasons behind the shortage of operational staff this summer?

This is what the participants at our roundtable see as the reasons behind the  staff shortage in aviation  2022:

-  Baggage handling is a physical hard work – for a low loan à this people find better alternatives
- Pandemic: to many  Layoffs & early retirements and
Migrant workers did not come back
- we Have reacted too late with the wage increases, we have not invested in the right places
- the traffic just bounced almost in a vertical line
- Clearance and background checks take months
- Airlines & Airports do not have a long-term view of planning, but only in the short term
- we lost the time to react and bring back the people, also for better conditions, since the companies were under economic pressure

-         Airlines did not learn from history and exciting data
-         Aviation is not attractive anymore
-         “We talk about risk management (…), but we just talk.”
-         Cabin crew and ground handling find quickly other jobs
-         Loyalty problem

 
How do you prepare for 2023?

-         Making the aviation industry attractive again
-         Planning part has to become better
-         Conditions (salary) has to become better
-         Not talk, but act
-         We should have a scenario planning a, b,c, that we create using data from the past
-         We already have data, but in the past we did not used it properly, only collected it.
-         Do faster planning, have resilience, and agility
-         We have to plan differently than before

What do we recommend to avoid future staff shortage?

Don’t stop your recruitment during winter period

There is a trend in the aviaiton industry - espcially at airort - ot say_ "Ok we survived somehwo the summer peak, let's slow down and relax". Well - christmas is coming every year, so does the higher demand in spring and summer. Be prepared next year and follow a continous recruitment path. 

Innovative recruitment campaigns

Recruitment campaings are key to successfully filling roles. Envolve you Marketing and PR department to set up innovative campaigns, use employer branding instruments. Setup Recrutiment Days oand job fairs or special events. Partner with a hit football club or other posititve influencing stakeholders.

Prepare your HR &  Onboarding Resources

Talk to  Governments and associations

- open (European) aviation labor market for 3rd country worker

why is the Europeean marekt still limited to Europeans and all other aviaiton enthusisasts need to ask for Vis and working permits whoch takes monthst or even years to get? We need a flixible regulation that allows the indstry to cove rpeaks easily with good trained staff coming form thirs countreis out of Europe.

- mutual recognition of a certificates and background checks

We work under IATA rule and regulations which are in all countries the same for airports. And still we are having the luxury situation that a background check, perfomed under the same  rules in Romania or Italy is not accepted in Germany or France? Why does a person coming from an airport in Copenhagen who likes to work in Munic need to wait 12 weeks or  longer for the bavarian version of the background check? Luxury.

We are waiting for your questions and are here for your support. Contact our team.