Abstract:

Air transport’s key role of enabling important economic activities was altered by the unprecedented challenge given by COVID-19 pandemic. As the International Civil Aviation Organisation shows, the 60% air traffic decrease compared to 2019 reflects the worst historical aviation fall-off; leading to impairment in business dynamics, organizational issues and operational risks. The emerging crisis outlines important effects on revenues, potential airline bankruptcies, substantial changes in demand and a burdensome recovery of operational activities. More so, a risk assessment of the current situation shows effects not only on airports and airlines – due to the decrease of gross operating revenues, but also on aircraft manufacturers and other suppliers, who were forced to stop large orders.

The analysis of actions aimed at minimizing COVID-19 associated risks or mitigating its impact also calls for reactions to workforce and employability issues in aviation due to this exogenous factor. The adaptation of workplace procedures in the context of compliance with health requirements and low traffic demand has led to organizational prioritization of activities, with an impact on aviation jobs. This was a trigger for accelerating the level of digitization of specific processes and increasing the significance of the means of electronic communication.

A wide diversity of smart occupations in aviation will replace existing ones or are undergoing transformations, the multi-disciplinary jobs identified for the future labor market focusing especially on digitalization. For existing occupations, new competences will be added; thus novel learning outcomes will be associated to existing qualifications. Regarding new occupations, the COVID-19 regulations for airports and airlines demand other competences; as a consequence, new qualifications will be supplementing existing ones. The dynamics of changes indirectly concerns educational and training programmes, which is of interest for the continuous improvement of the interdisciplinary international master programme “IT Applied in Aviation” developed by UNESCO Chair at University Politehnica of Bucharest. An example is the current trend to add new learning outcomes for developing touchless equipment for airports.

Higher education must learn from this pandemic, not only by digitalizing the training system and implementing e-learning platforms but increasing the level of awareness on future prospects for career development of aviation employees. The quality of the educational process considers connected learning and might also involve tutoring and coaching of students-future employees, who must reinvent themselves for facing real challenges. For this, Politehnica University’s UNESCO Chair works collaboratively with the industry, in order to further develop the ITAA innovative master programme, carrying out the training program and specific modules which contribute to a good match of the learning outcomes with interdisciplinary skills and competences required by air transport, connecting technology with education by integrating the use of advanced software for aerospace applications.

The research on the impact of COVID-19 on jobs and qualifications was developed within the “Knowledge Alliance in Air Transport” project, co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme, whose target is to collaborate with educational institutions, the industry and regulators to provide competent workforce for the air transport labor market.

Keywords:

Air transport, qualifications, interdisciplinarity, study programmes, future prospects in aviation.