Abstract:

Aviation is undergoing radical change. Technological advances in aviation mean it is expected to be a much more digital environment than today. To adapt aviation professionals, and more specifically air transport professionals, we need to start by adapting the education they receive before and during their careers. AVIONIC, a project funded by the EU through the Erasmus+ programme, aims to change air transport education and adapt it to the digitalisation of the industry.

To achieve this, AVIONIC is first developing a methodology to identify digital trends for today's professionals. Employees, managers, and educators will be the ones to contribute their vision in this project to adapt education to digital aviation. This allows for the creation of courses and the improvement of existing ones based on real needs.

The methodology on which AVIONIC will be based will be divided into three steps. Firstly, the work already carried out will be analysed in order to find out the theoretical needs that the academy poses for digital aviation and, therefore, the improvement of professionals' skills. With these results, together with the opinion of the expert partners, questionnaires will be developed on future occupations and the competencies that professionals will need to have. These questionnaires collect information from employees, company managers, and educators. This will provide a complete picture. This information will make it possible to draw up a list of occupations that will exist in the air transport of the future and competencies that future professionals will need to have to adapt to digitalisation. From these competences we will identify the knowledge and skills necessary for the new smart qualifications.

And the final step will be the creation or modification of academic courses the creation and update of knowledge and skills for existing and emerging new smart qualifications based on the results obtained. The AVIONIC project is made up of a consortium of several universities and companies, so these courses will directly serve to improve education in air transport and anticipate the change that the industry will undergo. These course changes will allow students to focus more on the digital skills that will be the benchmark of aviation of the future. For once, and in the face of imminent change, education will be able to stay ahead of the industry thanks to the work done at AVIONIC.

The expected results are summarised in a list of emerging and dissolvable occupations. Once the list is obtained, the idea is to design curricula and programmes based on ICT tools and innovative approaches so that both current and future members of the sector have the competencies required to meet the needs of the industry. In addition, it is important to stress that the new curricula should not only be aimed at digitalisation, but also at European countries' commitment to sustainable development in aviation in the years to come.

Keywords:

Air transport, curricula, digital skills, new occupations, sustainable development.