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Shortage of Skills in

European Business

Aviation

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2 © Copyright 2016, Korn Ferry

1 Table of Contents

1 TERMINOLOGY 5

2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 6

3 DYNAMIC, DIVERSE, REGULATED: BUSINESS AVIATION IN

CONTEXT 10

3.1 WHAT IS BUSINESS AVIATION? 11

3.2 TECHNOLOGY TRENDS 17

3.3 THE REGULATORY SITUATION 18

4 BUSINESS AVIATION WORKFORCE: MOSTLY CLEAR, POSSIBLE

STORMS AHEAD 25

4.1 STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES 26

4.2 MAPPING THE SECTOR’s KEY ROLES 27

4.3 WORKFORCE SIZE 29

4.4 WORKFORCE STRUCTURE AND SIZE Across Europe 30

4.5 AGE AND DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGES 32

4.6 GENDER BALANCE 34

4.7 LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT: ATTRITION AND MOBILITY 36

4.8 USING EXTERNAL RESOURCES 37

4.9 CAREER OPPORTUNITIES 37

4.10 HR POLICIES AND OPERATIONS 38

4.11 AN ATTRACTIVE SECTOR… IN NEED OF VISIBILITY 39

5 ARE OTHER SECTORS BETTER PREPARED? THE SITUATION IN

COMMERCIAL AVIATION 47

6 BUSINESS AVIATION WORKFORCE: SEGMENT BY SEGMENT 52

6.1 BUSINESS AVIATION WORKFORCE: THE BIG PICTURE 53

6.2 OPERATORS 55

6.3 MROs 61

6.4 FBOs 66

6.5 AIRPORTS 70

6.6 MANUFACTURERS 75

7 COMPETING FOR CAPTAINS, PILOTS AND TECHNICIANS -

CRITICAL ROLE SHORTAGES 79

7.1 IDENTIFICATION OF CRITICAL ROLES AND SKILLS 80

7.2 WORKFORCE DRIVERS 81

7.3 WORKFORCE RISKS 82

8 WEATHERING THE STORM: HOW TO CLOSE WORKFORCE

GAPS 84

8.1 CURRENT PROGRAMMES TO CLOSE WORKFORCE GAPS 85


8.2 POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS 88

8.3 COST, FUNDING AND IMPACT OF SOLUTIONS 107

9 METHODOLOGY 111

9.1 OVERVIEW OF APPROACH 111

9.2 INTERVIEWS 111

10 APPENDIX 113

10.1 REFERENCES 113

10.2 ACRONYMS 119

10.3 JOB FAMILY FRAMEWORK 120

10.4 BUSINESS AVIATION IN OTHER REGIONS 125

10.5 EDUCATION AND TRAINING IN BUSINESS AVIATION: DEMANDING,

REWARDING – AND HIGHLY SPECIALISED 135

11 CONTACT THE AUTHORS 146


TIME FOR CHANGE Business Aviation is facing a future workforce shortage that will heavily affect an industry with scant awareness of this fact


1 TERMINOLOGY

Term Description

Commercial Aviation

Scheduled flights that are performed according to a published timetable and can be booked by individuals.

Dispatcher Role that plans flight routes, schedules and dispatches crews and equipment.

Engineer Professional, chartered, or incorporated engineer with a scientific training and a university engineering degree. Designs and builds complex

products, machines, systems or structures.

Graduate A person who has successfully completed a course of study at a university or other higher education entity.

Job family Roles are incorporated in a job family that includes a number of different levels of the same type of work.

Role Set of jobs that have the same purpose and type of accountabilities, such as an engineer or pilot.

Skill Skills are required competencies (and levels) for specific roles.

(Aircraft Maintenance) Technician

Licensed role for carrying out aircraft maintenance. Technicians perform, supervise, and inspect maintenance; preventive maintenance; and alteration of aircraft and aircraft systems.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_maintenance


2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Study Parameters

Korn Ferry Hay Group, with the support of Booz Allen Hamilton, conducted

a study on skills shortages in the European Business Aviation sector on

behalf of the European Business Aviation Association (EBAA), between

August 2015 and May 2016.

Study aims and objectives

Investigate whether there are currently skills shortages within the

European Business Aviation sector

Examine the likelihood of future workforce shortages within Business

Aviation

Evaluate the impact of workforce skills shortages in the present or in

the future

Assess workforce situations on a regional basis, through undertaking a

comparative study of Europe, North America and Asia

Gauge the attractiveness of a career in Business Aviation to students

and graduates

Appraise the validity of proposed solutions to workforce shortages

within the sector

Key Findings

Little awareness of workforce shortages within Business Aviation

Although there is some awareness of current skills shortages within the

Business Aviation sector – particularly concerning pilots and maintenance

technicians – this is not widespread. Smaller companies in particular focus

on their immediate employment needs, showing little concern for key

sectoral skills shortages.

Evidence of increased demand for highly skilled aviation

professionals

Aviation industry statistical data forecasts growth in commercial aviation

with a commensurate increase in demand for specialised aviation

professionals, including those roles most highly sought by European

Business Aviation companies.

Airlines seem more aware of the growing competition for specialised

employees, and so are more likely to take measures to attract pilots and

technicians, who are in great demand.

Smaller Business Aviation operations generally do not have the Human

Resources set-ups to attract those aviation professionals who are in

greatest demand, particularly when facing competition from commercial

and regional airlines.


Supply of the most highly valued aviation skills likely to tighten in the

coming years

The supply of highly trained, technically specialised employees is

diminishing in Europe. The number of students in STEM (Science,

Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects in higher education

continues to fall in Europe, despite increasing demand for STEM-qualified

graduates in sectors such as aviation.

Low attrition rates and high levels of employee loyalty may be mitigating

awareness of imminent workplace skills shortages in Business Aviation.

Competition for highly skilled aviation professionals set to intensify

Airlines appear more attentive to the fact that competition for highly skilled

aviation professionals is likely to intensify as workforce shortages become

more evident. Technological developments in aviation will mean that the

skillsets and job requirements of key professionals, such as pilots and

technicians, will rise, increasing competition for these highly skilled

professionals as the aviation sector continues to grow.

Regional differences in demand and availability of skilled aviation

professionals

In regions where airlines growth is most rapid, demand for certain skilled

aviation professionals will increase considerably in the coming years.

•Growth in demand by commercial airlines, especially for pilots and technicians

•Stagnant or slightly decreasing demand in Business Aviation

•Rising demand for technical jobs in other sectors

•Regulation leads to additional demand

•Technology development will probably lead to slight decrease in demand

•Shrinking workforce in Europe

•Stagnant student numbers in STEM subjects

•Low female ratio in aviation

•Shrinking supply from military as key source of critical jobs

•Major differences in workforce availability between countries (demographic change, technical education)

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Creating Solutions

The following proposed solutions focus on the levers that influence skills

acquisition and aviation workforce supply.

Increase awareness of workplace skills shortages in the Business

Aviation Sector

Develop a sectoral-wide campaign throughout Europe’s Business

Aviation sector aimed at increasing awareness of workplace skills

shortages, clearly showing how this issue will have a negative impact

on the industry if not addressed immediately

Raise consciousness of regional dimension of workplace skills

shortages, which will need to be addressed strategically on a regional

basis

Make European Business Aviation sector a more attractive career

option

Launch common employer branding activities with other aviation

stakeholders

Create a package of measures to attract more talented aviation

professionals toward Europe’s Business Aviation sector

Build a compelling sectoral brand, through a programme of branding

and marketing activities, that will make Business Aviation a more

attractive proposition to the highly skilled, technology savvy aviation

professionals who are increasingly going to be in great demand


Increase in-house training and educational opportunities

Increase the availability of in-house training and educational

programmes to further strengthen employee loyalty

Ensure current employees stay ahead of the curve of technological

developments within aviation

Engage with universities and technical institutes to ensure that highly

skilled STEM graduates are steered toward an attractive career in

Business Aviation

Work towards creating a talent pipeline of motivated young people to

be channelled toward rewarding and challenging jobs within Europe’s

Business Aviation sector

Encourage the development of HR capacities

Help Europe’s Business Aviation companies develop their Human

Resources activities in order to be more proactive in attracting the

highly sought-after, technologically trained professionals to fulfilling

careers in Business Aviation

Encourage and assist HR professionals to make Business Aviation

more attractive to female students and graduates, who are under-

represented in STEM subjects

Promote greater awareness of the potential for increased gender

diversity within Business Aviation as it makes good business sense

Boost good practices within Business Aviation in order to better retain

valuable staff, particularly as competition among the airline sectors for

experienced technicians and pilots will increase significantly in future


3 DYNAMIC, DIVERSE, REGULATED: BUSINESS AVIATION IN CONTEXT

SUMMARY

Business Aviation in Europe is diverse, in the process of consolidating, and

with new operator business models emerging. Contrary to commercial

aviation, Business Aviation industry stakeholders are expecting low growth

or stagnation. The sector is quite small compared to other aviation

segments and its workforce developments will largely be shaped by the

larger aviation sectors. Business Aviation will have to adapt accordingly.

Technological developments, such as digitization, new production methods

and types of materials, and increased automation, present a mixed picture.

Certain developments will mean fewer people are needed, while some jobs

will require additional people and different skillsets. For example, more IT

jobs will need to be filled moving forward, whereas people with those skills

are relatively scarce in Business Aviation.

Regulations present a mixed picture as well, in that some countries are

more rigorous when it comes to implementing EU EASA standards and

others exploit perceived loopholes. EBAA should continue to advocate less

burdensome regulations for the sector. The growing importance of security

issues means more people may need to be employed in these areas.


3.1 WHAT IS BUSINESS AVIATION?

Business Aviation is defined as the usage of an aircraft “to carry personnel

and/or property to meet the transport needs of officials of a business, firm,

company, or corporation.”1 Business Aviation competes with commercial

aviation and its services; but what makes Business Aviation unique is that it

takes its passengers ‘where they want to go, when they want to go’. It

offers its users a significantly higher level of flexibility and productivity.

Figure 1: Business Aviation Structure

Commercial Air Transport is a commercial operation whereby aircraft

transport passengers or cargo. It is divided into two subcategories:

Scheduled and Non-Scheduled flights. Scheduled flights take place in line

with a published timetable and can be booked in advance. Non-scheduled

flights are offered by a Business Aviation operator and can be booked on

demand by individuals or a company. In this case, the client has no

ownership of the aircraft. This segment is called Commercial Business

Aviation.2

General Aviation covers all civil aviation operations other than Commercial

Air Transport. Non-commercial Business Aviation has three subcategories:

Fractional Ownership, Owner-Operated, and Corporate Business Aviation.3

1 ICAO (2009)

2 ICAO

3 IBAC & ICAO

“The core offer

of Business

Aviation is a

transformation in

the level of

flexibility and

responsiveness

users gain

compared to

scheduled

airlines.” (Oxford

Economics)


Fractional Ownership refers to a number of different parties owning and

sharing an aircraft and employing a crew to staff it. Owner-Operated and

Corporate Business Aviation can be categorised as In-House Aviation and

describe all non-aviation companies or individuals operating their own

aircraft to support their daily business.

The above definition of Business Aviation is officially used by the

International Civil Aviation Organization and the International Business

Aviation Council.

For the purpose of this study, Business Aviation is defined as an industry

that “represents on demand, non-scheduled operation of aircraft with less

than 19-seat capacity”4. The study does not regard the Business Aviation

market as only comprising aircraft and the companies and individuals using

them. Other stakeholders are considered in this analysis, as well, as they

play an essential role in Business Aviation, providing aircraft operators with

products and services.

3.1.1 FOCUS ON THE REGIONS

Business Aviation is present in most European countries. However,

distribution of revenue and workforce across the continent is uneven. The

vast majority of Business Aviation employees are based in France,

Germany, UK, Italy, Switzerland, Spain and Poland.

Figure 2: Employment by country size

This study focuses on the markets of the EU9 countries: the UK, France,

Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Poland, Portugal and

Italy.

4 EBAA

“Business

Aviation

enables users

to achieve

more in the

same number

of hours or

days,

delivering a

valuable

productivity

boost.” (Oxford

Economics)


Figure 3: Regional focus of study

3.1.2 FOCUS ON THE SECTORS

The Business Aviation market involves several players who provide goods

and services on a B2B as well as on a B2C level. They are:5

Operators, i.e., all companies that operate an aircraft in the context of

Business Aviation.

Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MROs), companies that provide

said services to aircraft of other stakeholders in the Business Aviation

market and are usually based at or near airports.

Fixed Base Operators (FBOs), who provide ground operations to the

aircraft and passengers or crew, such as luggage handling or aircraft

fuelling.

The Business Aviation Airport, where aircraft take off, land and are

parked, as well as providing a base for many MROs and FBOs.

Manufacturers, who produce and assemble all parts of an aircraft.

They need to be in close contact with the rest of the chain to keep

abreast of their clients’ demands. Manufacturers account for around

€9bn in Business Aviation aircraft manufacturing.6

A clear differentiation between these market players is not always possible

as some companies provide services across market segments.

5 This report will elaborate on the different key players in Section 4.

6 Oxford Economics


3.1.3 MARKET SIZE

There are currently 1826 different Business Aviation players present in the

EU9.7 8 Operators and airports make up the largest stakeholder groups,

with 979 operators and 656 airports in the overall EU9. By comparison, the

numbers of MROs, FBOs and manufacturers are significantly smaller.9

Figure 4: Number of Market Players in Business Aviation

Business Aviation companies employ some 87,000 employees. Compared

with the overall air transport industry (in EU28), which generates about 2m

jobs directly, this is a relatively small number. Therefore, changes in overall

aviation might have a considerable impact on Business Aviation.

Figure 5: Total Business Aviation Workforce in Europe

7 DLR

8 The number of operators includes all unconfirmed operators. For 33 MROs, it is not clear whether they maintain helicopters or fixed wing aircraft. Some manufacturers operate in different countries and are listed multiple times (e.g. Airbus). Data for airports includes

helicopters.

9 DLR

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

Operators Airports MROs FBOs Manufacturers


3.1.4 MARKET TRENDS

The following trends have been identified based on research and

interviews with stakeholders:

Overall Market Stagnation or Low Growth

Growth forecasts in Business Aviation are not consistent, depending on the

regional market or type of company. The worldwide Business Aviation fleet

is forecast to grow in the years 2013 to 2023, from 32,740 to 42,682

aircraft, equalling about 30% of the overall aviation fleet. The North

American fleet is projected to grow by approximately 22%, to a fleet size of

about 24,786 by 2023. By comparison, in 2013 the European fleet share

was 11% of the global market, accounting for 3776 aircraft, and is forecast

to grow by approximately 20% to 4565 aircraft by 2023.

Figure 6: Forecast global and European Business Aviation fleet size changes from 2013 to 2023

In terms of the Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR), the European

fleet share is forecast to grow by 2% CAGR through 2023. While Eastern

Europe is forecast to grow by 3.9% CAGR, the impact of political turmoil

could hamper this growth. Western Europe is forecast to grow at a slower

rate of 1.7% CAGR.

Most Business Aviation operators interviewed expect to see fleet

growth rates of less than 2% at best.10

10 Detailed analysis can be found in section 4

0

5000

10000

15000

20000

25000

30000

35000

40000

45000

World North America Rest of World Europe

Num

be

r o

f A

ircra

ft

2013 2023

“Business

Aviation Market

is saturated

and will at its

best stagnate”

(Operator)

“The Business

Aviation

market will be

growing in the

coming years”

(University)


Market Consolidation

The European Business Aviation market is expected to undergo

consolidation as higher price pressure and an increase in regulations affect

all players. Smaller companies might exit the market due to competitive

pressure and more stringent regulatory requirements. There is a general

trend toward merger & acquisition activities (M&A). These M&As will lead

to market consolidation and several big, pan-European Business Aviation

companies are likely to emerge. Examples of recent M&A activities include:

The acquisition of ExecuJet Aviation Group by Luxaviation (2015)

The merger of Eclipse Aviation and Kestrel Aircraft (2015)

Luxaviation’s acquisition of a large stake in Masterjet (2015)

The merger of Hangar 8 and Gama Aviation (2014)

Luxaviation’s acquisition of a large stake in London Executive Aviation

(2014)

The acquisition of Unijet by Luxaviation (2014)

The acquisition of Abelag by Luxaviation (2013)

The acquisition of Fairjets by Luxaviation (2011)11

In the longer-term, mid-sized companies are still likely to dominate the

market and provide appropriate client relationship management.

New Operator Business Models

At the same time, new business models have arisen, including NetJets and

VistaJet, providing a different kind of service and operating in a different

way, for instance with different rosters.

Competition from Other Regions

Experts also forecast increased competition coming from Eastern Europe

and non-European regions. MROs might be tempted to move some

maintenance work to low-cost locations.

Changes in Airport Landscape

The airport market differs considerably between countries. Due to

regulation and cost issues, the number of airports is likely to decrease.

11 Hay Group analysis of market data.


3.2 TECHNOLOGY TRENDS

3.2.1 KEY TRENDS

Business Aviation experts agree on a number of fundamental technology

trends that will affect the workforce, directly or indirectly.

Digitalization will affect Business Aviation heavily, with Avionics

gaining in importance

Big Data, which supports predictive analytics, inventory optimization,

monitoring of usage patterns and tracking of equipment health

Mobile technology, which leads to the integration of mobile apps in

the information system across all MRO operations

Systems integration, leading to consolidation of MRO databases, for

instance12

Production methods, with additive manufacturing and 3-D printing

potentially revolutionizing the supply chain for spare parts for MROs

and manufacturers

New types of materials, with composites being introduced into the

aviation sector

Standardized processes in flight operations and maintenance

through increased automation, thus increasing safety and efficiency

More complex technology will require increased investment by

MROs and operators in highly trained employees to handle specific

needs13

Figure 7: Key technology drivers

12 Hay Group analysis based on various sources

13 Hay Group analysis based on market data.

Standardisation

Digitalisation &

automation

Production methods &

material


3.2.2 WHAT IMPACT ON THE WORKFORCE?

Workforce Size

Technology will not ease the workforce shortage considerably. Some

trends will lead to lower workforce demand due to automation. Different

jobs in Business Aviation will feel the impact differently, with higher

demand for IT skills and lower demand for administrative personnel.

Growth of aircraft size might have an adverse impact on the demand for

technicians at manufacturers, MROs and FBOs.

Workforce Skills

The impact of technology trends on required skillsets will be more

significant. Digitalization will lead to an increased demand for employees

with technological expertise at MROs, operators and manufacturers.

Advances in avionics and new aircraft materials, as well as changes to type

ratings, will also have an impact.

3.3 THE REGULATORY SITUATION

3.3.1 CURRENT REGULATORY ENVIRONMENT AND

IMPACT ON THE WORKFORCE

Regulatory Environment in Europe

Business Aviation is bound by the regulations relating to civil aviation

safety within the EU, which are based on requirements stipulated in

Regulation (EC) 216/2008, known as the Basic Regulation. The main goal

of this regulatory framework is to ensure a uniform level of civil aviation

safety and environmental protection across Europe. To achieve this, the

European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) was established as the

European Union authority for aviation safety. It works with the National

Aviation Authorities of the EU member states as well as with Lichtenstein,

Norway, Switzerland, and Iceland.

Key Regulations that Affect the Business Aviation Workforce by

Sector Segment

The impact of existing regulations on the workforce depends on four key

factors:


Figure 8: EASA identifies four factors to be considered when determining the impact of regulations on the workforce of the member states.

These four factors are used by EASA as differentiators between

operations, companies and aircraft, in order to apply a proportional

approach when developing new regulations. As a consequence, the

effects on the Business Aviation workforce are expected to be mitigated.

The existing regulation with potential impact on the European Business

Aviation workforce encompasses four areas:

Figure 9: Key EASA regulations affecting the aviation workforce including Airworthiness, Air Operations, Air Crew and Rules of the Air.

The regulations apply to airspace users and aircraft engaged in general air

traffic operating into, within or out of the EU, bearing the nationality and

registration ID of any member state of the Union, and operating in any

airspace to the extent that they do not conflict with the rules issued by the

country having jurisdiction over the territory entered.

Airworthiness

Air Operations

Air Crew

Rules of Engagement off-ground

•Complex motor-powered aircraft

•European Light Aircraft (ELA) of type 1 or 2Aircraft Type

• In a member state

• In a third countryRegistration of Aircraft

•Commercial/other than commercial

•Specialized commercial operationsType of Operations

•Complex organization/operator

•Non-complex organization/operatorComplexity of the

Organization


Impact on the Workforce

We can differentiate the effects of EASA regulations on the Business

Aviation workforce in function of its size, skills, and location.

Figure 10: The effects of key regulations on the Business Aviation workforce concern three aspects of the workforce landscape: size, skills, and location.

Workforce size

The proportional approach to aircraft maintenance requirements,

which differentiates between complex motor-powered aircraft used

for commercial air transport, aircraft used for less complex

operations, and non-complex aircraft used outside of commercial

activities, was introduced to afford aircraft owners greater

flexibility and lower cost.

The introduction of formal management systems like the Safety

Management System (SMS) requires additional competent staff

in the Business Aviation sector.

Increased security requirements introduced by regulations tend

to call for increases in the workforce responsible for passengers,

airport, and aircraft security.

According to Business Aviation operators, the more uniform and

standardised aviation landscape in Europe tends to mean an

increase in the number of people, particularly inspectors, required

to perform a task.

Compliance with Part-147 of Regulation (EU) 748/2012 is proving

to be extremely costly to small companies providing maintenance

and repair services (MROs) in Business Aviation. Small

companies in Europe are finding it challenging to implement the

regulation and still stay in business. Consolidations of larger

MRO companies as the small ones leave the market or fail to

enter it are also anticipated.

SK

ILL

S


Workforce skills

In order to fully leverage the skills of the current workforce and

allow for a smooth transition to a standardised system of

certification in the EU, the use of ‘grandfathering’ has been

maximised. Regulations allowing the conversion of existing

national pilot licenses and medical certificates, as well as the

conversion of existing flight engineer licenses, are now in place.

Meanwhile, the conditions for accepting licenses from other

countries and for the conversion of flight test qualifications, are

also prevalent.

EASA regulations introduce more training requirements for

technicians whose skillsets are expected to reach specific

standards.

Workforce location

The requirements to become a certified technician in the EU, the

cost and duration of the maintenance training programmes, and

the perspective of low pay and long working hours result in a

growing number of workers deciding to relocate to the Middle

East, where the cost of training is lower. This affects both training

providers and employees operating in the aircraft maintenance

sector.

Because of the recession in Europe, pilots have been moving

from Europe to Asia. The high cost of training compared to the

average entry-level salary in Business Aviation does not seem to

represent enough ROI for young pilots.

Collective agreements are another significant regulatory aspect.

Differing levels of regulation have an impact on the flexibility to

manage and reward the workforce.

Differences in Regulation Between Countries in Europe

EASA regulations are mandated at EU level while implementation in each

member state is the responsibility of national authorities. Current EU safety

regulations cover all domains of aviation safety and establish binding rules,

leaving no room for national differences across Europe.

Despite this, interviewees reported differences between European

countries in terms of the rigour with which binding rules are implemented.

In order to avoid issues with aircraft registration, some countries require

aircraft to be registered with the country’s Aircraft Registry within the first

six months following initial operation in the country. However, this is only

required in a few EASA member states.

Derogations

To ensure a smooth transition from one regulation to another, EASA fixes

an entry-into-force date for each regulation accompanied by a time plan of

potential derogations each member state can decide to make use of.


Figure 11: A high percentage of EU and EFTA countries make use of derogations of EASA regulations (updated on 01/25/2016 from http:// easa.europa.edu).

3.3.2 FUTURE TRENDS IN REGULATION AND THEIR

IMPACT ON THE WORKFORCE

Implementation Plan of Key Regulations that Affect the

Workforce

Table 1 below shows the dates and Acceptable Means of Compliance for

each of the four key regulations affecting the workforce in Business

Aviation in effect in the European Union. Table 2 lists the derogations

allowed by EASA to mitigate the effects of the introduction of new

regulations on the workforce.

Area Number Date Acceptable Means Of Compliance

Airworthiness (EU) 1321/2014

26/11/2014 Part-M, Part-145, Part-66, Part-147

Air Operations

(EU) 965/2012

05/10/2012 Part-ARA, Part-CC, Part-FCL, Part-MED, Part-ORA

Aircrew (EU) 1178/2011

03/11/2011 GM, DEF, Part-ARO, Part-ORO, Part-CAT, Part-SPA, Part-NCC, Part-NCO, Part-SPO

Rules of the Air

(EU) 923/2012

26/09/2012 Remote Tower Operations, Rules of the Air

Table 1: Entry into force of key regulations affecting the workforce.

Derogations from (EU) 923/2012

Applying Pending


Applying

Not Applying

Pending


Applying Pending


Airworthiness – (EU) 1321/2014

Until April 21, 2017: For complex motor-powered aircraft used for commercial

specialised operations other than those by licensed air carriers, the operator or CAMO has to be approved in accordance with Part-145.

For other than complex motor-powered aircraft used for commercial specialised operations, the CAMO needs to be approved in accordance with Part-M Subpart-F or Part-145. The derogations allowed by EASA have the goal of making the transition to new means of compliance easier for the aircraft maintenance employees.

Air Operations – (EU) 965/2012

In order to ensure continuity with the previous regulations in place: Air operator certificates issued by a member state to operators

before the regulation applies shall be deemed to have been issued in accordance with this regulation. This action alleviates the time and economic burden for operators to obtain new certificates.

No later than October 28, 2014, operators shall adapt their management system, training programmes, procedures, and manuals and replace the existing AOCs to be compliant with the current regulation.

Aircrew – (EU) 1178/2011

Maximum use of possible ‘grandfathering’ was introduced to minimise the need for additional activities or staff related to existing national pilot licenses and medical certificates, existing flight engineer licenses, licenses from third countries, licenses obtained during military service, training commenced prior to the application of the regulation.

By way of derogation, member states may decide not to convert non-JAR compliant licenses until April 8, 2014. This allows for more time for aircrew members and their employers to transition to the new standard of licenses.

Alleviations for the implementation of SMS have been foreseen with regard to the complexity of the organisations and risk of activities. SMS requirements introduce extra costs and management layers. In order to differentiate between types of organisations, EASA envisions alleviations to avoid over-regulating some branches of Aviation like Business Aviation.

Rules of the Air – (EU) 923/2012

By way of derogation, member states may decide not to apply the provisions of the regulation until December 4, 2014.

Table 2: Mitigation of effects through derogations


Future of the Regulatory Environment in Europe and its Effects

on the Workforce

In the next five years, we see the European regulatory environment taking

the following shape.

Implementation of the Aircrew and Air Operations rule should take

place in the time span 2014-2017, with the effect that current license

holders will either have to convert their current document or

obtain a new one.

Significant changes to the aviation industry will come from Safety

Management System (SMS) implementation. Highly regulated

management systems will need skilled managers knowledgeable in

terms of regulations as well as additional layers of supervision

within companies.

Competent authorities’ oversight will increasingly be more risk-based,

which means inspectors’ presence and work will be optimised to avoid

unnecessary control.

Following the GA Roadmap, some significant modifications will be

introduced in Airworthiness, Air Operations and Aircrew to simplify

regulations applying to General Aviation. As a result, the Business

Aviation workforce should experience more flexibility.

The implementation of new aerodrome rules will represent a challenge.

New regulations applicable to aerodrome design, aerodrome

operators, aerodrome operations, and national aviation authorities

(NAAs) came into force in 2014. NAAs have a limited time to convert

existing aerodromes. During the transition period, NAAs and

aerodrome operators will need to build an effective working

relationship to achieve the transition on time, comply with all European

rules, and maintain a useful basis for continuing oversight and

certificate validity. Specific training will be required for NAA

personnel and aerodrome managers, engineers, safety experts,

service contractors, and human factors specialists.


4 BUSINESS AVIATION WORKFORCE: MOSTLY CLEAR, POSSIBLE STORMS AHEAD

SUMMARY

Business Aviation has enjoyed a protective bubble up to now, due to its low

attrition rates and high loyalty levels among its employees, as well as low

level of growth. However, this could change, as the current workforce ages

and commercial aviation continues to grow.

The sector faces a gender problem, with low rates of female participation in

Business Aviation, except for in a few specific roles. This will become more

of a problem as the overall workforce shrinks, since Business Aviation is

primarily recruiting from only the male half of the population.

The implication here is that Business Aviation needs to improve its gender

ratio. Demographics suggest that the sector cannot depend on low attrition

rates to protect it. The demographic challenges are different country by

country.

Young people and graduates generally perceive Business Aviation quite

positively, though not as a first career choice. At the same time, they

assume they will have significant career opportunities in Business Aviation,

but this is not necessarily the case. If they join smaller companies, they will

have a more holistic career path, in that they can be expected to undertake

many different tasks. However, if they want broader career opportunities,

they are likely to find these in the larger aviation companies, outside of

Business Aviation.

The most important insight from this chapter is that Business Aviation, and

aviation overall, needs to work to make itself more attractive not only to

young people, graduates and women, but also to all those highly skilled,

technically savvy aviation professionals who are going to other aviation

segments or sectors. To be able to achieve this, it also needs to improve its

HR practices as well.


4.1 STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

Workforce SWOT for Business Aviation

Helpful Harmful

Inte

rnal

Interesting scope of work for employees with bigger diversity of tasks and higher responsibility (depending on jobs).

Family-like culture in many companies in the sector due to the company size with positive impact on people engagement and loyalty to the company (employee retention).

Many companies seem to have a balanced workforce structure from an age perspective.

Flexibility in rewarding people.

Little to no awareness of future workforce shortages.

Lack of internal career perspectives.

Difficult, unreliable working schedules for selected jobs (lack of dependability, no work/life balance).

Low level of HR maturity, including recruiting and talent management.

Low (employer) brand recognition in the sector.

Male-dominated environment.

Ex

tern

al

Aviation and especially Business Aviation is inspirational and is very attractive for many young people joining the workforce. This also applies to technology.

Growth in aviation overall will lead to programmes (e.g. education) being set up to address workforce shortages. Business Aviation will benefit from this action.

Broad diversity of training opportunities.

New technologies leading to higher efficiency and lower workforce demand.

Mergers will lead to bigger, more professional and efficient organisations.

Some cost problems due to competition.

Seemingly lower job security due to size and dependency on key clients.

No growth (story) for many Business Aviation companies as sector stagnates.

Lack of skilled workers due to educational situation in some countries.

Lack of female applicants in the workforce pool for critical jobs.

Growing regulation leads to higher education and training requirements (e.g. pilots) and additional effort (e.g. safety).

Very demanding, somewhat eccentric clients.

Demographic change: Not enough qualified young people entering the labour market.

Table 3: Workforce SWOT Business Aviation


Workforce SWOT for Commercial Aviation

Helpful Harmful

Inte

rnal

Broad career perspectives (depending on company size) for many job groups.

Clear and dependable work schedule.

Sophisticated, comprehensive training programmes.

In many cases, high employer branding (status) with global reach.

Large pool of highly qualified applicants, including

global sourcing.

Job security (e.g. in case of bigger airlines).

In many cases, own educational entities and training programmes.

Financing rewards for training of future employees.

Narrow scope of many jobs, somewhat ’production-

like’ in some cases.

Corporate culture often with little freedom to act.

Higher levels of bureaucracy and administration.

Higher overall people costs (e.g., due to higher unionisation, and benefits such as pension schemes).

Lack of organisational flexibility.

Less openness for certain job candidates.

Ex

tern

al Growth of worldwide commercial aviation traffic and

increasing fleet size leads to higher workforce demand.

Lobbying power of commercial airlines regarding

workforce-related topics.

Competitive situation in commercial aviation in Europe (Middle Eastern Airlines, Low Cost Carriers) will deeply affect both workforce supply and demand, and the required personnel cost level.

High unionisation restricts workforce flexibility and

impacts reward levels.

Table 4: Workforce SWOT Commercial Aviation

4.2 MAPPING THE SECTOR’S KEY ROLES

4.2.1 OVERVIEW OF JOB FAMILY CONCEPT

Based on the 50+ interviews, we

developed a job family framework for

the Business Aviation sector. This is

essentially a map of all the different

(key) roles in the sector. The

framework defines and differentiates

levels within a job type. Job families

often overlap with organisational

functions, but they are not identical

(for instance, there might be Finance

and Controlling job family roles in a

Production unit).

With this job family framework, we aim

to:

Establish a common understanding of the workforce and its different

roles.


Provide a common language in Europe for all (key) positions in

Business Aviation companies.

Facilitate career paths in the sector, and benchmarking jobs and skills

within the sector, as well as people development.

Identify critical roles with respect to workforce shortages.

4.2.2 BUSINESS AVIATION JOB FAMILY FRAMEWORK

The job family framework is divided into core job families and sub-families

(excluding enabling functions):

Ground Operations

Flight Operations

Flight Personnel

Operations Centre

Completions & Maintenance

Aircraft Completions

Maintenance & Engineering

Marketing, Sales & Customer Service

Airport & Facility Management

The following levels (job types) apply:

Head

Manager

Professional

Supervisor

Operator


The following table features the complete job family framework; detailed

descriptions of the roles and levels are listed in the appendix.

Table 5: Job family framework for Business Aviation

4.3 WORKFORCE SIZE

Within the EU9, Business Aviation employs 71,828 workers across the four

main industry sub-segments: Operators, MROs, FBOs, and Manufacturers.

As shown below, manufacturers are the major employers (56%), followed

by operators (34%), while FBOs account for only 1% of the labour force

(1040 people).

Figure 12: Employees per Industry Sector EU9

1%

9%

34%56%

FBOs MROs Operators Manufacturers


France, Germany and the UK employ the highest number of Business

Aviation personnel, accounting for approximately 75% of the total in the

EU9. On average, 38 of every 100,000 people in the EU9 work in the

Business Aviation industry. Switzerland has the most per capita, with 139

employees per 100,000 people.

In the EU9, the employee-per-aircraft ratio is approximately 13. Poland has

approximately 23 people employed per owned aircraft.

Figure 13: Direct employees per country in the EU9 (Operator, MRO, Manufacturer, FBO)

4.4 WORKFORCE STRUCTURE AND SIZE

ACROSS EUROPE

The interviews showed no striking differences between European

countries with regard to the overall workforce situation. Where

technical education is concerned, Switzerland, France and Germany

seem to be in a better position than many other countries.

Eastern Europe seems to have lower workforce mobility than Western

Europe.

Workforce Distribution Across Segments and Countries

France has the highest number of employees (23,681) working in the

Business Aviation industry, with the focus on manufacturing. The table

below shows that 46% of the Business Aviation manufacturing workforce is

employed in France. Germany has the highest percentage of employees at

Operators, MROs and FBOs (26-30%), while Switzerland has the second

largest MRO workforce (23% of all EU9 MRO employees). The United

Kingdom shares the second highest number of people working in the FBO

and operator segment.

23.681

16.657

13.431

6.316 5.412 2.724 1.767 1.589 1.291

-

5.000

10.000

15.000

20.000

25.000


Operators MROs FBOs Manufacturers

Belgium 5% 1% 1% 0%

Czech Republic 3% 5% 3% 4%

France 14% 18% 15% 46%

Germany 26% 27% 30% 20%

Italy 8% 8% 8% 7%

Poland 4% 2% 3% 2%

Portugal 4% 1% 7% 1%

Switzerland 12% 23% 11% 4%

UK 24% 15% 21% 15%

Total 100% 100% 100% 100%

Table 6: Employees per country and segment (%)

Overall, 38 out of 100,000 people work in the Business Aviation industry in

the EU9.

Table 7: Business Aviation employees per country labour force (per 100,000)14

Workforce Efficiency

The figure below shows that in the EU9, approximately 13 employees are

needed to operate one aircraft. In Portugal, operators only employ around

eight persons per owned aircraft, which represents the lowest ratio in the

EU9. This might be attributed to the dominance of one global player in this

country.

14 Analysis based on data provided by DLR and Eurostat (2013)

Country Operators MROs FBOs Manufacturers Total

Belgium 20 1 0,2 0 22

Czech Republic 13 6 0,6 27 45

France 10 4 0,5 56 70

Germany 14 4 0,7 19 37

Italy 6 2 0,3 8 16

Poland 4 1 0,2 3 8

Portugal 18 2 1,2 7 28

Switzerland 63 34 2,5 40 139

UK 18 3 0,7 19 40

EU9 13 4 0,5 21 38


Figure 14: Employees per Aircraft15

4.5 AGE AND DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGES

4.5.1 AGE STRUCTURE

Generally, the age structure in Business Aviation companies is well-

balanced, with no particular disparity in age group representation. A

preponderance of employees in ground operations are under the age of 40.

Research indicates that, in some countries, the situation might be

problematic with regard to specific jobs. For example, the age structure of

the MRO licensed workforce in the UK could be problematic, with close to

half of MRO license holders in the UK in 2014 over the age of 50.

4.5.2 DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGES IN EUROPE

To analyse possible future workforce gaps in Business Aviation, it is

important to know how demographics will develop in the coming years. The

figure below charts the future population and workforce (ages 25-64) of

EU9 countries through the year 2050.

15 Analysis based on data provided by DLR

23

1716

1413 13 12 12

10

8

1

5 6

34

3 3

1

6

2

0

5

10

15

20

25E

mplo

yees /

Aircra

ft

Operator MRO


Figure 15: EU9 population vs. workforce development in thousands16

According to these numbers, Europe’s dramatic demographic changes in

the next 25 years will clearly impact the labour market. The general

population will increase while the workforce will decrease by around 15m

people within the next 15 years. This development will already start within

the next five years and is going to accelerate.

The demographic change will have a different impact in each European

country. Germany, Poland and Portugal, for example, will lose 20% to 30%

of their workforce within the next 35 years.

As the workforce shrinks, there will be a high demand for staff to replace

retiring workers. This will lead to general skills shortages throughout all

industries and will impact the Business Aviation industry.

2015 2050 Absolute Change

Relative Change

Belgium 6,019 7,156 +1,138 +19%

Czech Republic 5,969 5,182 -787 -13%

France 33,798 33,919 +122 0%

Germany 44,789 34,529 -10,261 -23%

Italy 33,179 31,437 -1,743 -5%

Poland 22,259 16,715 -5,544 -25%

Portugal 5,680 3,995 -1,685 -30%

Switzerland 4,588 5,291 +703 +15%

UK 33,669 36,607 +2,938 +9%

Total EU9 189,950 174,831 -15,119 -8%

Table 8: Future EU9 workforce development in thousands17

16 Eurostat (2013)

17 Eurostat

170.000

175.000

180.000

185.000

190.000

195.000

200.000

205.000

210.000

340.000

345.000

350.000

355.000

360.000

365.000

370.000

375.000

380.000

2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 2040 2045 2050

Population EU9 Workforce EU9


4.6 GENDER BALANCE

The overall female proportion in Business Aviation is very low, with the

exception of some jobs, such as flight attendants, marketing specialists,

accounting, or customer service representatives.

There are very few female pilots or technicians, whether at operators or

MROs. This image of a male-dominated industry can be attributed to:

Culture of the industry and perception of ‘heavy work’

Lower female ratio of graduates in technical jobs

According to Women in Aviation International, in the US, 6.6% of women

are pilots and just 2.2% are female mechanics. According to the Royal

Academy of Engineering, only 6% of the UK's engineering professionals

are female, and an even lower proportion of women work in aerospace

(11% versus 19%).

However, there have been signs of growth in the female pilot population in

recent years.


Country Pilots Estimate Female Pilots

Estimate Female Pilot Students

UNITED KINGDOM

14,684 6.37% 8.5%

GERMANY 11,881 7.11% 9%

SWITZERLAND 4,736 6.45% 10.1%

FRANCE 4,396 7.62% 7.1%

ITALY 2,984 4.89% 8.1%

BELGIUM 2,037 7.53% 11.3%

POLAND 291 5.26%

FINLAND 277 12.07%

CZECH REPUBLIC

263 2.73%

PORTUGAL 193 2.93%

USA 218,229 5.12% 12%

CANADA 6,852 6.78% 11.9%

Table 9: Female pilot population18

4.6.1 WHY SO FEW WOMEN?

Misperception and Mental Barriers

The main reason for this low female ratio is probably due to a

misperception of aviation – and technical jobs overall. The lack of accurate

and positive information about technical jobs and careers in aviation leads

to stereotyping and a lack of female role models, all of which deters

potential female workers.

According to a recent survey by British Airways19, 63% of women said they

were deterred from a career as a professional airline pilot because of a lack

of role models (e.g. pilots on TV) – or because they heard it was a man’s

job. While 20% said they thought women could only be cabin crew, 13%

said they had never been on a plane flown by a female pilot.

18 FAA’s Airman Directory, 2014, analysed with Namsor

19 British Airways press release, 2015


Gender Ratio Views of Industry Stakeholders

In general, industry stakeholders state that employers express a

preference for a more gender-balanced workforce. The low number of

female staff, particularly in technical jobs, is mainly attributed to the lack of

female applicants, due to women being under-represented in educational

programmes that have a technical scope.

Most sector professionals, including many of the women who were

interviewed, did not see a clear business disadvantage in having a small

number of female employees in their workforce.

4.7 LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT: ATTRITION AND

MOBILITY

The attrition rate, defined as voluntary and involuntary departure, ranges

from 0% to 15% in Business Aviation companies, with a very low median of

around 1% and 2%. Compared with other sectors’ attrition rates, this is

quite low.

A large number of experienced employees in Business Aviation have a

long tenure with the same employer, because people in the sector tend to

either leave quickly or stay until they retire. Additionally, smaller, family-led

companies usually create an organisational climate that generates loyalty

and a low attrition rate.

The attrition rate for younger employees tends to be higher. In theory, the

lifestyle in Business Aviation should be attractive to young people.

However, the sector can be associated with long working hours and high

expectations in terms of flexibility and client service expectations.

What leads to a positive attrition rate?

Family-like atmosphere

Interesting work (e.g., direct client work serving interesting people)

Broad scope of work

Minimal hierarchy

Interesting travel

Table 10: Factors for a low attrition rate

“Employees love it

or leave it”

(Operator/FBO)

“Not many

employees are

leaving us. Mostly

those who retire.”

(FBO)


4.8 USING EXTERNAL RESOURCES

Business Aviation is a seasonal business. There is a significant peak in

summer, around June and July, with some 66,000 flights, compared to a

low of some 42,000 flights in winter20.

Figure 16: Number of Business Aviation flights in EU9 in 2014 per month 21

The higher frequency of flights leads to increased demand for employees in

the summer, but this does not lead to more outsourcing.

4.9 CAREER OPPORTUNITIES

Career opportunities are the weak point in Business Aviation. Due to the

dominance of small and medium companies in the sector, Business

Aviation can provide fewer real career paths than commercial aviation.

In smaller companies, there are only two to three career levels for many job

families, and the number of leadership positions is limited. An option could

be to develop alternative horizontal career moves between job families.

Career paths across different companies would help, but company

executives may not support this.

This weakness cannot be solved in the short term, but ongoing M&A

activities might create long-term opportunities.

20 HayGroup Analysis based on WingX Data

21 HayGroup Analysis based on WingX Data

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

NU

MB

ER

OF

FL

IGH

TS

[T

HO

US

AN

DS

]


4.10 HR POLICIES AND OPERATIONS

We see major differences in HR policies and operations across Business

Aviation companies. The qualitative analysis suggests that, in the Business

Aviation industry, company size is a key driver for different maturity levels

in HR.

Figure 17: Different maturity levels in HR by company size / type

Many small and medium companies do not have dedicated HR

professionals.

Very few companies interviewed have sophisticated recruitment

processes, talent management or retention management. Additionally,

they often lack a basic reward strategy. Considering the growing

competition for employees with potentially higher reward levels in

commercial aviation, this shows potential areas where Business

Aviation is at a critical disadvantage.

Many small companies do not to train people in-house or ensure an

adequate talent pipeline by offering apprenticeship programmes.

Instead, their focus is on sending employees to mandatory training to

comply with regulations.

Small and medium Business Aviation firms

Bigger Business Aviation groups (often with several country operations)

Business Aviation units belonging to a bigger corporation

HR Maturity Level


Figure 18: Key HR areas that need to be addressed by HR professionals

4.11 AN ATTRACTIVE SECTOR… IN NEED OF

VISIBILITY

A key challenge for Business Aviation is the low level of awareness of the

attractiveness of the sector on the part of potential employees. This is a

key barrier to attracting the young people that will be needed to replace the

sector’s ageing population in the next 5 to 10 years.

4.11.1 ATTRACTING YOUNG TALENT

STEM Jobs

Many critical Business Aviation job clusters are so-called STEM jobs

(Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). A report by the

European Commission forecasts the need for an additional 1.4 million

employees in key STEM-related occupations in the EU28 between 2015

and 2025, representing an increase of approximately 10% in this period

(vs. 3% for all occupations) 22. Even if demand in Business Aviation does

not grow, demand from other sectors will lead to an overall shortage in the

labour pool.

22 European Commission

Employer Branding

Recruiting

Reward Management

Talent & Performance Management

Workforce Planning & Controlling

Employee Relations

Management

HR Administration


Figure 19: Projected employment development by occupational category (Cedefop 2011)

At the same time, workforce supply for these jobs is stagnating or

even declining (see figure below).

Figure 20: Proportion of upper-secondary Vocational Education & Training graduates in STEM-related subjects (Cedefop 2014)

While technology is still one of the most attractive areas for prospective

employees, in Europe there is still room for improvement. Generally, the

interest in technology-related jobs is high in Europe, but not high enough to

meet demand and there are major differences between regions.

Migration to Europe could help ease demographic problems. However,

Europe faces tough competition for skilled professionals from other

countries as it is not the preferred destination for STEM-skilled, third

country nationals.

Aviation

While airlines are still seen as desirable employers, the rest of the aviation

supply chain is less appealing. Even completing an education in aviation

does not necessarily mean joining the aviation workforce: a recent survey


by the Aviation Technician Education Council (ATEC) estimates that 25%

of aviation technician graduates pursue careers in non-aviation fields.

4.11.2 BUSINESS AVIATION ATTRACTIVENESS:

REAL BUT UNDERRATED

As part of this study, an employer branding survey was conducted with

aviation students at different European schools and universities.

Overall, Business Aviation is not doing badly. Though commercial aviation

was rated as attractive or very attractive by 88% of participants, 76% found

this to be true for Business Aviation. Nevertheless, Business Aviation not

only trails commercial aviation, but also the space industry, aircraft

maintenance and defence as very attractive.

Figure 21: Measure of aviation sector attractiveness

However, the current gap is not so big that it cannot be bridged.

A key challenge is low brand awareness: nearly half of the respondents

could not name any Business Aviation company. This shows the general

challenge the industry is facing. Its core is mostly small and medium

companies and even the bigger players are largely unknown.

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Very Attractive Attractive Neutral Unattractive Very Unattractive


Figure 22: Young talent top priority employers in Business Aviation

4.11.3 CAREER PRIORITIES

The top three factors to attract young talent are training and development,

good career prospects, and challenging work. Reliable working hours, an

attractive lifestyle and job security are considered less important.

Figure 23: Employee career priority factors

None

Airbus

Dassault

Cessna

Icelandair

Bombardier

Gestair

SAS

KLM

DAO Aviation

Join Jet

Sun-air

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Very Important Important Neutral Unimportant Very Unimportant


Business Aviation scores higher than commercial aviation in a number of

career priority factors. These include the areas of work-life balance, career

prospects, attractive salary, task variety, challenging work and attractive

lifestyle.

For some of the factors, the perception in this employee target group is

different from the reality, according to industry insiders – in particular

work/life balance and good career prospects. From an employer branding

perspective, it is good that Business Aviation is seen as more attractive.

However, this could have implications for the attrition rate of young people,

if their perceptions prove to be misplaced.

Figure 24: Career perceptions of Business Aviation versus commercial aviation

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Applies fully to Business Aviation Applies more to Business Aviation

Applies to both Applies more to Commercial Aviation

Applies fully to Commercial Aviation


4.11.4 GENDER

As gender is critical to solving the workforce shortage within Business

Aviation, we see that the picture shifts slightly when we look at the female

population only.

Figure 25: Employee career priority factors – female sample

Good career prospects remain amongst the top three factors, but a good

work/life balance is by far the most important factor. The percentage of

women prioritising an attractive salary as very important is considerably

lower than in the overall sample.

When comparing Business Aviation and commercial aviation among the

female sample, the following key differences are evident:

Business Aviation is associated more with work/life balance and career

prospects, less with challenging work.

Commercial aviation is associated more with an attractive lifestyle and

less with career prospects.

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Very Important Important Neutral Unimportant Very Unimportant


Figure 26: Perception of Business Aviation versus commercial aviation – Female sample

It seems that employers within Business Aviation looking to attract female

talent would do well to promote work/life balance and career prospects.

4.11.5 STUDENT PERCEPTION

Secondary school students assign a higher priority to job security, task

variety and attractive salary. University students put more emphasis on

career prospects and training and development.

University students associate attractive lifestyle, challenging work and

attractive salary with Business Aviation more than secondary school

students, who tend to put Business and commercial aviation on the same

level.

Business Aviation needs to change this target group’s perception, as many

secondary students could become maintenance technicians, for example.

4.11.6 MAKING EUROPE MORE ATTRACTIVE

Two-thirds of all survey participants would prefer working in their home

country – or in North America. This could pose a threat to aviation in

Europe.

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Applies fully to Business Aviation Applies more to Business Aviation

Applies to both Applies more to Commercial Aviation

Applies fully to Commercial Aviation


Figure 27: Preferred regions for work

4.11.7 REACHING NEW TALENT USING THE

RIGHT CHANNELS

The top three sources for information on potential jobs are internet job

portals, friends and teachers. These insights need to inform all personnel

marketing and recruiting activities, as traditional job advertisements score

considerably lower.

Figure 28: Sources for job search

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%


5 ARE OTHER SECTORS BETTER PREPARED? THE SITUATION IN COMMERCIAL AVIATION

5.1.1 OVERALL WORKFORCE SITUATION IN

COMMERCIAL AVIATION

The workforce situation in commercial airlines differs from country to

country, company to company, and role to role. In general, the gap

between workforce demand and supply is growing. There are short- and

mid-term fluctuations limited to specific countries, airlines, roles, and

aircraft.

The situation differs between airlines depending on:

Location:

Fast-growing airlines face critical shortages, as they do not have a

sufficient pipeline of experienced pilots. Recruiting from other

airlines, using external resources and taking over staff made

redundant at money losing national carriers are key elements of

their talent acquisition strategy.

Regions have different workforce supplies due to specific

educational systems and attitudes towards technology companies

and jobs. For example, technical vocational training in Germany,

France, and Switzerland provides a good pool of graduates.

Type of airline:

Airlines with appealing destinations have fewer problems attracting

pilots and flight attendants.

Low-cost airlines run different models, e.g., fleet standardisation to

avoid having to train the workforce for different type ratings and

using atypical forms of employment such as agency work, zero-

hours contracts, or even so-called self-employment to keep

workforce costs low and ensure maximum flexibility.

Some airlines have a very good organisational climate, with an

attractive employer value proposition, and therefore achieve low

attrition rates and a good pipeline of job applicants.

For many major airlines, demographics is not a short-term, but a long-term

problem. For example, captains will start retiring in larger numbers in about

five years’ time at some big airlines. The resulting gaps need to be filled

with experienced pilots, in addition to the forecast growth in demand for

pilots.

The workforce situation is also different by aircraft type. For newer aircraft,

such as the Boeing 787, there is a lack of technical staff, due to a limited

workforce with the required licenses. For other aircraft types, such as the

Boeing 747, there is a surplus of experienced staff in the labour market.


Retraining is complex and costly, and therefore, a lack of balance between

workforce supply and demand may persist.

The workforce situation differs by roles, for example:

Pilot requirements are changing; so is the demand for candidates with

additional leadership and customer/personal service skill requirements.

Engineers and pilots belong to a mobile, global workforce, whereas

many maintenance technicians are less mobile and tend to stay in one

location.

Airlines have different resourcing strategies. Some tend to increase their

workforce supply with vocational training programmes or cadet schemes;

others opt for a mix of sources, including cadet schemes, hiring from

competitors, and armed forces recruiting. There is a natural ’food chain’ in

flight operations, with pilots moving from training to short-haul flights,

regional airlines or Business Aviation, until finally they move to long haul

routes, before retiring.

5.1.2 WORKFORCE DEMAND

The commercial aviation market will grow both in fleet size and in traffic.

While the biggest growth will be in Asia Pacific, the commercial aviation

fleet in Europe will almost double within 20 years and traffic will grow

annually by about 4%.

Table 11: Growth in aviation fleets and traffic23

This growth will lead to increased demand for staff by the scheduled

airlines, MROs and probably manufacturers. This increase in demand will

be especially noticeable in operational areas, such as cabin crew and

technicians/engineering. Commercial airlines are already experiencing

shortages for pilots and technicians in selected markets as described

above.

23 Airbus Global Market Forecast – Flying by Numbers 2015-234, and Boeing website “Long-term market – Current market outlook 2015-2034”


Boeing forecasts the need for an additional 95,000 pilots and 101,000

technicians in Europe over the next 20 years. This will mean some 5000

additional pilots and the same number of technicians will be needed per

year in Europe.

Taking into consideration the general demographic trends and the

stagnating numbers of people joining the workforce in technical jobs, this

poses a huge challenge to fill these roles in Europe. At the same time, with

a much larger forecast growth in demand globally, more and more of the

global aviation workforce may be attracted to areas like the Middle East

with its enticing reward packages, modern fleets, and job security.

Figure 29: Aviation workforce forecast of additional demand for pilots and technicians by 203424

5.1.3 WORKFORCE AVAILABILITY

Though all indicators show that a workforce shortage already exists, many

stakeholders (including airlines with good employer brands) still doubt that

this shortage will materialise as they continue to attract large numbers of

job applicants, including for pilot positions. In the past, shortages have

been forecast that never materialised.

Workforce availability is different per country, job, and company. Official,

reliable data is difficult to get, and contrary to the US, Europe-wide data is

not available.

24 Boeing Aviation Workforce Forecast, corporate website 2015

95.000 101.000

558.000609.000

0

100.000

200.000

300.000

400.000

500.000

600.000

700.000

Pilots Technicians

Europe World

“Republic

Airways files

for bankruptcy

after pilot

shortage”

Bloomberg,

Feb. 25th, 2016


Putting Business Aviation in Context

Aviation provides around 4.5 million jobs in Europe25. Business Aviation,

with around 371,000 employees, makes up a small fraction of the

aviation sector. Therefore, even if workforce demand in Business Aviation

itself may be stagnating, the sector will be directly affected by the overall

labour shortage in aviation. The problem, however, will become acute in

the mid to long-term as retirements create gaps, which will be difficult to fill,

as the competition for talented aviation specialists escalates.

5.1.4 BEST PRACTICES

Many of the bigger scheduled airlines have highly sophisticated HR

departments, processes and tools that give them clear advantages in

attracting and retaining the right people. This includes:

Sophisticated employer branding and recruiting programmes, including

state-of-the-art recruiting websites and a presence at career fairs

Providing vocational training for technicians, in-house pilot training,

cadet schemes or internships for students

Strategic workforce and HR planning

Career path management

Professional rewards management

Performance management

Lufthansa and Strategic Workforce Planning

In 2011, Lufthansa Cargo conducted a project on strategic workforce

planning (SWP) in order to develop basic processes, structures, and

systems for the long-term planning and management of human resources.

The project was successfully implemented, and was transferred to a yearly

planning cycle and further enriched with HR Strategy and Controlling in

2013.

Lufthansa Cargo now acts as a sponsor to support the group-wide

implementation with:

Group-wide planning models for different areas, including management

levels and administrative functions

Definition of standards and tools for SWP and provision of a platform

for exchange between experts from the different companies

Cadet Programmes

Major scheduled airlines offer cadet programmes that allow students to

train with the company to gain their pilot license. Some schemes pay the

training costs and the students pay them back once qualified. Others

25 European Commission, Flightpath 2050


require students to pay a bond up front, which is then repaid over a number

of years once the pilot is flying with them.

Examples of cadet programmes:

British Airways – Future Pilot

Virgin Atlantic – Future Flyers

Wizz Air – Cadet Pilot Programme

easyJet – Pilot Training Programme

Employer Branding and Recruiting

In order to attract talented staff, KLM invests in many activities to create a

positive employer brand and to approach potential candidates directly:

Frequent visits to universities and schools

Stands at (job) fairs and events

Own recruiting website

Own mobile game to learn how to manage an airline

In a nutshell, workforce gaps in commercial aviation will have a

tremendous impact on the Business Aviation workforce. Business Aviation

can learn how to deal with the growing workforce shortage to some extent

from commercial aviation and should join forces with other aviation

segments to tackle the issue.

The industry can gain additional insights from other regions, especially

North America and Asia. This analysis and potential solutions are

described in the appendix.

Mobile game KLM Aviation Empire

“The logical next step in the digital revolution of KLM”


6 BUSINESS AVIATION WORKFORCE: SEGMENT BY SEGMENT

SUMMARY

The workforce situation differs from segment to segment, while the

situation of pilots, dispatchers, and experienced technicians also varies

country by country.

Following the analysis of current and future workforce shortages in a global

context, this chapter constructs a detailed picture of variables affecting the

future supply and demand of appropriately trained aviation professionals,

allowing for deeper understanding of likely future employment shortfalls in

Business Aviation.

It also sets out a detailed analysis of current and future workforce

shortages within Business Aviation, focusing on specific jobs in particular

working environments. The analysis of ‘job families’ allows for greater

attention to be given to the day-to-day realities of employment issues of

those working within Business Aviation.


6.1 BUSINESS AVIATION WORKFORCE: THE

BIG PICTURE

Workforce Shortages Today

Although most of the Business Aviation professionals interviewed do not

report any workforce shortages currently, there are some critical roles –

pilot, maintenance technician and dispatcher – where limited workforce

shortages do exist. These shortages are limited to specific locations or

company types or sizes. Compared to commercial aviation, Business

Aviation stakeholders show a lower degree of awareness of the aviation-

wide challenges and less interest in addressing them.

The labour markets in Business Aviation and other aviation segments are

not fully linked, at present. There is only limited movement of employees

between the different areas. Overall, the demographic structure of the

workforce in Business Aviation is quite balanced, with no particular age

group discrepancies. Because recruitment in small and medium companies

is infrequent, they experience few problems in this area.

Future Workforce Shortages

Most experts interviewed do not expect to see major changes in Business

Aviation workforce demand in Europe in future and therefore do not

foresee major workforce shortages. Stagnation or marginal growth in fleet

and revenue in the overall Business Aviation market will likely mean no

significant additional workforce demand in this sector. Consolidation in the

market might even lead to reduced demand as economies of scale require

a fewer people for selected job clusters.

At the same time, while regulation might lead to a slight increase in

demand in specific job clusters, such as technicians or safety, this may be

offset by technology trends.

There are regional differences in workforce demand, with higher growth

levels expected in Eastern Europe as well as in selected countries where

regulation or other trends lead to market differences, such as in Malta.

Factors Impacting Workforce Supply

This view of the sector stakeholders is contradicted by the forecast of major

growth in commercial aviation, which will increase workforce demand for

aviation-related jobs in the coming years, especially for experienced pilots

and technicians. There are already shortages reported at some airlines and

this will affect Business Aviation, as both sectors compete for the same

type of employees. Business Aviation is at a disadvantage, however, as it

is consists primarily of small and medium sized enterprises with a low level

of HR capacity.


At the same time, workforce supply in many European markets, especially

in technology-related jobs, is tightening due to:

Demographic changes, specifically a significant decrease in the

workforce pool in many European countries due to low birth rates.

Stagnant numbers studying STEM subjects in Europe, with growth in

demand for professionals in these subjects (not only from aviation).

Low female ratio because of an unfavourable perception of the sector

and its specific culture.

Figure 30: Key workforce demand and supply drivers

Together, these trends will probably create a shrinking workforce pool for

Business Aviation, as there will be a big pull effect from other aviation

segments.

The large and medium sized companies in other aviation sectors and the

larger players in Business Aviation will be better prepared for the coming

shortages. The picture is different, however, for the many small and

medium sized companies in Business Aviation. The limited sector branding

and workforce management professionalism will lead to mid- and long-term

problems due to a lack of new talent joining the sector.

•Growth in demand, especially for pilots and technicians in commercial airlines due to market and fleet growth

•Stagnant demand in Business Aviation

•Rising demand for technical jobs in other sectors

•Regulation leads to additional demand

•Advances in technology will likely lead to slightly decreasing demand

•Shrinking workforce population in Europe

•Stagnant numbers studying STEM subjects

•Low female proportion in aviation

•Shrinking supply from national air forces as key source of critical jobs

•Major differences in workforce availability between countries (demographic change, technical, education)

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6.2 OPERATORS

6.2.1 MARKET AND COMPETITION

Business Models

Business Aviation operators make use of a range of business models to

facilitate their activities.

Member or jet cards, comparable to a debit card system for flights,

provide customers with credit for flight hours based on pre-defined

criteria, such as aircraft type and time. 26

Charter operators rent aircraft. This model is especially attractive for

companies and occasional flyers who do not wish to purchase an

aircraft or commit long term.

Fractional ownership whereby an individual or company shares

ownership and a fractional operator takes full care of the aircraft on

behalf of all owners.

Full owners acquire 100% interest in an aircraft. This includes

corporate Business Aviation, which refers to aircraft owned and used

by a company for their employees.27

Some companies might run several of these business models, while some

operators are also MROs and FBOs.

Market Structure

The number of operators in the EU9 gives an insight into the size of

Business Aviation in these countries. Overall, there are 979 operators, with

most located in Germany (290), the UK (261), France (153), and

Switzerland (120). In contrast, smaller European countries like the Czech

Republic (27) or Portugal (13) are home to fewer operators28.

Figure 31: Operators in the EU9 countries (total numbers)

26 Sherpareport

27 NBAA

28 DLR


Figure 32: Operators in the EU9 countries (percentage)

Competitive Situation

Operators interviewed perceive the market as being small, where

everybody ’knows each other’. They also describe the European market as

highly competitive, with a few top players dominating the market and a

large number of smaller operators, some of whom struggle to maintain

profitability.

Figure 33: Largest operators in EU9 countries by fleet size (2014)

The top 15 Business Aviation operators represent 21% of the EU9 fleet.

Operators with large fleets of more than 20 aircraft in service represent

only 1% of the total industry (seven operators). However, these seven

operators represent 12% of the total EU9market fleet, with 1947 aircraft.

The largest operators are NetJets, TAG Aviation, and JetAviation Business

Jets. The majority of operators, as well as most of the top 15, are members

of the EBAA29.

29 DLR & EBAA

“We

experience a

pressure from

the market

concerning the

price. And the

market

situation is

becoming hard

for charter

companies.”

(Interviewed

Operator)


The majority of operators operate just one aircraft (749 or 77% of all

operators). This model is particularly common in Germany, the UK, France,

and Switzerland30. Many of these smaller operators continue to employ

their aircraft for the entire serviceable life of the aircraft.

Market Trends

Many operators interviewed expect to see the market become saturated

within the next few years. Additionally, some operators reported a growing

trend in M&A activities, with smaller operators increasingly likely to be

acquired by larger competitors or to cease to exist.

6.2.2 EXTERNAL TRENDS

Technology

Advances in technology are impacting Business Aviation, especially

operators. Some operators fear the effects of advanced technology, with

technicians facing higher-level skill requirements, for instance.

Technology also offers huge opportunities for operators. Many expect

increased levels of reliability and safety due to advances in technology.

There is also a positive effect on the workforce, with advanced training

technologies, such as e-learning, increasing efficiency.

Some operators expect the use of advanced information technology to lead

to the automation of some flight planner and dispatcher tasks, as

scheduling becomes faster and easier. At the same time, type ratings for

mid- and long-haul route aircraft are becoming simpler due to increased

safety thanks to advances in technology.

While technology is already impacting the operator workforce, the majority

of jobs do not yet seem to be affected.

Regulations

With an increasing regulatory burden on Business Aviation, some industry

stakeholders expect this to lead to higher workforce demand for certain

positions, while other operators state that they already have the right

workforce in place to meet changing regulations.

There are also indirect regulatory effects on the daily business of

operators, such as landing and parking restrictions at larger airports or

regulations affecting the positions of captain, head of flight operations,

continuous airworthiness manager, or compliance manager. Operators

expect a higher demand for safety-related skills and potentially an increase

in the workforce size due to regulation.

30 DLR


6.2.3 WORKFORCE COMPOSITION

Workforce Size

Germany (6251), the UK (5952), France (3457), and Switzerland (2867)

have the largest Business Aviation workforces, indicating where the market

focus of operators lies.31

Figure 34: Staff employed by operators in EU9 countries (2014)

Age

Most operators report a rather balanced workforce in their own companies

and do not foresee demographic problems at this point. However, a

minority of operators see a less balanced age distribution for certain roles.

These include flight attendants where operators report a high percentage of

job incumbents in the 30 to 40 age range. Looking at the US, we see that

the average age of pilots keeps rising. In addition, there are also

indications that, for more technical jobs, the average age is 40+.

Gender

The gender ratio of employees working for operators is highly dependent

on the job type. Looking at technicians (all levels), operators have almost

no female employees. There are more female pilots, but the percentage is

very low.

While most interviewees acknowledge the low female proportion in many

key operator roles, they do not perceive the gender gap as one of their key

challenges. They consider the low ratio of female employees in jobs such

as technicians to be the consequence of ’the male nature of the job’.

Generally, many operator executives interviewed show openness to a

higher female ratio in critical jobs. To a certain extent, they see advantages

in hiring more female staff. Some, for example, also believe that female

pilots outperform their male colleagues. The stated benefits of a higher

female ratio include:

31 DLR


Female senior managers handle things in a different way and give

different perspectives.

Female staff improve the organisational climate of the overall

company.

The professionals interviewed could not identify additional costs associated

with the underrepresentation of women in the workforce.

Attrition and Mobility

The attrition rate, defined as voluntary and involuntary leaving, ranges from

0% to around 20% at companies interviewed. Many operators report strong

levels of employee loyalty in their company. Most experienced employees

tend to stay with operators for many years, with voluntary leave considered

a phenomenon among younger employers. The reasons for the different

attrition rates for younger staff members include the possibility of collecting

more flight hours at other organisations and the perception of limited career

options.

According to many operators interviewed, Business Aviation offers

employees a particular lifestyle. Due to the high service orientation towards

clients and flight operations, many operators require high flexibility and

non-regular, rather long working hours. Thus, either employees like this

lifestyle or they discover early in their Business Aviation career that it does

not suit them. Consequently, people who decide to work in Business

Aviation seem to have a strong preference for this way of life – which helps

to explain these comparably low attrition rates.

Another reason for the low attrition rate is that operators, frequently located

in the countryside, offer their employees-value propositions typical of small

companies, such as very personal relationships among staff and a family-

like climate.

External Resources

Only a limited number of operators interviewed rely on external human

resources, and mainly at busy times only. Flight attendants and pilots are

the two roles identified that are filled most often by external staffing.

Sources for these staff include agencies, other companies with similar

aircraft (and consequently type rating qualifications of pilots), as well as

external pools of freelancers. However, some companies also try to limit

the usage of external resources due to quality and regulatory concerns.

6.2.4 CURRENT WORKFORCE SHORTAGES

There is no consistent picture of workforce shortages at operators. About

two-thirds of the operators interviewed agree that there are current

workforce shortages of experienced maintenance technicians (Cat B1

and/or B2) and experienced dispatchers/flight planners. At the same

“Either you love

it or hate it”


time, many operators experience no such shortages. One reason for this

might be that there are not many vacancies in smaller companies and

therefore, the difficulties attracting talent are not transparent.

A few operators face scarcity for other positions, such as:

Captain

Entry-level maintenance technician (Cat A)

Experienced maintenance technicians with supervisor or management

function (Cat C)

Flight data monitoring professional

Crew planner

6.2.5 FUTURE WORKFORCE SHORTAGES

Operators have difficulties forecasting the workforce situation for the next

five years. Most who report no current shortages for specific positions also

see no future challenges concerning their workforce.

However, they do expect future workforce shortages in relation to

experienced maintenance technicians (Cat B1 and/or B2), especially

with several type ratings working in critical roles. In addition, operators see

the trend towards a shortage of experienced dispatchers/flight planners

continuing. Some operators also forecast shortages of experienced pilots,

and some even expect the same for younger pilots, in five to ten years.

In conclusion, the interview results show that only a limited number of

interviewees expect future workforce shortages and only for particular

roles.

6.2.6 REASONS FOR WORKFORCE SHORTAGES

According to the expert interviews, workforce shortages, either current or

future, can be attributed to:

Finding Young Talent

A high proportion of the workforce belongs to a demographic that will

retire soon. Not enough graduates are entering the market, which will

result in a workforce gap. Operators reported an unwillingness of

young people to live the Business Aviation lifestyle and work long

hours.

Operators located in more rural areas report that it is generally hard to

recruit new people because of their seemingly unattractive location.

Financial Aspects

Overall, stakeholders state competitive salaries are not offered by the

Business Aviation industry (especially for experienced maintenance

technicians and captains).

“As long as the

people are

interested in

the aviation

industry and

they are willing

to study, there

will be no

issue.”

(Interviewed

Operator and

MRO)


The high cost of getting type ratings for maintenance staff is also cited.

6.2.7 DIFFERENCES IN WORKFORCE SITUATIONS

There are clear differences in workforce situations between countries,

companies of differing size, and types of operators.

For example, aviation departments in big corporations do not face

shortages, as they have strong employer brands and professional HR

departments. They also pay above average wages, provide a better work-

life balance and offer greater job security.

Mobility is different for the critical roles at operators, with pilots being very

mobile, but technicians often showing a much lower mobility readiness.

Therefore, problems in filling role may vary depending on location.

6.3 MROs


Business Model

Companies offering MRO services often combine these with other

Business Aviation-related services. This applies especially to the medium-

sized and bigger MROs. MROs are also often operators, handling the

maintenance of both their own aircraft and those of others. Manufacturers

are extending their value chain, moving more and more into the MRO

business as it provides additional revenues. We also see combinations of

MROs and aircraft refurbishment providers.

As companies offer several services, it is difficult to differentiate the

workforce situation related to the core MRO services because:

Experts Interviewed look at the company as a whole and do not

distinguish between MRO and other service offerings.

Many trends affect the service lines in similar ways, such as price

pressure, technology trends, etc.

This section only elaborates on interview statements clearly linked to MRO

services.


Market Structure

The total number of MROs inside the EU9 is significantly smaller than the

number of operators, with only 107 companies32. However, they are

similarly focused on the main markets, with 34 MROs in Germany, 23 in

the UK, 15 in France, and 14 in Switzerland. In comparison, there are only

four MROs in the Czech Republic and three in Portugal.33

Figure 35: Number of MROs in each EU9 country (2014)

Figure 36: MROs by EU9 country (by percentage, 2014)

32 For MROs it is not clear whether they maintain helicopters or fixed wing aircraft

33 DLR



Many of the statements regarding the overall competitive situation of

Business Aviation apply to MROs as well. Additionally, there seems to be a

trend towards relocating overhaul activities of large cabin aircraft to other

regions with considerable cost advantages, such as Asia.


Technology

As technology is at the core of their business, technology trends affect

MROs more than any other segment of Business Aviation.

Several key technology trends will affect MROs:

Technology developments in avionics are leading clients increasingly

to replace complete electronic units rather than repairing them, which

eases the workload and simplifies the duties of maintenance staff.

There seems to be a trend towards larger aircraft, which will ultimately

affect maintenance staff and the technical skills required. For instance,

due to additional systems in these lager aircraft, more cabin-related

maintenance will be required.

Other trends that will impact MROs and their workforce include:

Big data supporting MRO technicians in managing inventory and

monitoring equipment health

Mobile technology increasing efficiency of technicians in their

daily work (e.g., better availability of documentation during

maintenance work)

3-D printing might revolutionise the supply chain for aircraft parts

in the mid and long term

Maintenance of aircraft made of composite material will require a

very different skillset of technicians

Using drones for maintenance might be a future trend as well

(though perhaps more relevant for bigger aircraft)

Regulations

An increase in the regulatory burden will mean the demand for training for

maintenance staff will grow, which could lead to more staff being hired. As

this could a greater administrative onus, it could scare off young people.

“Technology is

changing very

fast!”

(Interviewed

MRO and

Operator)



Workforce Size

MROs in the EU9 employ a total of 6721 people, with Germany (1798),

Switzerland (1533), France (1228) and the UK (1035) employing the most

and Belgium (59), Portugal (90) and Poland (116) the fewest.34

Figure 37: Workforce size by country in EU9 (2014)

Age

There are indications from external data sources that, in some European

countries, licensed technicians are overrepresented in the age range of 40

to 60.

Gender

Those interviewed describe the industry overall as ’male dominated’, with

female ratio of technicians in MROs ranging from 0% to 10%35. While those

MROs interviewed stated that they would like to employ more women, the

reasons cited for the lack of women technicians included:

Image of the industry

Perception of ’heavy work’

Low attractiveness of technical jobs for women

34 DLR

35 However, as only two interviewees have been able to provide numbers, the range is vague.

“We would like

to see some

more women

but it’s just so

male dominant.

This is

probably an

industry-wide

problem.”

(Interviewed

MRO and

Manufacturer)



The attrition rates reported by MROs are described as ’low’ or ‘moderate’ -

in many cases below 5% - and job tenure is on average long. Regional

mobility highly depends on the location of the employees, for example,

Eastern Europe is less mobile than other regions. Overall mobility for

technicians is lower than for pilots or university-educated engineers.

A key challenge for MROs is the high investment in developing new skills

and getting their technicians type rated, if trained employees leave the

company, these investments in skills are lost.


As with operators, there is no consistent picture of workforce shortages at

MROs. Many MROs interviewed agree that there are current workforce

shortages for experienced maintenance technicians (Cat B1 and/or

B2), often regarding specific skills, such as a specialisation in avionics,

customer and service orientation, and people with many type ratings.

However, many MROs said that they are not experiencing workforce

shortages. This not only applies to bigger MROs, but also to small ones. In

an additional telephone survey36 of 10 small MROs located in Germany and

the UK, eight stated they have no current workforce shortages.


Two general trends regarding the future workforce shortage have been

identified from speaking with MROs:

There is a problem in making Business Aviation MROs attractive to

young people.

Many MROs agree that a shortage of entry-level maintenance

technicians (Cat A) and experienced maintenance technicians (Cat B1

and/or B2) will develop in the market.

6.3.6 REASONS FOR WORKFORCE SHORTAGES

The current and future challenges behind workforce shortages include:

Change of job scope. In many technical jobs, bureaucracy and

administrative tasks take an increasing share of time, which makes

these jobs less desirable to current or potential incumbents.

36 Hay Group conducted an additional telephone survey in December 2015 with Germany and UK-based small MROs (10-30 FTE). The purpose of the survey was to get a better understanding of the workforce situation of small MROs and to find out if they have a current workforce shortage and a future workforce


Lack of skills:

Depending on the country, there is a lack of apprenticeship

schemes on offer for maintenance staff, even by larger MROs –

something cited by many operators as well

Those moving from commercial aviation to Business Aviation in

maintenance face certain skill barriers. Not only are type ratings

different, but a different skillset is required for technical jobs in

commercial aviation than for Business Aviation (e.g., service

orientation and flexibility plays a bigger role in Business Aviation)

Demographic change is seen as a challenge as the technical staff

ages


Many of the key differences cited in the section about Operators apply to

MROs as well.

Generally, smaller companies find it more difficult to recruit staff. However,

one-third of the small MROs interviewed have their own, in-house

apprenticeship programme for technical jobs. These MROs report no

current workforce shortages for entry-level maintenance technicians (Cat

A), no such problems expected in future, nor do they have any problems in

attracting young people.

6.4 FBOS


Business Model

The interviews suggest that the business model and the range of services

offered by FBOs differ from market player to market player. Many FBOs

also offer additional services, combining with the role of operator or MRO,

or adding other operating services to their portfolio (e.g., servicing

commercial airlines at selected airports).

Due to these different business models, distinguishing the FBO core

processes and workforce is difficult. On the other hand, many trends affect

all parts of the business, including price pressure and technology trends.

Market Structure

In terms of the number of industry players, there are fewer FBO firms in the

EU9 than MROs or operators. A total of 56 FBOs compete on the EU9

market, with most found in the four biggest European Business Aviation

countries. However, they are distributed slightly differently, as Switzerland

and the UK claim the highest number FBOs with 14 each. Ten market


players are in France with only eight in Germany, two in Belgium, three in

Portugal and only one each in Poland and the Czech Republic.37

Figure 38: Number of FBOs in EU9 companies (2014)

Figure 39: FBOs in EU9 companies (by percentage, 2014)


Technology

FBOs are less impacted by technology trends in Business Aviation overall.

The trend towards larger aircraft with more seats could necessitate

changes in the infrastructure for FBOs to handle these, such as larger

hangers. The impact on the workforce size still needs to be determined.

37 DLR



Workforce Size

Figure 40: Workforce size in FBOs by EU9 country (2014)

The number of employees working for FBOs is significantly lower than in

the Operator or MRO sector. The countries with the largest FBO

workforces in the EU9 are Germany with 312 employees, the UK with 221,

France with 153, and Switzerland with 116. FBOS in Belgium, the Czech

Republic and Poland employ the fewest people among the EU9 countries.38

Age and Gender

No peculiarities in the demographic structure or future trends have been

identified for FBOs. The workforce seems to be significantly younger than

in other sector segments.

Ramp worker jobs seem to be staffed predominantly by men, whereas

back-office and customer representative roles have a high proportion of

female staff.


Attrition rates depend predominantly on the company, ranging from very

low single digit numbers up to 20%.

Potential recruiting sources for staff include commercial airlines (especially

for ground handling staff), airports, and the hotel/leisure industry (for

customer facing roles).

The quality level of services offered seems to determine different FBO

market segments. This poses a barrier for workforce mobility between

different FBOs due to a lack of required skills of staff in some segments

(where training is less important and quality levels of service are

considerably lower). No relevant movement between staff from ramp work

to operations/back-office has been reported.

38 DLR


External Resources

The use of freelancers by FBOs for the busy season in the summer time is

quite widespread.


The majority of FBOs interviewed do not see any current critical

workforce shortage, though medium-sized and small firms face some

(minor) difficulties filling open positions. Bigger companies and those part

of a bigger group have advantages to overcome occasional, local

workforce shortages. The lack of specific language skills in some regional

markets poses a challenge.

In some countries, lack of workforce flexibility poses a problem (e.g., due to

contracting and licensing issues).


FBO professionals do not foresee critical workforce shortages in future.

Educational and work experience requirements are not high and the

training effort is very low compared with other Business Aviation jobs.


There are no significant differences in the workforce situation between

countries, companies of different size, or types of FBO. Different

regional/local regulations lead to differing levels in pay and administrative

effort. Different country-based educational levels and the resulting

availability of highly qualified people lead to differing educational

requirement for staff. As in other sub-segments of the sector, smaller

companies have greater difficulty in attracting talent.


6.5 AIRPORTS


Market Structure

The European Business Aviation industry relies on airports that are part of

various market segments:

Public airports with a major share of Business Aviation movements

(e.g., Biggin Hill, Le Bourget)

Public regional airports with significant Business Aviation movements

(e.g. Poznan Airport)

Major public airports (e.g. Berlin-Schoenefeld)

Non-Commercial Business Aviation airports (e.g. Adolf Wuerth Airport)

Figure 41: 1147 airports in the EU9 are used for Business Aviation purposes.

0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400

Total

Switzerland

UK

France

Germany

Italy

Portugal

Belgium

Czech Republic

Poland


Figure 42: Germany and the UK, followed by France and Switzerland, are the countries in the EU9 with higher volumes of Business Aviation operations.


For most commercial airports, there is significant pressure on airport fees,

especially at regional airports with a large market share of Low-Cost

Carriers. For Low-Cost Carriers, many regional airports are

interchangeable, which increases competition between airports in this

segment. The opening of new regional airports or the conversion of former

military airports to civil aviation has increased the competition even further.

Low-Cost Carriers argue that they bring revenue-generating passengers to

otherwise empty airports. This trend leads to the following effects:

At Poznan Airport, for instance, ground handling fees have decreased

by 50% due to the presence and the significant bargaining power of

Low-Cost Carriers. This trend negatively affects Business Aviation

ground handlers working in the same airport whose salary would

go down because of Low-Cost Carriers.

Airports try to compensate for the lack of sufficient aeronautical

revenues by increasing other revenue, such as from food & beverage

or retailing. At regional airports with a large share of Business Aviation

traffic or at non-commercial Business Aviation airports, the revenue

structure is still mainly based on fees as it is difficult to generate other

revenue at airports with low traffic volumes. This implies that small

Business Aviation airports struggle to reach a sufficient level of

aeronautical revenue to remain profitable.

9.7%

16.6%

29.0%

24.5%

11.9%

1.3%

2.3% 2.0% 2.1%

Switzerland UK France

Germany Italy Portugal

Belgium Czech Republic Poland


Many of the large public airports are dealing with capacity constraints and

competition with other hub airports. These constraints, in combination with

more complicated and time-consuming processes, make hub airports less

attractive to Business Aviation users, who prefer smaller and more easily

accessible airports.

Market Trends

Some of those interviewed mentioned that, in markets that

experienced strong Low-Cost Carrier-driven traffic growth in recent

years, there is a trend toward consolidation and unprofitable airports

will exit the market. This could for instance become an issue in

Germany, where airport capacity has been expanded dramatically and

many regional airports remain unprofitable. Considering how many

Business Aviation airports are small regional airports (40% of all

Business Aviation airports in the country fall under this category), the

workforce in the sector would be heavily affected by such airports

exiting the market. In other European markets, where airport density

and competition are less significant, this trend could become less

severe.


The seasonality of labour demand is a big issue for airports. Airport

maintenance reaches a peak during the winter because of snow

removal and bad weather conditions, while more passenger security

personnel is required during the summer since that is the peak travel

period.

Changing regulations regarding AFISO might impact costs. An AFISO

requires nearly the same level of education as tower controllers, but

only makes about 50-60% of the salary of an air traffic controller (which

is over EUR 80,000).

The major aviation trends also affect airports:

There is a significant market growth, and consequently growth in

airport traffic volume in Business Aviation in Asia, the BRICs

and Africa

As large public airports reach capacity, slots become more difficult

to obtain, which could lead to a shift of operations towards smaller,

regional airports. However, if Business Aviation operators shift

away from major airports this could reduce the sector’s

market pull since major airports are typically better

connected to main urban centres.

In Germany, more companies are in the process of taking airports

over for the primary use of their Business Aviation fleet (e.g.,

BASF in Speyer, ZF in Friedrichshafen), providing more stable

revenue for these airports.



Relevant Jobs

At small airports, small staff levels typically mean staff have several

different qualifications and conduct a range of jobs in parallel. This can

be a problem for the Business Aviation sector, however, because

of the importance of soft skills for ground handling personnel.

For bigger airports, division of labour is necessary and specialists fill

various roles. At a minimum, the following jobs are required:

Head of Airport

CEO

Head of infrastructure

Managers

Rescue and Fire Brigade Manager

Airport Facility Manager

HR, Finance, IT, Marketing, etc.

Professionals

Airport Regulation Manager

Air Traffic Controllers

Supervisor

Airport Security Supervisor

Firefighting Team Lead

Operator

Airport Security Agent

Firefighter

Airport Facilities / Maintenance Director

(Aerodrome Flight Information Service Officer, AFISO)

Aviation Weather Observer

Airport Operations Assistant

Gender

Gender of airport personnel is no different between Business Aviation and

other aviation sectors.

Women can only be found rarely or in certain job categories throughout

the airport (such as administration, check-in, etc.)

For most jobs, this shortage of female staff has not been perceived as

an issue, but the fact that there is a shortage of women in security can

be a problem



At Eastern European airports with a major share of Low-Cost traffic

(e.g. >50%), cost pressure makes it difficult to find handling agents and

airport maintenance staff due to low salaries. Workers are migrating to

the UK, Scandinavia, Benelux, and Southern Europe, where salaries

are better. This is a trend not only affecting low-skilled and low-cost

jobs, but also IT specialists and accountants that are leaving Eastern

European countries.

The Middle-East, and in particular Dubai, advertises around the globe

for jobs as the Business Aviation sector is growing very fast there.

Additionally, the comparably high salaries in the region have

implications for the European workforce, as the region attracts talent

away from European airports. This is particularly true for jobs requiring

high qualifications, such as air traffic controllers.


In general, airport managers interviewed did not mention significant current

workforce shortages as a major concern. Several interviewees said that

they are able to get the staff they need. The following issues were

mentioned, however, that can make it more difficult to fill positions:

Dealing with Business Aviation clients not only requires the necessary

technical skills, but also soft skills. It is tough to find qualified ground

handling employees who also have received a ‘hotel staff’ type of

training.

In some remoter regions, where the workforce size is generally small

(for instance in the Alps), finding the needed skills can be challenging.

In rural or remote areas (for instance around Sion Airport), the local labour

market does not offer enough supply of:

Ground operations specialists and this leads to issues, especially

during the peak times of the year.

Maintenance technicians.

The seasonality of the airport business makes it difficult to hire enough

qualified staff for the peak periods.

Tower controllers were mentioned as an important job category that has

always been in high demand. Again, given the training that is needed to

fulfil this job, finding qualified staff in rural areas is even more challenging.

In addition, firefighters are absolutely mission-critical to any airport. Airport

firefighters are typically recruited at local fire departments and then take

airport-specific training, which is relatively short (several weeks plus

refreshers every two years). This short training process ensures that

shortages are rare.



Impact of the trends on the workforce:

In Eastern Europe, the mobility of the workforce and the trend towards

moving to countries with higher salaries, such as in Northern or

Western Europe or the Middle East, has the potential to lead to

shortages at airports. This can affect both low-skilled and high-skilled

jobs as well as personnel in Business Aviation whose salary is

driven by the fee level set by Low-Cost Carriers.

More soft skills will be required when dealing with high profile Business

Aviation clients. It will be increasingly difficult to find staff that possess

both the required technical skills and the requisite soft skills.

6.6 MANUFACTURERS


Business Model

Manufacturers play an important role in the Business Aviation market as

they provide one of the key elements of the industry: the aircraft. However,

data about this industry segment needs to be analysed with great caution,

because of both its heterogeneity and complexity:

Manufacturers also offer other Business Aviation services. This applies

especially to MRO services.

Manufacturers often do not just serve Business Aviation customers,

but also and foremost the commercial and military segments.39

Market Structure, Competitive Situation and Workforce Size

In the EU9 countries, the total Business Aviation fleet size is 1947 aircraft.40

However, the market is characterised largely by an oligopolistic structure

with few industry players (though less so than in commercial aviation).

Some 83% of all aircraft are manufactured by five companies: Cessna,

Bombardier, Hawker Beechcraft, Dassault Aviation and Piper 41. The

current fleet is dominated by non-European manufacturers. Manufacturers

forecast considerable aircraft deliveries over the coming years, but

primarily for fleet replacement and upgrades, as Business Aviation

operators do not expect major fleet growth42.

39 Boeing & Dassault Aviation

40 Hay Group Analysis based on DLR Data

41 Hay Group Analysis; Cessna and Hawker Beechcraft are parts of Textron Inc. and

represent a combined share of 44% of EU9 fleet size

42 ICF


Figure 43: Fleet structure in EU9 countries by aircraft manufacturer

In terms of European manufacturers, there are 28 companies in the EU9

countries43. Most of the players are located in France (8), the UK (6), and

Germany (5). In all other EU9 countries, the number of manufacturers

ranges from one to three.44

Figure 44: Number of manufacturers in EU9 countries (2014)

43 Some manufacturers operate in different countries and are listed multiple times in

different countries (e.g. Airbus)

44 DLR

Piper8%

Cessna28%

Others17%

Dassault Aviation

17%

Hawker Beechcraft

16%

Bombardier14%


Figure 45: Manufacturers in EU9 countries (by percentage, 2014)

Figure 46: Workforce in Business Aviation manufacturing by country


In terms of technology, most trends that affect Business Aviation generally

also affect manufacturers, often with more of an impact on job clusters due

to the many core activities in these companies, from development, testing

to production and sales. Relevant trends include the development of

avionics, and new materials and production methods, such as 3D printing.

Furthermore, the demand for larger jets with more seats has a potential

effect on the workforce.


With over 40,000 staff, the number of employees working for

manufacturers is significantly higher than the number of employees

working for other stakeholders in Business Aviation. The job landscape is

also more diverse and complex than in other aviation segments, ranging

from R&D related jobs to testing, production, client training, and a more


complex sales and marketing workforce. As manufacturers also serve other

clients outside Business Aviation, a clear differentiation of employees

working for Business Aviation cannot be made. Accordingly, analysing the

workforce composition is not feasible at this point.

The manufacturers interviewed report low attrition rates. One describes it

as “stable in production and service”. However, there seems to be a trend

of smaller manufacturers losing staff to bigger companies.

6.6.4 CURRENT AND FUTURE WORKFORCE

SHORTAGES

No clear view about current shortages was provided by those

manufacturers interviewed, though some report a shortage of technicians.

As manufacturers are mostly bigger companies, their employer brand,

professional HR with more career options, job security, and recruiting

savvy position them better in the fight for talent and they do not need to

fear any relevant workforce shortage.


7 COMPETING FOR CAPTAINS, PILOTS AND TECHNICIANS - CRITICAL ROLE SHORTAGES

SUMMARY

The impact of workforce drivers, such as attrition rates, demographics, the

availability of talent in the labour market, and regulatory and technology

developments, will be most evidenced in workforce gaps in the critical roles

of Captain, Maintenance Technicians and Flight Planners.

There are numerous ways that aviation in general and Business Aviation in

particular can influence the supply and demand of key elements of the

workforce in terms of retaining, developing and attracting skilled employees

in Business Aviation.


7.1 IDENTIFICATION OF CRITICAL ROLES AND

SKILLS

Critical roles in Business Aviation are those where both a scarcity of

potential jobholders or skills needed and a high strategic importance or

mission criticality exist.

Figure 47: Critical roles approach

Based on the interviews and additional research, we have identified the

following critical roles, in the job family framework:

Captain

Flight planner

Maintenance technician

Additionally, for some parts of the sector, the following roles might be

critical as well:

Pilot

Operations controller

Trainee flight dispatcher

Aviation design engineer

Supervisor completions

Production operator (e.g., saddler)

Maintenance supervisor (cat. C)

Air traffic controller

Firefighter

Flight information officer


Technicians

Experienced technicians are the job cluster where there is the highest

agreement among experts that there will be a workforce shortage in the

future. It is also a job cluster where Business Aviation competes with

commercial aviation.

Captains

Whereas less experienced pilots seem to be plentiful in the market, the

labour supply for experienced pilots is rather tight. Most operators in

Business Aviation do not see a major workforce shortage today, but

forecast possible shortages in the mid- to long-term.

Flight Planners/Dispatchers

Some operators consider flight planners as a job cluster that has potential

for workforce shortages, even if there are currently no signs of this.

The duration for internal training of people for this job (three to 12 months

including on the job training) contributes to the criticality. Flight planners in

Business Aviation are different from planning functions in scheduled

airlines and therefore not an ideal recruiting source.

7.2 WORKFORCE DRIVERS

Based on the analysis conducted above, the following workforce supply

and demand drivers were identified:

Key Workforce Supply Drivers for Business Aviation:

Attrition rate

Age structure and retirement

Availability of talent in labour market

Attractiveness to employee target group

Productivity (increase in productivity lowers workforce demand)

Reward level development (lower reward levels allow more people to

be hired with the same personnel budget)

Workforce mobility (balances supply and demand between regions)

Indirect supply drivers (with impact on talent availability and reward

levels):

Growth and workforce demand in sectors competing for the same

type of talent (e.g. automotive sector)

Demographic development of the overall workforce

Availability of qualified graduates


Key Workforce Demand Drivers for Business Aviation:

Number of registered aircraft

Number of flights

Flight hours

Aircraft type distribution (homogeneity of fleet)

Aircraft age

Technology developments

Regulatory changes

Indirect demand drivers that influence fleet and flights

GDP growth

Revenue growth in Business Aviation

Acceptance of Business Aviation in society

7.3 WORKFORCE RISKS

Based on the analysis conducted, we identified the following key workforce

risks in Business Aviation:

Workforce Supply Side

Rising attrition rate due to increasing number of younger people joining

or more attractive offers from competitors or other aviation segments.

Retirement of older employees without proper replacement creating

bigger gaps. Early retirement might accelerate this risk.

Lack of transparency on key workforce indicators that might lead to

unexpected loss of staff (voluntary leave, retirement) without being

able to initiate countermeasures early in the process.

Continuing decrease in number of young people willing to specialise in

STEM subjects.

No change in the perception of aviation and Business Aviation as

attractive sector and therefore no increase in share of graduates.

No improvement in the output of qualified graduates from the

education system in selected regions (e.g., because of lack of financial

support for students, lack of appropriate schools or training).

Increasing reward gap between other aviation segments and Business

Aviation and within the sector. Need to either increase reward levels as

well or higher probability for voluntary leave and open positions.

Increase in HR management maturity level at competitors attracting

and retaining needed resources better than Business Aviation

companies.

No upward trend in workforce mobility for specific roles within Europe

(e.g., technicians).


Forecast growth and workforce demand rise in sectors competing for

the same talent comes true (e.g., scheduled airlines).

Poaching of specialists to non-European regions such as US due to

high demand and very competitive job offers.

Workforce Demand Side

Growth of Business Aviation fleet, number of flights, and flight hours

(should be a positive development, but potentially increases the

workforce gap).

Increase in fleet heterogeneity.

Increase in aircraft age (lack of replacement).

Developments in technology do not lead to forecast small workforce

reduction, but to demand for skills that are not available in the market

(e.g., on carbon material).

Additional regulations (local, national, and at European level) might

increase the need both for additional staff and training to acquire new

required skills.


8 WEATHERING THE STORM: HOW TO CLOSE WORKFORCE GAPS

SUMMARY

The key finding is that EBAA needs to trigger awareness of the coming

workforce shortages within the Business Aviation sector, both among its

members and the wider Business Aviation community.

Business Aviation has to get better at attracting talent into the industry. It

can go some way to increasing the talent pool of skilled employees and

helping attract highly sought after talent into Business Aviation, e.g. by

creating a more compelling sector employment brand.

Improving educational and training opportunities is another solution area

that increases the quantity and quality of the skilled workforce.

Encouraging EBAA members to increase the professional maturity of their

human resources operations, particularly at SMEs, and systematically

monitoring the workforce situation at both sector and company level, are

critical to improve recruiting, talent management, training and workforce

planning.


8.1 CURRENT PROGRAMMES TO CLOSE

WORKFORCE GAPS

8.1.1 OVERVIEW

Current programmes to close workforce gaps can be categorized on a

European, national, industry-wide, or company-specific basis. Table 12

summarizes the main programmes aiming to reduce existing mismatches

between workforce supply and demand across Europe.

Technicians Pilots Flight Planner/ Dispatcher

Other

1. EU

1.1 EASA – GA Roadmap

1.2 EDUCAIR

1.3 EU STEM Coalition

1.4 WorldSkills Competition

2. Country 2.1 National Apprenticeship Programmes

2.1 National Apprenticeship Programmes

3. Industry 3.1 Internal Training Programmes (Large Companies Only)

4. Company

4.1 University Classes Taught by Industry Experts

4.5 Offer of “Training Bonds” Options

4.8 Partnership with Hotel Chain for Ground Handlers Training on Soft Skills

4.2 Customized School Curricula to Fit Company Needs

4.6 Provision of Pilot Training with Aircraft Purchase

4.3 In-House Apprenticeship Programmes

4.4 Internship Programmesin Partnership with Companies

4.7 Partner with external providers to offer curricula for pilots

4.9 Internal Training Programmes for Firefighters

Green = Operators, Yellow = Manufacturers, Purple = Operators +

Manufacturers + MROs, Blue = Vocational Schools, Orange = Airports

Table 12: Overview of the current programmes to close workforce gaps grouped by scope: European, country specific, industry, or company specific.


European Union

EASA-GA Roadmap: The European Commission and EASA drafted

the GA Roadmap in order to minimize the number of rules and adopt a

risk-based approach when regulating the General Aviation sector.

Although Business Aviation is not synonymous with General Aviation,

parts of its activities are, such as corporate business jet flights, and

this is why the GA Roadmap is relevant to the sector. Key measures

envisaged by the GA Roadmap to avoid overregulating the General

Aviation sector are:

Simplify administrative and operational procedures

Make oversight activities more proportionate, delegating them to

the end-user organization

Tailor the certification process to be more proportionate

Production of a regulatory quick reference guide

EDUCAIR: In order to identify the competence gaps between the

required skills and the educational curricula available in the aviation

sector, the Foundation for Science and Technology in Portugal funded

the Educational Gaps in Aeronautics and Air Transport

(EDUCAIR) project, conducted by a team of experts from six European

universities between 2011 and 2013. Although the main result of the

study was that no significant competence misalignment exists at the

EU level, it stated that educational programmes tend to be organized

as separate containers rather than fostering transversal educational

offers. In addition to the need for more flexible programmes, the study

also pointed out the critical need for a strong school-industry

partnership to ensure a high level of technical education.

EU STEM Coalition: Science, Technology, Engineering and

Mathematics (STEM) graduates are a key factor to ensure economic

growth and quality jobs for young people across Europe. The high rate

of youth unemployment and high number of vacancies for STEM jobs

highlights a skills mismatch.

Several EU member states have addressed this mismatch by

developing successful national STEM strategies. The EU STEM

Coalition is the result of the joint force of the national STEM platforms

of Denmark, The Netherlands, Belgium and Estonia. By providing

peer-to-peer coaching, the STEM Coalition aims to help establish new

national STEM platforms in other member states. Although not

specifically focused on the aviation sector, the EU STEM Coalition

addresses a mismatch between demand and supply of skills in Europe,

including in the Business Aviation sector.


Country

National Apprenticeship Programmes: Apprenticeships are a useful

resource to facilitate the transition from training to work. The European

Commission reports that countries with a strong apprenticeship

system have lower levels of youth unemployment. Examples of

apprenticeship systems can be found in the UK, Germany, Switzerland

and France.

The UK government has implemented a rigorous apprenticeship

structure in which

groups of employers ('Trailblazers') develop new apprenticeships,

working together to design standards and assessment approaches. As

of July 2015, there were 140 Trailblazer employer groups

delivering over 350 apprenticeship standards.

Industry

Internal Training Programmes: Large companies in the Business

Aviation sector have the resources to offer internal training

programmes for their employees. Business Aviation experts

highlighted the fact that manufacturers, large MROs and large

operators provide internal EASA-certified training for technicians.

Large operators are also able to train dispatchers in-house. Airports

hold internal security training to bring their personnel up to speed.

The figure below shows an overview of the type of personnel trained

by large Business Aviation players across Europe.

Technicians Pilots Dispatchers Other

Figure 48: Internal training providers in Business Aviation in Europe and the job categories targeted.

Large MROs

Large Operators

Manufacturers

Large Operators

Airports


Company

Technicians

Company-wide programmes aimed at reducing workforce gaps for

technicians in Business Aviation follow two main paths. Both

vocational schools and companies work together to reduce

mismatches between demand and supply, while companies also

provide specific internal programmes.

School/Industry Initiatives: Business Aviation manufacturers,

operators, and vocational schools in Europe provide university-

level classes taught by industry experts, as well as customized

school curricula to fit industry needs and internship programmes to

increase student/company interaction at school.

In-House Apprenticeship Programmes: These are very

common among aircraft manufacturers, operators, and MROs in

the sector.

Pilots

In order to promote the Business Aviation pilot career, some vocational

schools have a specific curriculum for pilots conducted by external

providers.

Other

Smaller airports whose operations comprise mainly Business Aviation

cannot rely on the same financial resources as large commercial

airports. Small airports across Europe are investing resources in

safety training both for general staff as well as for firefighters.

Business Aviation operators report a lack of soft skills among ground

handling personnel. Given the client-facing roles that ground handlers

have in Business Aviation, some operators have started providing

specific training on soft skills, including by partnering with hotel

chains to offer this type of training to their employees.

8.2 POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS

8.2.1 OVERVIEW

When determining potential solutions to meet the workforce shortage

challenge, sector stakeholders can influence the workforce gap in two

ways. They can either influence the workforce demand by using business

levers, or influence the supply side by using human resources levers.


Figure 49: Overview of potential solutions

Demand Side

The following business levers can be used to influence the number and

type of talented individuals moving into Business Aviation:

Make-or-buy strategy: Individual companies might consider

outsourcing to external providers for specific processes where they find

it difficult to attract or retain personnel with the right skills and cost

levels. As in many other sectors, outsourcing of enabling functions in

aviation is quite common. While outsourcing critical roles is more

difficult, as these often constitute the core competencies of the

companies, outsourcing maintenance work among operators is quite

common.

Optimize processes to lower workforce demand: A core activity

when optimizing workforce demand is to review the current process

landscape, then streamline processes and decision-making and assign

processes and activities to the appropriate roles. Often people who are

too senior (and scarce) take care of activities that could be delegated

to staff with lower skill levels.

Harmonize fleet and invest in technology: Fleets in Business

Aviation are often quite heterogeneous. Harmonizing fleets helps

decrease the number of people needed to operate and maintain them.

Small and medium sized Business Aviation companies can also

increase efficiency by investing more in technology.

Move to locations with sufficient workforce supply: Workforce

shortages do not show an equal distribution across countries and

regions. Some countries have a better supply of young talent in the

critical roles. In other countries, there might be oversupply of personnel

for several years, such as due to the failure of a big local player in

aviation. Shifting some operations to these countries or establishing a

new subsidiary might help to overcome workforce shortages in specific

locations.


Governmental lobbying to optimize regulations: Government

regulations are a factor affecting workforce demand. Identifying the

impact of specific regulations on the workforce and then lobbying from

a united aviation sector might help mitigate the workforce impact of the

regulations.

Supply Side

We see many more levers for Business Aviation on the supply side to avoid

major workforce shortages.

Figure 50: Overview of proposed workforce supply solutions

8.2.2 TRIGGER AWARENESS

Figure 51: Triggering awareness is key for successful solutions implementation


Awareness is Key:

“This is a struggle that will come and can’t be won by fighting it

alone”

Without creating awareness of the looming workforce shortages and the

need to initiate countermeasures, any measures proposed to tackle the

problem are unlikely to be accepted by Business Aviation stakeholders.

Therefore, the first step in addressing the talent crisis is to create

awareness of the coming workforce shortage and that the sector as a

whole needs to address it.

Need for Comprehensive Planning

In order to highlight impending Business Aviation workforce shortages, a

comprehensive strategic communications plan needs to be developed and

executed. The plan should build upon this foundational study, extract

relevant content, make use of the pre-existing stakeholder segmentation,

use the stakeholder database, and develop objectives in line with the

identified workforce situation.

Segment EBAA Customer and Stakeholder Groups: It will be important

to define the communications needs of each group of stakeholders.

Explore possibilities around a cascading effect from different

communication campaigns, where a campaign geared towards a

stakeholder group with higher awareness levels might be used for those

with lower awareness levels.

Figure 52: Sample Stakeholder Segmentation based on subsector

Define Communication Roles: By defining communication roles, key

messages can be tailored to the communicator. For example, an executive

sponsor’s communication impact will be different than communications

through newsletters. Messaging will need to be tailored to satisfy both the

audience (stakeholder group) and the communicator.


Create Communications Objectives: All communications should focus on

the workforce situation, while recognising that there are supporting

objectives around EBAA and asking stakeholder groups to support its

workforce development efforts. The key objectives of the strategic

communications programme should address particular challenges, such as

insufficient pilots being trained.

Figure 53: The value of diverse communication channels

Select Communications Channels: While newsletters are effective

communication tools, EBAA should consider the full suite of standard

communications channels available, including websites, executive

speeches, informative videos, fact sheets, discussion forums, or blogs and

consider how each stakeholder group might engage or interact with these

media to design a comprehensive communications plan with associated

timelines and message calendars.

Achieving the objectives will depend on the credibility of the messenger

and whether the communication is viewed as authentic. We recommend

that EBAA work with ‘role model’ companies that have a strong reputation,

as well as companies that have already experienced severe workforce

shortages and are starting to tackle the problem with pragmatic measures.

8.2.3 IMPROVE TALENT ATTRACTION

Create ONE Compelling Sector Employer Brand

Business Aviation, with its many small and medium sized members, needs

to act together to attract talent to the sector. Otherwise, potential

employees will be drawn to other sectors, especially commercial aviation

and other technical sectors such as the space or automotive industries. We

see in the results of the sector attractiveness survey how compelling the


brands of major airlines or major aircraft producers are. They have a high

brand awareness and a positive image.

Employer Value Proposition

The first step in creating a compelling employer brand is to define an

Employer Branding Value Proposition (EVP) to communicate a common

image of work in Business Aviation. This EVP should include:

The unique set of offerings and values that will positively encourage

suitable target candidates to choose a Business Aviation company as

an employer.

What employees experience while they are part of a company in the

sector – everything from the satisfaction of the work, the environment

they work in, the leadership, culture, compensation, training and career

development will all play a role.

The set of attributes that the current and potential employees should

perceive as the value they gain through employment in the sector.

Figure 54: Employer Branding for Business Aviation

The following steps should be followed to create the EVP:

Analysis

Organize a group of HR specialists from the sector to work on the

topic. Define a people strategy, goals and key target groups for the

sector (this could vary by segment and country).

Analyse in detail the current Business Aviation EVP perceptions and

channel effectiveness, based on the results of the sector attractiveness

survey. Engage in focus groups with selected members of the target

groups (both young people that joined the workforce and those still in

the education system). Conduct a gap analysis between actual and

desired perceptions and identify key focus areas that lead to these

perceptions.


EVP Strategy Development

Define:

The unique attributes, offerings, and values the potential target

group should associate with Business Aviation

The experience employers should provide in the sector

The concrete EVP statements

Business Aviation is unique, with its high percentage of small

companies, its technical and operational orientation, and its male

dominance. Simplicity is key for the EVP approach.

Testing and Approval

The EVP statements should be tested across different target group

segments and countries and then be adjusted where necessary.

It might also be helpful to define common design requirements for the

‘Business Aviation’ employer brand (possibly including a common logo

to achieve a higher recognition effect).

Roll-Out

Conduct EVP gap analysis both internally (with existing employees in

Business Aviation companies) and externally (especially with graduate

target groups) to identify the changes and the concrete measures that

are needed to (re-) position Business Aviation as an attractive

employer.

Creating an employer brand is not only a matter of advertising and PR,

but also requires alignment of human resources, processes, leadership

and company cultures in the individual companies and across the

sector. Tools, checklists, training and coaching are needed to support

individual companies to conduct their individual roll-outs. Sector-wide

engagement and communication measures should be launched before

any external communication roll-out.

Management and Metrics

Employer brand awareness and image need to be measured on a regular basis to identify changes in the level of awareness of target groups and whether defined targets have been met. This requires the definition of clear KPIs and how and when they will be measured.

Launch Common Employer Branding Activities with Other Aviation Stakeholders

A further solution to increase awareness of Business Aviation is to use the

overall ‘Aviation’ brand to promote this particular employer brand in

partnership with other aviation segments and stakeholders. This solution is

supplementary and should only be initiated after having begun the roll-out

of the Business Aviation branding measures.


As the other stakeholders in aviation are bigger, Business Aviation should

only participate in common measures to communicate a brand that is

aligned with the Business Aviation employer brand.

Conduct Common Personnel Marketing Activities in the Sector

Since most industry players in Business Aviation, especially operators and

MROs, do not have a significant number of recruits, a good brand

awareness programme, or a considerable personnel marketing budget, it

makes sense to bundle specific personnel marketing activities in the sector

to professionalize these activities and achieve economies of scale.

This approach will also ensure that the employer brand is better

communicated and consistently positioned.

Figure 55: Benefits for all industry players with common marketing measures

EBAA and national Business Aviation associations can provide useful

bundling and coordination services. The following activities should be

coordinated and initiated by EBAA and its local organisations:

Define common recruiting focus areas with local Business Aviation

associations and firms, such as:

Specific educational entities (flight schools, technical schools,

universities) for entry-level employees

Specific sourcing markets approached together with common

relationship management (e.g., military)

Organize partnerships with schools to provide early career advice and

guidance and initiate relationships.

Provide standard templates for recruiting ads with common, sector-

wide branding.

Common branding &

design (increaseBusiness Aviation

recognition)

Common approach

andtargets

Bundlingof

resources


Coordinate common, bundled recruitment ad placement in relevant

media.

Establish and maintain a common presence on social media.

Common presence of Business Aviation companies at relevant career

fairs managed by EBAA or local organisations.

Bundling of personnel marketing activities with a few selected partners

at better cost (e.g., for ads and recruiting services).

Set-up, run, and advertise a website for internships in Business

Aviation.

Set-up, run, and advertise a job marketplace on the EBAA website with

open jobs as well as jobseekers in Business Aviation.

Initiate Programmes to Raise Female Participation

Any solutions to increase the number of women in Business Aviation need

to address different steps in the process of attracting and retaining women.

Some changes will take quite a long time to happen and need to be started

now.

Figure 56: Steps in influencing the female workforce ratio

Increasing the attractiveness of technical jobs for girls is

a target that Business Aviation can support. We recommend

that EBAA identify useful, existing activities from other

sectors, companies, associations, or government bodies,

which Business Aviation as a sector can participate in and

support. This will also bring the sector into contact with

potential employees and thus position itself to ensure a

future fair share of young graduates. An example of a

potential initiative Business Aviation companies could

participate in is the WISE campaign in the UK.

Figure 57: WISE campaign poster

Increase attractiveness of technical jobs for girls

Increase number of young women in technical education programmes

Attract women to Business Aviation companies

Retain women in Business Aviation companies


Related to increasing awareness is the need to remind people how

inspirational aviation can be. Regarding technical jobs, we recommend

greater participation in existing activities with other organizations,

aviation segments, or key aviation stakeholders. Opportunities should

be created for girls and young women to meet aviation role models,

champions and organizations that are making a difference. Examples

of potential initiatives include

Girls’ Day in Germany, a yearly event where girls from age 10

spend a day in a company

The Aviatrix Project, designed to inspire and encourage girls and

women to join the aviation sector

Figure 58: Examples of projects and events to change the perception of male-dominated industries

Not only does the perception of girls and women toward Business

Aviation need to be changed, but so does that of Business Aviation

managers. Increasing the female ratio ‘is good for business’. EBAA

and its local organizations need to create and communicate a business

case showing that a higher female ratio in Business Aviation

companies is beneficial from a financial and commercial perspective.

Without this change in understanding, support for any measures to

increase the female workforce will be lukewarm.

In order to attract potential female candidates to Business Aviation, the

employer value proposition and brand needs to be developed,

rolled out, and promoted – taking into consideration the current

perception among young women regarding Business Aviation and the

specific needs and wishes of potential female employees. Changing

the current perception of Business Aviation as being male-dominated

and not attractive for women should be part of a general campaign to

create visibility and improve the image of the industry as employer.

Key to achieving and keeping a higher female ratio in Business

Aviation is to retain the women already in the industry. This is the last

step in the process described above, but according to our experience

with many companies, it is the most critical and difficult one. Many

companies focus only on attracting women, but do not think about how

to retain them. Retaining women requires changing a well-engrained


culture and practices in Business Aviation companies. The first step is

to become aware of the cultural elements and practices that could lead

to departures. EBAA should liaise with organizations like WISE in the

UK that provide training, tools, workshops, or counselling and enable

firms to identify their necessary training for increasing the number of

women in the workplace and to define and implement improvement

measures.

Create a Sector-Wide Engagement Programme

Currently, the attrition rate in Business Aviation firms is, on average, quite

low. This is a key competitive advantage for the sector. However, the next

generation of young people joining the workforce is different. Their

expectations regarding their work and work environment are different as

are their mobility and willingness to stay with an employer for a longer time.

Therefore, it is important to be aware of the engagement levels and

problems of the workforce. Managers can only react if they know that

engagement and enabling levels of their workforce are at a critical level.

Unfortunately, many managers, even in SME firms, think that they have a

good understanding of their employees’ engagement levels, but reality

shows in many companies that this is not the case.

We recommend that EBAA coordinate setting up a framework, tools, and

processes to measure engagement levels in its member companies and

provide the necessary knowledge to interpret the results and initiate

countermeasures. EBAA can either hire a consultancy to build and run this

or outsource it entirely. Besides giving individual members the necessary

insights to manage their workforce’s engagement levels, it also provides

the necessary information to benchmark the results for the sector as a

whole against other sectors’ engagement levels and show early indicators

of possible risks for the sector. This is also an important aspect in the

monitoring plan described later in this report.

8.2.4 INCREASE SKILLED WORKFORCE

Sourcing Analysis to Evaluate High-Value Programmes

As a first step to increasing the skilled workforce, EBAA should undertake a

workforce sourcing analysis to determine the type of programmes that

could attract more Business Aviation employees. The sourcing analysis

should examine the Business Aviation workforce and identify the most

frequent sources of employees. For example, if the majority of candidates

apply as a result of a job fair or a specific training centre, then EBAA

member firms should strengthen their efforts in these areas to attract more

candidates.


Improve Education Offerings for All Business Aviation Jobs

Upon determining the best sources for Business Aviation candidates,

EBAA, with its member companies, should then seek to improve the status

quo. EBAA should identify potential improvements to education offerings

for Business Aviation jobs. Besides supporting the goal of reducing

workforce shortages across Europe, this will also ensure that the workforce

is better prepared for the jobs that it will fill. To this end, we recommend an

evaluation of the potential solutions below to determine which provide the

best return on investment:

Training as a ‘shared service’: EBAA members should attempt to

build a partnership or outsourcing strategy with aviation organisations

that excel at training pilots, dispatchers and technicians. For example,

if an operator was delivering excellent aviation training, it could be an

additional revenue stream for the operator to offer their training to

external customers. For specific jobs without proper training offerings,

such as dispatchers, this will be especially important.

Partnerships with schools: EBAA could work with those countries

with the greatest need for Business Aviation workers to establish

programmes to advance aviation careers within the school curricula.

Sponsoring a career day, highlighting the diverse career paths in

aviation, may entice more candidates to pursue the education and

training required for a career in Business Aviation.

Share best practices for Business Aviation education and

training: Simply by creating a forum for member firms to share

information and best practices related to training could reveal best

practices not widely known across the industry. By establishing regular

processes to analyse new trends in aviation education, EBAA and

member firms would be in a better position to continually improve

education over time.

Standardization of education: If EBAA were to create formal

standardized training programmes, in compliance with EASA

requirements, then Business Aviation companies could reach out to

EBAA for staff training. This would include establishing rigorous

competency models and behavioural indicators. The benefit of

delivering exacting competency-based training means that training

could be broken down into smaller modular units, enabling more

iterative career paths for employees. Modular learning and the ability to

explore new career paths may create a more attractive work

environment for millennials. From here, EBAA could identify a vendor

to provide training delivery (classroom, instructor, etc.) and offer the

training as an additional revenue stream for its members. This would

enable EBAA to track workforce development trends and quickly adapt

to changing training requirements. Standardizing education would

increase recognition of training certificates across Europe.


Regulatory considerations

It would be necessary to ensure that all training meets EASA requirements.

Multi-Skilling of Staff

Although Business Aviation attrition is low, the career expectations of

millennials and Generation Y are different from the current workforce.

Therefore, finding new ways to provide life-long learning through cross-

training programmes may provide a more attractive value proposition to

young people. In addition to addressing the new generation’s career

development needs, cross-training the workforce may provide a less

expensive to meet aviation staffing needs.

Multi-skilling can mean training staff across different aviation sectors (e.g.,

preparing pilots for Business and civil aviation) or training staff across

Business Aviation jobs (e.g., air traffic controllers at small airports also

providing managerial support).

By breaking down the work of technicians and flight planners into smaller

modular learning units, candidates may take training in different units,

slowly expanding their knowledge, skills and abilities in short iterative

bursts. This may also reduce training costs since employees could take

more targeted training modules, focusing only on what they need. This

could create a more competitive market for training service providers,

providing a lower cost alternative for candidates, and addressing the career

needs of the next generation by providing new and interesting career paths

and making job candidacy more merit based.

If Business Aviation firms were to cross-train with other sectors (e.g., civil

aviation), or across Business Aviation jobs, overall sector training costs

could be reduced. For example, a small regional airport may not need both

a flight dispatcher and a technician, but may instead rely on a single

individual to provide both services.


Cross-training across aviation segments may increase overall training costs per person, as the certification or knowledge requirements for Business, Commercial and Civil may be different.

Because of the nature of aviation, checks and balances are critical for safety. When performing more than one role for a small Business Aviation job it will be important to ensure that more than one employee meets all appropriate safety requirements.


Improve Education Financing for Critical Jobs

Education for Business Aviation jobs is costly and may therefore negatively

influence potential Business Aviation employees. To address potential

workforce shortages in the Business Aviation segment across Europe,

companies should support education financing for critical jobs such as

pilots, flight dispatchers and technicians.

The rising cost of education is not as critical an issue in Europe as it is in

the US or Asia, due to a high level of subsidies in Europe, which has

insulated most universities. That said, Britain introduced annual tuition fees

in 1998, at £1000 (then $1650), which by 2012 had risen to £9000

($13,900)45. Alternatively, in Germany, public universities are free for EU

citizens (or states require a nominal fee). To address potential financial

shortfalls for students interested in pursuing an occupation in Business

Aviation (especially for pilots), companies need to provide education

incentives. Proposed options include training bonds, employee tuition

reimbursement and low-interest direct education financing support.

Training Bonds

Commonly offered in Canada and Asia, training bonds are “contracts

between an employee and the employer indicating that the employee will

have his or her training paid for (and his or her accommodations paid for

during training), but only if he/she remains with the employer for a minimum

amount of time.”


Legality of training bonds may be different across different countries. Research shows contradictory evidence and would need to be further evaluated by legal experts.

Employer Sponsored Programmes

Business Aviation firms need to consider near-term costs associated with

providing training financing to employees against the long-term costs

associated with major workforce shortages. While apprenticeship

programmes lead to reduced unemployment and thoroughly train

candidates for jobs, they are often difficult to institute in free-market

economies, such as the UK and US. Countries such as Germany with

heavy economic regulation are better suited for this type of educational

tracking.

Essentially, apprenticeship programmes offer a short-term investment to

realize long-term workforce gains. The graphic below shows how the

investment model for apprenticeship programmes may work.

45 The digital degree, The Economist, June 28th 2014


Figure 59: Apprenticeship training model

Apprenticeship programmes provide long-term value, but may require more

influence and change than EBAA can effect on its own on a European

level. Alternatively, EBAA may consider developing an apprenticeship

programme in a country such as Germany, where it is the norm. Ultimately,

it will require a comprehensive business case analysis to determine if such

a programme will result in long-term value given the required up-front

investment and that it may only be feasible on a national level.

In the near-term (< 8 years), Business Aviation should consider alternative

employer sponsored programmes:

Employee tuition reimbursement – similar to training bonds but

offered in the United States, employee tuition reimbursement is a

“contractual arrangement between employer and employee that

outlines specific terms under which the employer may pay for the

employee’s continuing education.” Many programmes offer

reimbursement as long as the education supports the employee’s

current job.

Individual Learning Accounts – offered in part of the UK, individual

learning accounts encourage employees to determine how to spend

money on their own professional development.

Employer Training Pilots – a programme in the UK that reimburses

employers for the cost of granting low-skilled employees paid time off

work to pursue education and training courses.

Subsidized Education Grants and Loans


These are monetary grants based on financial need and loans where the

government pays the interest while the student is in school. A 2012 study

by the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training

(Cedefop) reviewed loans for vocational education and training in Europe

and recommended that, when countries design and implement vocational

education and training loan schemes, they should abide by certain core

principles. 46

To improve education financing for the Business Aviation workforce, EBAA

should consider how to leverage the appropriate financial instruments to

increase sector participation. By coordinating financial instruments with

state policies, or providing tax incentives (Finland), EBAA could effectively

increase the pipeline of eligible and trained employees into targeted roles.

A quick review of the legality of training bonds, if drafted correctly, is worth

researching, as they are the lowest cost, highest return option for the

Business Aviation sector. Alternatively, EBAA members should consider

conducting a cost/benefit analysis of an employer programme such as

tuition reimbursement, or in countries with heavy government economic

regulation, determine if an apprenticeship programme is feasible. Both of

these options require considerable company investment, so a full financial

analysis would be required.


Of the EU9, only the UK offers income-contingent or hybrid replacement student loans. The primary reasons for the limited number of income-contingent or hybrid schemes are related to the prerequisites for such schemes. These prerequisites include significant inflow of financial resources, as the scheme has to be financed for a long time before repayments start to accumulate and sustain it; sound administrative and strong legal frameworks; well developed, universal, transparent and effective system of income tax collection; and efficient payment mechanism.47

46 Loans for vocational education and training in Europe, Research Paper No 20, European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training, 2012

47 Chapman, B. Income contingent loans for higher education: international reform. Discussion paper, No 491. Centre for Economic Policy, Canberra: Australian National University


8.2.5 PROFESSIONAL WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT

Human Resources Management

To create a level playing field in HR and ensure Business Aviation

companies a fair share of the available aviation workforce, Business

Aviation companies need to professionalize their HR departments. This is

especially true for the small and medium sized companies.

There are two options on how to approach this:

Train professionals doing HR work in the companies to improve their

HR skills. This can be centralized with EBAA developing a training

curriculum for the core HR skills needed in the war for talent.

Roll-out of the curriculum could be done

centrally (preferably with a blended learning approach that

requires only limited travel) contracted to one provider or

by local Business Aviation associations that select and manage

local providers, but use the common curriculum

Alternatively, EBAA could draft key requirements and content for these

training programmes and local Business Aviation associations could

handle the development and roll-out themselves.

Outsource selected HR services to professional services firms or

freelancers.

Figure 60: HR focus areas for optimisation

Professionalise human

resources management

Recruiting

RewardManagement

Talent Management


Recruitment

Recruitment is key to attracting the right people. Recruitment activities that

can be optimised are the definition of the target profile and sourcing

approach, as well as the screening, interviewing, and assessment of the

candidates.

EBAA can help by:

Offering training

Putting together process checklists (with webinars on how-to-use)

Creating standard role profiles for key roles to be used for ads and with

skill requirements to be used during the selection process

Providing on-demand assessment tools (contracted from a selected

provider)

Talent Management

Talent management encompasses activities such as performance

management (including target setting and reviews), career and succession

planning and people development – all of which is essential to enable staff,

keep them engaged, achieve targeted results and retain employees.

EBAA can support members by:

Offering talent management related training

Providing customized checklists and templates for talent management

Gathering and publishing information on training in all Business

Aviation relevant topics as a kind of training marketplace

Reward Management

Rewarding people according to their job requirements, performance and

the market pay level is key when it comes to retaining and attracting staff.

Many Business Aviation competitors, especially airlines, bigger airports,

and aircraft manufacturers/suppliers, have highly sophisticated reward

management systems. Competing for the same pool of resources, and

even in the same market to some extent, requires an increased

professionalization of reward management.

EBAA can support its members by regularly gathering and monitoring

reward levels in both Business Aviation and competing sectors for talent

and providing reports to their members on this topic. This would also help

to identify changes in the workforce situation, since rises in pay levels tend

to be an indication of workforce shortages.

EBAA can also provide training geared toward the specific needs of the

sector and its small and medium size companies regarding reward

management as proposed above in the HR curriculum.


Continuous Monitoring of Situation

A key challenge when addressing workforce shortages is:

To gather reliable data on the workforce and monitor the situation at

regular intervals at the sector level. Thus, the criticality of the problems

can be assessed and necessary measures initiated early in the

processes. It allows sound discussions with government entities on

subsidies and other legislative or operational support as well.

To induce companies in the sector to conduct simple workforce

planning and controlling to become aware of their specific problems

and initiate countermeasures when they still have options available.

We recommend that EBAA coordinate setting-up a simple web-based

workforce planning and monitoring system for member firms where they

can plan and control their workforce with a low level of complexity.

Members would be trained with a quick web-based module on workforce

planning techniques and EBAA could gather anonymized workforce data

on a regular basis and analyse the sector workforce situation. A similar

system is currently being piloted with the German Association for People

Management (DGFP).

Figure 61: Example of simple workforce planning and monitoring tools


8.3 COST, FUNDING AND IMPACT OF

SOLUTIONS

8.3.1 COST OF COMPANY MEASURES

The cost of company measures, seen in the table in section 10.3.3, can be

categorized into three progressively more expensive levels:

Level Cost

€ <50K

€€ 50K – 400K

€€€ >400K

While the table provides the relative cost for each of the potential solutions,

a more detailed analysis will need to be conducted to understand the full

costs associated with any particular solution.

8.3.2 OPPORTUNITIES FOR FUNDING AND OTHER

SYNERGIES

Within the European Union there are several organizations whose interests

overlap with and are similarly aligned with those of Business Aviation.

Because of the relative size of Business Aviation within the aviation

industry, it is recommended that EBAA partner with other aviation councils

(e.g., International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)) before approaching

funding institutions. By uniting and presenting a shared argument for more

investment in aviation, specifically as it relates to education and training,

there is greater likelihood of success.

European Programmes

European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training

(Cedefop): This is the European Union’s reference centre for

vocational education and training. They provide information on and

analyses of vocational education and training systems, policies,

research, and practice.

Cedefop may provide EBAA and partner aviation concerns with best

practices for improving vocational education and training for pilots,

flight dispatchers and technicians. The organization may also have

specific insight on ways to improve education and training in critical

Business Aviation countries while simultaneously helping EBBA to

advance its cause.

Education & Training 2020 (ET2020): While each EU country is

responsible for its own education and training systems, EU policy is

designed to support national action and help address common

challenges, such as ageing societies, skills deficits in the workforce,


technological developments and global competition. ET2020 is the

framework for cooperation in education and training.

ET2020 is a forum for exchange of best practices, as well as advice

and support for policy reforms. Funding for policy support and

innovative projects is available through Erasmus+ for activities that

promote learning and education at all levels and for all age groups.

The 2015 Joint Report of the Council and Commission on ET2020 calls

out two concrete issues of critical importance to EBAA:

Higher education systems should boost the knowledge economy

and respond to society’s needs

Vocational education and training play a key role in developing the

relevant skills

It is recommended that EBAA identify key points of contact supporting

the ET2020 working groups and work together to find ways to better tie

education to the needs of the aviation industry overall and specifically

help determine how to improve vocational training to support the needs

of Business Aviation.

European Fund for Strategic Investment: Launched in 2014, this

fund aims to attract private capital to invest in worthwhile projects –

education and training are among the main objectives. In addition, the

European Social Fund and the European Regional Development Fund

are supporting a broad range of educational projects between 2014

and 2020, one of the goals of which is to improve the labour market

relevance of education and training systems. (EBAA should seek to

identify a potential joint venture with this European fund focused on

national education programmes for aviation.)

ESF – European Social Fund: This framework programme aims to

provide grants for projects that support the improvement of

employment and social inclusion. Available for SMEs, training centres,

and local/regional authorities, the specific objectives of the fund are:

(1) promoting employment and supporting labour mobility; (2)

promoting social inclusion and combating poverty; (3) investing in

education, skills and life-long learning; and (4) enhancing institutional

capacity and efficient public administration.

European Commission – Flightpath 2050: This report on the High-

Level Group on Aviation Research in Europe identifies the goal of

aligning university programmes in aviation closely with the needs of the

aviation industry.48

48 http://ec.europa.eu/research/transport/pdf/flightpath2050_final.pdf


National Programmes

STEM Action Plan: Launched by the Flemish government in Belgium

in 2012, the aim of the STEM Action Plan is to attract more pupils and

students to STEM education and related jobs when they graduate.

Jet-Net.dk: Started in 2012, this is a Danish national network

organization of 56 companies that focuses on joining schools and

companies in beneficial relationships, in which they collaborate on

STEM education.

Verordnung über die Finanzhilfen für Ausbildungen im Bereich

der Luftfahrt (VFAL) – Programme on Funding Aid for Training in

Aviation, this Swiss programme is expecting 270 applications from

candidates to become pilots, flight instructors, or technicians. The goal

is to reduce issues related to skill shortages in the Swiss Aviation

industry.

German Federal Government: Interested in developing marketing

campaigns to promote jobs in aviation, EBAA may partner with the

government to create strong regional awareness of Business Aviation

careers.

8.3.3 POTENTIAL IMPACT OF SOLUTIONS

The following table lists the solutions proposed in the previous section and

the graph provides an alternative visualization for the same information.

# Solution Name

What is the solution How much will it cost?

How quickly will there be a return?

How high will the return be?

1 Awareness Campaign

A strategic communications campaign on the plight of the Business Aviation workforce will likely increase concern and participation for the cause, and result in increased awareness and interest

€ Fast N/a – value is to drive awareness not reduce workforce shortage

2 Sourcing Strategy & Targeted Investment

A successful sourcing analysis and targeted investment strategy will result in an improved pipeline of potential candidates

€€ Medium Moderate

3 Training as a Shared Service

Identifying the best training provider amongst aviation firms and developing a service level agreement

€€€ Medium High

4 Standardization of Education

EBAA should standardize aviation education across Europe and provide education as a reimbursable service to customers

€€€ Slow High

5 Training across multiple aviation sectors

EBAA would develop a cross sector training programme that leverages the best “parts” from each sector to cross skill employees quickly

€€€ Medium Moderate

6 Training across multiple roles

Business Aviation companies may seek to hire cross-trained

€€€ Medium Moderate


employees that can perform two roles for the firm

7 Training bonds Legally offering training bonds to employees, who are able to obtain high-cost training through their intended employers

€ Fast Moderate

8 Employer sponsored Programmes

Employers can offer training to current employees that may be taken on nights and weekends

€€ Fast Moderate

9 Subsidized loans and financing

Partnering with national programmes and loan-granting institutions to provide lower-cost alternatives to potential employees

€€ Slow High

Table 13: Impact Review of Potential Solutions

When mapped onto an X- and Y-axis, the solutions can be divided into four

quadrants, with an additional variable provided by colour. The most

transformational solution would be for EBAA to standardize and provide

Business Aviation training to the whole sector.

Figure 62: Impact analysis of potential solutions


9 METHODOLOGY

9.1 OVERVIEW OF APPROACH

Figure 65: Project approach overview

The standard survey used to gather detailed quantitative workforce supply

and demand information did not deliver sufficiently complete data sets,

which were to be used for a quantitative modelling and simulation, and so

phase 3 of the methodological programme could not take place.

9.2 INTERVIEWS

9.2.1 OVERVIEW

In phase 1, 53 in-depth semi-structured (9 explorative and 44 standard)49

interviews were conducted with selected industry experts to provide

information on workforce demand and supply, existing and potential

shortages, as well as insights about perceived key trends in Business

Aviation.

49 Additionally, other interviews (neither explorative nor standard) for further background information were conducted.


In total, 156 companies were contacted of whom 28 refused to participate.

Approximately 25% of those organisations, which refused to be

interviewed, are training organizations. Furthermore, 63 organizations did

not respond at all when being approached.

Figure 66: Overview number of interviews in phase 1

Interviews are distributed unequally among the EU9 countries.

Figure 67: Interview per country

Additional interviews were conducted in phases 2 and 4 of the research

taking into consideration the regions of North America and Asia.

156

63

28

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6

8

10

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18

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10 APPENDIX

10.1 REFERENCES

3Degrees (2015): NetJets Announces Comprehensive Climate

Initiative, Supported by 3Degrees

A. Wittmer et al. (eds.) (2011): Aviation Systems

ABC News (no date): Attrition rate of new air-traffic controllers more

than doubles

Acare (2012): SRIA volume 2

ACARE (2014)_ Workshop on Education and Training Needs for

Aviation Engineers...

"Advisory Council for Aviation Research and Innovation in Europe

(ACARE) (2012): Realising Europe’s vision for aviation - Strategic

Research and Innovation Agenda"

AERO – BILDUNG (2015a): Certifying Mechanic CAT A

AERO – BILDUNG (2015b): Certifying Mechanic CAT B1.1 Turbine

AERO – BILDUNG (2015c): Certifying Mechanic CAT B1.2

Kolbentriebwerk

AERO – BILDUNG (2015d): Certifying Mechanic CAT B1.3

Hubschrauber/Turbine

AERO – BILDUNG (2015e): Certifying Mechanic CAT B2

Aero-Dienst (2015): Strategy

AeronautX: Ops Training

AES (2015): OUR PHILOSOPHY. We are dedicated to quality!

Airbus Group (2015a): Strategy & Mission

Airbus Group (2015b): Industrialisation. From concept to reality

Airbus Group (2015): Airbus Global Market Forecast – Flying by

Numbers 2015-2034

Airports Commission (2013): Aviation Demand Forecasting

Airvet (2014): Progress Report

ARSA / College William and Mary (2014): Policy solutions for a

stronger technical workforce

Ascend (2014): Flightglobal Fleet Forecast 2014-2033_ Commercial

and freighter aircraft market

ATPL Flight Training Programme - InterCockpit

AVIATION LEADERS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME (ALDP)

Aviation Quality Services: Safety Makes Sense (Slides)

Aviation Safety Bureau (2010): The Basics of Aircraft Maintenance

Baptista (2014): A closer look at Business Aviation: the who, how and

why


BCG (2014): The Global Workforce Crisis

BDVI (2014): Beschäftigte der deutschen Luft- und Raumfahrtindustrie

nach Herstellergruppen

BDVI(2014): Umsatz der deutschen Luft- und Raumfahrtindustrie 2014

BERUFENET (2015a): Fluggerätmechaniker/in

BERUFENET (2015b): Techniker/in der Fachrichtung Luftfahrttechnik

BERUFENET (2015c): Prüfer/in von Luftfahrtgerät

BERUFENET (2015d): Industriemeister/in im Bereich

Flugzeugbau/Luftfahrttechnik

BlueSky Business Aviation News (2015): Business Aviation Airport

Ranking

BOEING (2012): Technologien für die Zukunft

Boeing (2013): A Discussion of the capacity supply - demand balance

within the global commercial air transport industry

Boeing (2014): Current Market Outlook 2014-2024

BOEING (2014): The Boeing Company 2014 Environment Report.

Build a Better Planet

Boeing (2014): The Boeing Company 2014 Annual Report; URL:

https://materials.proxyvote.com/Approved/097023/20150226/AR_2353

28/pubData/source/The%20Boeing%20Company%202014%20Annual

%20Report.pdf

Boeing (2015): Pilot & Technician Outlook

Boeing (2015)_Current Market Outlook 2015 - 2024

Bombardier (2014): Market Forecast

Bombardier (2014)_ Market Forecast 2014-2033

Bombardier (2015): Strategy

Booz & Company (2010): Regulating aviation in emerging markets

BP (2014): The outlook for Sustainable Aviation Fuels

British Airways Careers: Flagship Future Pilot Programme

URL:http://www.britishairways.com/careers/futurepilot/futurepilot_home

.shtml (retrieved on 27.01.2016)

British Airways (2015): Press release – Poll reveals why women don’t

apply to fly

British Council (2014): Postgraduate Student Mobility trends to 2024

CAA (2015)_List of approved Training Organizations Czech Republic

CAAS (Singapore, 2015): Bridging Skies

Capa (2015): MRO Overview

CAVOK & ARSA (2015): Global Fleet & MRO Market Economic

assessment 2015-2025

Cedefop (2009): Future Skill Supply in Europe

Cedefop (2011): Employment development by occupational category

(website)

https://materials.proxyvote.com/Approved/097023/20150226/AR_235328/pubData/source/The%20Boeing%20Company%202014%20Annual%20Report.pdf




Cedefop (2014): Labour force skills forecast for 2015

Cedefop (2014): Rising STEMS (website)

Civil Aviation Authority (2015): List of approved training organizations

UK

CNN Money (2015): America's air traffic controller shortage from

October 14, 2015

Consultancy UK (2015): Global aviation MRO market to grow to 100

billion

Coventry University (2014): Airvet Territorial Analysis Report

Dassault Aviation (2013): Annual Report 2013;

URL: http://www.dassault-aviation.com/wp-

content/blogs.dir/2/files/2014/03/RA-2013_VA_BAT_BD_2.pdf

DLR (2014): Aircraft ops employment+fleet 2014 based on ascend

DLR (2014): Heli ops employment+fleet 2014 based on ascend

EASA (2015): Non-commercial operations with complex motor-

powered aircraft (NCC) URL: https://easa.europa.eu/easa-and-you/air-

operations/non-commercial-operations-ncc-complex-motor-powered-

aircraftEASA (2015): Derogation Table 2015.340

EASA (2015): Derogation Table 22/02/2016 (Version XXIX)

EASA (2015): Derogation Table 30/03/2015 (Version XXII)

EASA (2015): GA Roadmap

EASA (2015): Mission and Organization

EASA (2015b): European Aviation Safety Plan 2014-2017_List of

Open Actions

EASA (2016): European Plan for Aviation Safety 2016-2020

EBAA (2012): What is Business Aviation

EBAA (2013): Aviation Taxes in Europe: A snapshot

EBAA (2013): State of the Industry

EBAA (2014a-i): Country ID Cards

EBAA (2015a): Annual Review 2014-2015

EBAA (2015b): State of the Industry

EBAA (2015c): Traffic Data July

EBACE (2015): Conference exhibitor directory

Embraer (2015): Market Outlook

ENAC (2015): List of approved Training Organizations Italy

Engineering UK (2015): The State of Engineering; URL:

http://www.engineeringuk.com/EngineeringUK2015/EngUK_Report_20

15_Interactive.pdf

Eurocontrol (2005): Getting to the Point: Business Aviation in Europe

Eurocontrol (2012): Market Segment Rules

Eurocontrol (2012): Business Aviation in Europe 2012

http://www.dassault-aviation.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/2/files/2014/03/RA-2013_VA_BAT_BD_2.pdf

http://www.dassault-aviation.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/2/files/2014/03/RA-2013_VA_BAT_BD_2.pdf


Eurocontrol (2013b): User Forum 2013: Continuous Descent

Operations

Eurocontrol (2015) _ Business Aviation IFR Movements Forecast

Eurocontrol (2015)_Flight Traffic EU9 2010-2015

European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) (2014): Part-66 - Certifying

Staff

European Commission (2015): Commission Staff Working Document

European Commission (2011): Flightpath 2050

European Commission (2011): MEMO-11-857: Europe's Airports 2030:

Challenges Ahead

European Commission (2013): ESCO

European Commission (2014): European Vacancy and Recruitment

Report 2014 - Statistical Annex

"European Commission (2014): Skills Panorama - European job

growth creators Analytical Highlight"

European Commission (2014): Verordnung Nr. 1321-2014 DER

KOMMISSION

European Commission (2014b): The Research Framework

Programmes of Europe - Opportunities for Trans-National Research in

Aviation

European Commission (2015): Science, technology, engineering and

mathematics STEM skills; URL:

http://skillspanorama.cedefop.europa.eu/sites/default/files/EUSP_AH_

STEM_0.pdf

European Parliament - Policy Department (2015): Encouraging STEM

studies for the Labour Market

European Parliament (2008): Regulation (EC) 216/2008

European Parliament (2011): Regulation (EU) 1178/2011

European Parliament (2012): Amendment (EU) 2012/290






Eurostat (2013a): Hauptszenario - Bevölkerung am 1. Januar nach

Alter und Geschlecht; URL:

http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do

"Eurostat (2015): Auswanderung nach Alter und Geschlecht

Eurostat (2015): Bevölkerung nach Altersgruppe

Eurostat (2015): Bevölkerung zum 1. Januar

Eurostat (2015): Erwerbspersonen nach Geschlecht, Alter und

Staatsangehörigkeit


Eurostat (2015): Fluggastverkehr nach dem Meldeland

Eurostat (2013): Grad Students Engineering Programs EU

Eurostat(2015): Einwanderung nach Alter, Geschlecht und

umfassender Staatsangehörigkeitsgruppe

Eurostat (2015): Grad Students Mathematics, Science, Technology

FAA (US Federal Aviation Administration, 2014): The Airmen Directory

Flybe Aviation Services (2015): How are we meeting industry

challenges

FOCA (2015): List of approved training organizations Switzerland

FOD Mobiliteit (2015): Lijst van ATO's Belgium

GAMA (2013): General Aviation Statistical Databook & 2014 Industry

Outlook

GBS (2010): Weiterbildung zum Techniker Maschinenbau mit

Schwerbunkt Luftfahrttechnik in Verbindung mit EASA PART 66 Cat

B1 Lizenz

Gloucestershire Airport (2012): Environmental

H. Müller (2015): Zuwanderung: Osteuropas vertane Chance

Handbook of Business Aviation (2015)

Hay Group (2007-2014): Job Families

Honeywell (2014a): Global Business Aviation Forecast

Honeywell (2014b): NBAA Market Update

I. Ferguson (2015): Regional MRO Market-Forecast Trends

Challenges & Opportunities

IATA (2013): Technology Roadmap

IBAC (2013): Definitions of Business Aviation;

URL: http://www.ibac.org/about-ibac/ibac-definitions-of-business-

aviation

ICAO (2009): Tenth Session of the statistics division, Working Paper

ICAO (2011): European Commission's framework for sustainable

biofuels for aviation

ICAO (2014): CAPACITY & EFFICIENCY Air Navigation Report

ICAO (2015): Developing Singapore’s Aviation Manpower

ICAO (2016): Training Report - Jan/Feb 2016

ICF (2014): Business Aviation Trends & Outlook;

URL:https://www.singaporeairshow.com/downloads/market_info/Busin

ess_Aviation_Trends_and_Outlook_June_2014.pdf

IFS (2014): CIVIL AVIATION MRO - THE PIVOTAL ROLE OF MOBILE

IN A DRAMATICALLY CHANGING MARKET

INAC (2015): List of approved Training Organizations Portugal 1

INAC (2015): List of approved Training Organizations Portugal 2

International Labour Organization (ILO) (2008): International Standard

Classification of Occupations


John Mulcair (2010): MRO faces skills challenges

Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (2013): Der Europäische Arbeitsmarkt -

Erfolg durch Flexibilität und Mobilität

LBA (2014a): Informationsschrift des Luftfahrt-Bundesamtes über die

Verordnung (EU) Nr. 1321/2014 der Kommission, Anhang III (Teil-66)

LBA (2014b): Informationsschrift des Luftfahrt-Bundesamtes über die

Prüfererlaubnis für Prüfer von Luftfahrtgerät Klasse 1, 3 und 4 (gemäß

LuftPersV)

LBA (2015): Genehmigte Ausbildungsbetriebe nach Teil-147

Linz/Ziegler/Lang (2011): Business Aviation in Europe

Luftfahrt Bundesamt (2015); Luftfahrerschulen im

Zuständigkeitsbereich des LBA Germany

Lufthansa (2013): Single European Sky: Für mehr Effizienz und

Klimaschutz

Lufthansa Flight Training (2015): Website

Lufthansa Technik (2015): Maßgeschneiderte Innovationen für Kunden

M. Thomas (2015): Luftverkehr: einheitlicher europäischer Luftraum

Mercator (2015): 3 Technology Trends Transforming Airlines

MINISTERE DE L ECOLOGIE (2015): List of approved Training

Organizations France

MTU Aero Engines (2015): Strategie

NBAA (2014): Business Aviation Factbook

NBAA (2015): Website - Job Seeker

OECD (2012): Growth in total economy potential output and ist

components

Oliver Wyman (2015): MRO Survey -Turning the tide - A WAVE OF

NEW AVIATION TECHNOLOGY WILL SOON

Oxford Economics (2012): The role of Business Aviation in European

Economy

Reals (2015): EBACE: Business Aviation industry must embrace

change: Gamba

Rolls Royce Aerospace (2014): Market Outlook

Rolls-Royce (2015): BETTER POWER FOR A CHANGING WORLD

Sabena (2015): Website - Part-147 Technics Training Catalogue

Sherpareport (2015): The Guide to private aviation 2015; URL:

http://www.sherpareport.com/images/stories/planes/guide_to_private_

aviation.pdf

Sion Airport (2015): Umwelt aktuell

Stansted News Limited (2015): The handbook of Business Aviation

Statista (2015): Anzahl der sozialversicherungspflichtig beschäftigten

Flugzeugmechaniker in Deutschland von 1999 bis 2011

Statistisches Bundesamt(2014): Studierende in MINT Fächern


"Steer Davis Gleave (2012): Study on the effects of the implementation

of the EU aviation common market on employment and working

conditions in the Air Transport Sector over the period 1997/2010 "

Tara Harl (2014): The perfect storm of aviation workforce issues

The Economist (2013): A new deal?

The World Bank (2015): Global-Economic-Prospects-June-2015

United Nations (2014): International Migration Report 2013

University Stuttgart (2013): Zahlenspiegel 2013

VTOC Fokker (2015): CAT A1 (Part 66) Training

VTOC Fokker (2015): CAT B1.1 (Part 66) Training

VTOC Fokker (2015): CAT B2 (Part 66) Training

Wall Street Journal (2015): A Looming Pilot Shortage Means a Bumpy

Ride for Airlines, from July 23, 2015

Wikipedia (2015): List of aerospace engineering schools

World Bank Group (2016): Air transport, passengers carried

WorldSkills Standard Specification (2015): Aircraft Maintenance

"Y. Jorens, D. Gillis, L. Valcke & J. De Coninck (2015): ‘Atypical Forms

of Employment in the Aviation Sector’, European

Social Dialogue, European Commission"

10.2 ACRONYMS

Acronym Description

EBAA European Business Aviation Association

EVP Employer value proposition

FBO Fixed-base operator

FTE Full time equivalents

m Million

M&A Mergers & acquisitions

SME Small and medium enterprises

STEM Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics

SWP Strategic Workforce Planning


10.3 JOB FAMILY FRAMEWORK

10.3.1 JOB FAMILY FRAMEWORK FOR BUSINESS

AVIATION WITH CRITICAL ROLES

Table 14: Job family framework for Business Aviation with critical roles

10.3.2 DESCRIPTION OF THE JOBS IN THE JOB MAP

Job Title Description

Ground Operations

Head of Ground Operations

Responsible for all aspects of the safe, cost-effective, and punctual running of the allocated base operation. Develops operational policies and procedures to improve quality and services.

Ground Operations / Station Manager

Oversees customer services and all ground activities. Participates in the development and implementation of operational policies and procedures to improve quality and services.

Technical Ramp Supervisor

Supervises guidance of aircraft and all ground services. Generates rosters and provides instructions and training for new hires at the

ramp.

Customer Service Supervisor

Oversees on-site customer care and assures all customer requests and needs are fulfilled. Assures customer visits run smoothly and oversees coordination with other players locally.

Technical Ramp Agent Performs basic ground equipment services, handles loading and unloading and provides transportation. Maintains the ramp area, building, and equipment in a clean, presentable condition. Provides guidance for aircraft.

Ground Service Agent / Customer Service Agent

Provides face-to-face customer care at the airport, such as greeting, escorting customers to/ from the aircraft and takes care of any

Ground OperationsMarketing, Sales & Customer

ServiceAirport & Facility management

Flying Personnel Operation Center Aircraft Completions Maintenance & Engineering

Head of Ground OperationsHead of Corporate Flight

DepartmentHead of Aircraft Completions Head of Maintenance Head of Sales & Marketing

CEO Airport (Accountable

Executive)

AOC Accountable Manager Head of Airport Infrastructure

Head of Flight Operations

(Postholder)Ground Operations / Station

ManagerChief Pilot Flight Planning Manager Completions Manager

Postholder Maintenance

Manager (Part 145)Marketing Manager

Rescue and Firefighting Service

Manager

Chief Training Pilot/

Training and Standards

Aviation Safety ManagerPostholder Compliance /

Quality ManagerSales Manager Airport Facility Manager

Cabin Service Manager

Postholder Continuous

Airworthiness Manager (CAMO,

Part M)

Customer Service Manager

Postholder Crew Training

Captain PilotFlight Data Monitoring

ProfessionalAviation Design Engineer Marketing Professional Airport Regulation Manager

Chief Training Pilot/

Training & Standards CAMO Professionals

Business Development

Professional / Senior Sales

ProfessionalsManufacturer's Pilot

Instructional Pilot,

Production Pilot,

Test Pilot,

Customer Relationship

Customer Service Professional Air Traffic Controller

Copilot/First Officer

Technical Ramp Supervisor Senior Aviation Safety Specialist Supervisor CompletionsMaintenance Supervisor /

Foreman / Inspector (Cat C)Airport Security Supervisor

Customer Service SupervisorSenior Flight Planner/

Dispatcher

Team Leader Maintenance (Cat

B1 or B2)Firefighting Team Lead

Technical Ramp Agent Flight Attendant Flight Planner / DispatcherTeam Lead Production Operator

(Saddler, Electrician, Carpenter)Maintenance Planner Sales Representative (exp.) Airport Security Agent

Ground Service Agent /

Customer Service AgentOperations Controller

Production Operator (Saddler,

Electrician, Carpenter)

Maintenance Technician

Airframe (Cat B1)Trader Firefighter

Catering Operator Crew Planner Installation OperatorMaintenance Technician

Avionics (Cat B2)

Customer Service / Care

Representative

Airport Facilities / Maintenance

Operator

DriverTrainee Flight Planner /

DispatcherProduction Planner Maintenance Technician Engine Sales Assistant

Flight information service

officer (FISO)

Aviation Safety Specialist Licensed Polymechanic Maintenance Mechanic (A) Travel Agency Agent Aviation Weather Observer

Apparatus TechnicianMaintenance Purchasing &

Logistics SpecialistCall Center Agent Airport Operations Assistant

Technical Draughtsman

Completions & MaintenanceFlight Operations

Hea

dM

anag

erP

rofe

ssio

nal

Sup

ervi

sor

Op

erat

or


special requests. Makes sure customer visits run smoothly and coordinates with other players locally.

Catering Operators Provides tailored catering solutions for flights in line with owners' / customers' requests. May provide meals in-house or source from local restaurants or hotels.

Driver Drives owners/customers or the crew to and from the aircraft, to appointments or around facilities. Requires excellent knowledge of routes within main area of operation and awareness of safety and security considerations. May perform miscellaneous errands as directed.

Flight Operations/ Flying Personnel

Chief Pilot Responsible for flight operations. Assigns and supervises the duties of flight personnel and coordinates aircraft maintenance with flight scheduling. Ensures that flight operations are in line with federal and local flight regulations. Other duties might be to oversee pilot

training.

Cabin Service Manager

Oversees cabin crew team, including cabin safety standards. Ensures that a top-class service is provided to both aircraft owners and clients. Other duties may include crew training.

Postholder Crew Training

Oversees the crew-training programme and provides appropriate training for the crew to effectively and efficiently perform their tasks (in-house or outsourced). Ensures that the highest standards are met.

Captain Ensures that trip of assigned flight is conducted in the safest manner possible. Determines flight routes, speed and take-off and landing times to fulfil scheduling requirements. Must stay current with federal and local flight regulations.

Manufacturer's Pilot Instructional Pilot, Production Pilot, Test Pilot, Customer

Relationship Pilot

Instructional Pilot trains pilots on the manufacturers' aircraft. Production Pilot tests aircraft before the delivery to customers. Test Pilot manages the flight test programme of new aircraft/ products.

Customer Relationship Pilot liaisons with customers locally.

Co-Pilot/First Officer Assists captain in determining flight routes, speed, and take-off and landing times to fulfil scheduling requirements. Must stay current with federal and local flight regulations

Flight Attendant Responsible for safety on board and looking after customers (refreshments, catering on board, etc.). Takes over administrative tasks such as managing inventory that keeps a flight running smoothly.

Flight Operations/ Operation Centre

Head of Corporate Flight Department

Responsible for all operational activities. Ensures all tasks and duties are in line with regulations.

AOC Accountable

Manager Accountable to the civil aviation authorities for maintaining safety standards required by regulation and additional standards specified by the AOC holder or applicant. Have corporate authority for ensuring that all operations and maintenance system activities can be financed and carried out to the standards required.

Head of Flight Operations (Postholder)

Oversees all flight operations activities. Ensures safe and efficient operations in line with all legal and corporate regulations and requirements.

Flight Planning Manager

Performs flight planning and dispatching. Ensures all activates are in line with legal and corporate regulations and requirements.

Aviation Safety Manager

Oversees compliance monitoring. Administers policies and regulations, the communication processes and acts as a role model in adherence to regulations. Ensures continuous improvement of


organizational-wide safety management systems and a focus on operational safety in the aviation company.

Flight Data Monitoring Professional

Downloads and analyses aircraft flight recorder data on a regular and routine basis to enhance the safety of flight operations.

Senior Aviation Safety

Specialist Monitors compliance in the Flight Operations department with regulatory and corporate requirements, whilst also maintaining a focus on operational safety throughout and continues improvement of organizational-wide safety management systems.

Senior Flight Planner/

Dispatcher Plans flight routes taking into account weather conditions, landing conditions, direction, speed, etc. Schedules and dispatches crews and equipment. Might lead a team of several people and educate trainees.

Flight Planner/

Dispatcher Plans flight routes taking into account weather conditions, landing conditions, direction, speed, etc. Schedules and dispatches crews and equipment.

Operations Controller Obtains flight permissions and slots. Other duties might include flight planning (see description Flight Planner/Dispatcher).

Crew Planner Plans crew roster, generates standby plans and plans other required resources. Coordinates replacements in case of illness, crew accommodation and transportation.

Trainee Flight Planner /Dispatcher

Entry position. Learns all duties of dispatching/flight planning on-the-job. Assists Dispatcher/Flight Planner with flight planning. Practical training might be complemented with classroom training.

Aviation Safety

Specialist Assists with compliance monitoring in the Flight Operations

department. May take over other administrative tasks.

Completions & Maintenance/ Maintenance & Engineering

Head of Maintenance In charge of the maintenance department and responsible for implementing and maintaining the high safety standards required by

EASA and local aviation authorities.

Postholder Maintenance Manager (Part 145)

Responsible for ensuring that the organization complies with Part 145.

Postholder Continuous Airworthiness Manager (CAMO, Part M)

Ensures airworthiness of fleet in line with EASA and local aviation

regulations. Ensures timely performance of maintenance activities.

Postholder Quality Manager

Ensures implementation and maintenance of the quality assurance programme including audits. Monitors compliance with standards and the adequacy of procedures. Monitors implementation and effectiveness of corrective actions. Responsible for compiling periodical data evaluation as input to the management evaluation. Supports the Accountable Manager in preparing and carrying out the management evaluation. Ensures that quality assurance activities are properly documented and stored.

CAMO professionals Conduct activities related to ensuring airworthiness of fleet in line with EASA and local aviation regulations. Reviews timely performance of maintenance activities.

Maintenance Supervisor / Foreman / Inspector (Cat C)

Oversees maintenance teams that perform first and second line maintenance tasks. May coordinate rosters depending on tasks and qualification/type rating of staff.

Maintenance Planner Coordinates implementation of CAMO results into work patches. Schedules rosters according to availability and qualification of staff.

Maintenance Technician Airframe (Cat B1)

Approves maintenance work on airframe. Performs maintenance of aircraft (first line and second line) and components (mechanical and electronic). Performs specific mechanical maintenance tasks that

include dis-/assembling and testing of component parts.


Maintenance Technician Avionics (Cat B2)

Approves maintenance work on avionic units and electric units, and replacement of replaceable avionic units. Performs maintenance of aircraft (first line and second line) and components (mechanical and electronic). Performs specific maintenance tasks that include dis-/assembling and testing of component electronic parts.

Maintenance Mechanic Performs debugging, repair work, dis-/assembling and testing of component parts.

Maintenance Purchasing & Logistics Specialist

Plans and manages allocated supply chain resources and demand processes to ensure that the business meets agreed customer service targets at minimum operating cost and optimum stock levels. Manages finished goods inventory assortment, levels, and replenishment to ensure on time performance and fill rates.

Completions & Maintenance / Aircraft Completions

Head of Aircraft Manufacturing

Oversees all aircraft manufacturing activities (including product planning, leadership, production planning and scheduling, quality

and safety management, continuous improvement, etc.).

Completions Manager Oversees all activities associated with aircraft pre-flight, paint operations as well as final test flight in terms of staffing, resource planning, process definition, continuous improvement, etc. Ensures that aircraft manufacturing/completion activities are all in line with quality and safety standards.

Aviation Design Engineer

Performs a variety of engineering work in designing, constructing and testing aircraft. Conducts research to evaluate adaptability of materials and equipment to aircraft design and manufacture. May recommend improvements in testing equipment and techniques.

Production Coordinator

Organises projects and records, tracks and communicates results (work and current progress status, estimated versus actual labour hours, materials, resources, and outsourcing) in areas of production

and engineering.

Team Lead Production Operator (Saddler, Electrician, Carpenter)

Manages production operations within the aircraft production department on multiple shifts or across several departments on a single shift. Generates the extended production plan for an entire

plant or an important product line. Reviews conceptual renderings.

Production Operator (Saddler, Electrician, Carpenter)

Designs conceptual renderings using specific completions and refurbishment expertise (e.g. saddler, electrician, and carpenter). Oversees selected operational completions and refurbishment tasks.

Installation Operator Conducts completions and refurbishment tasks according to conceptual renderings.

Production Planner Plans and prepares production schedules and prepares production reports. May prepare lists of required materials, resources, tools, and equipment. Confers with Production Operators to determine status of assigned projects and tasks.

Licensed

Polymechanic Conducts drilling, cutting threads, turning, milling, grinding,

assembling, adjusting, measuring, checking and start-up activities.

Apparatus Technician Installs, maintains, and fixes electronic equipment. Performs preventive and corrective maintenance on apparatuses.

Technical Draughtsman

Carries out technical drawings based on provided specifications and calculations. Other duties may include calculating structural strength, assessing aircraft capacity limits, and estimating production costs.

Marketing, Sales & Service

Head of Sales & Marketing

Oversees marketing and sales activities of the company’s products and services with the objective of improving the company’s market share.

Marketing Manager Responsible for marketing activities with the objective of improving the company’s market share. Responsible for the development and implementation of product/service offering strategies. May be accountable for a specific market region or type of flight service.


Sales Manager Responsible for sales activities for products/services with the objective of improving the company’s market penetration. Responsible for the development and implementation of sales strategies. May be accountable for a specific market region or type of aviation service.

Customer Service Manager

Manages activities of a team of customer service representatives, ensuring top class service is provided to aircraft owners and other aviation clients. May be accountable for a specific market region or a specific type of aviation service.

Marketing Professional

Plans and conducts marketing mix activities for the organization’s products and services using, for example, point of sales material, promotional activities and media to support sales growth. Might conduct selected product management activities.

Business Development Professional / Senior Sales Professionals

Responsible for the development and implementation of detailed sales plans. Conducts strategic business development activities. Structures and negotiates key contracts prepared by Sales Representatives. Manages the client relationship with key accounts.

Customer Service Professional

Oversees customer services activities and ensures that top class service is provided to both aircraft owners and other aviation clients.

Finalizes and executes contracts prepared by the sales team.

Sales Representative (exp.)

First contact person for critical VIP-customers/owners in the field, handles RFQs/RFPs and liaises with clients. Prepares (service) contracts.

Trader Trades used aircraft (and helicopters) from various manufacturers

from/to individual buyer or companies.

Customer Service / Care Representative

First contact person for customers/owners, handling RFQs, liaising with clients and administrating flight reservations from a client’s perspective. Provides good customer service and maintains the client relationship at operational level.

Sales Assistant Conducts outbound calling to attract new customers/owners for the company's aviation services. Supports Sales Representatives in their

sales activities.

Travel Agent Provides travel planning and booking services to both internal (crew) and external clients, finding the best travel solutions for the non-Business Aviation flight segments of a journey. Provides support and

solutions when travel arrangements do not work as planned.

Call Centre Agent Ensures the delivery of excellent customer/aircraft owner service, by acting on inbound customer telephone enquiries and responding to requests for information or flight service.


10.4 BUSINESS AVIATION IN OTHER REGIONS

10.4.1 WORKFORCE SITUATION IN NORTH AMERICA

Pilots

The business aircraft fleet in North America is expected to grow at a

compound average growth rate of some 2% over the next 10 years. Given

the higher rate of growth in other regions, the total North American

contribution to the world business aircraft fleet will decrease by around

10% over the next 10 years.

Figure 68: The North American Business Aviation fleet will keep growing over the next 10 years but at a slower pace than other regions50

Starting from the projected growth of the business aircraft fleet and the

average number of technicians (~1.6) and pilots (~3.8) needed per new

aircraft, it is possible to plot the aggregated demand for new pilots and

technicians in the US Business Aviation sector as shown in the following

figure. The plot shows 20,000 new pilots will be needed in Business

Aviation in the US over the next 20 years with an average demand of

1000 new pilots per year.

50 Bombardier Market Forecast 2014

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

2014 2024

Business Aircraft Fleet(North America)

North America Other


Figure 69: Aggregated demand of new pilots and technicians in the US Business Aviation sector51

Conversely, the supply of pilots and technicians can be estimated by

looking at the Air Transport Pilot (ATP) licenses and Airframe & Power

plant (A&P) licenses granted by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)

over the past 10 years. On average, some 5350 new ATP licenses have

been granted per year over the past 10-year horizon. Since only around

20% of the total pilot workforce in the US is employed in Business Aviation,

this equates to approximately 1070 new pilots joining Business

Aviation per year.

Those interviewed for the study reported no current shortage of pilots in

the US Business Aviation sector. However, the difficulties regional

airlines face in hiring entry-level pilots could point to a problem for the

future supply of pilots for Business Aviation. To understand why such a

trend might affect Business Aviation in the near future, Figure 71 shows

typical career paths for pilots joining the Business Aviation sector in the

US.

Figure 70: FAA Air Transport Pilot (ATP) and Airframe & Powerplant (A&P) licenses granted over the past 10 years in the US52

51 Sheryl Barden (API) and FAA data

52 Sheryl Barden (API) and FAA data

Technicians

Pilots

Fleet

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000

8000

9000

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

ATP

A&P


Figure 71: Typical paths through which pilots join Business Aviation in the US

Pilots in the US traditionally join the Business Aviation sector from either

regional airlines or the military. In both cases, candidates need to go

through retraining before flying a business jet.

Regional airlines in the US are currently reporting difficulties in finding

sufficient numbers of qualified pilots, however, mainstream airlines have

not reported similar issues. Although Business Aviation operators serve a

limited number of passengers, given the exclusive service they offer, pilots

in the field are typically hired from a pool of experienced professionals

rather than new hires thus making the typical Business Aviation pilot level

of experience similar to that of a major airline pilot. This explains why the

Business Aviation sector in the United States

reports no current shortage of pilots at this time.

Individuals who wish to become a Business

Aviation pilot in the US face a number of

obstacles.

Pay

The average starting salary for a first officer at a

regional airline is around $23,000. Entry-level

hiring problems at regional airlines could directly

impact Business Aviation in the near future since

pilots at regional airlines are one of the main

pools for Business Aviation pilots.

Flight SchoolRegional

Airline

Major Airline

Business Aviation

Air Force Academy

Military

Major Airline

Business Aviation

Type Rating Necessary

1

2

Figure 72: Main obstacles encountered by Business Aviation pilots in the U.S.

Pay

Training Cost

Quality of Life

Regulations

Supply of Military Pilots


Regulations

In reaction to the 2009 Colgan crash, the required number of hours for

cockpit crews has been increased from 250 to 1500 hours. Business

Aviation pilots have a hard time accumulating the required number of hours

since they fly less than airline pilots. As this new regulation adds about

$100,000 and several years to the process of becoming an airline pilot, it

has decreased the number of qualified applicants to regional carriers.

Supply of Military Pilots

The number of former military pilots joining the aviation industry has

declined since 2001 from 70% to 30% of Business Aviation pilots.

Historically the military has been an important source for qualified pilots for

the airlines. It is not clear if the decline is due to the stricter FAA

requirements for an ATP license or the lack of interest of former military

pilots to seek employment in Business Aviation.

Technicians

When looking at the A&P licenses granted over the past 10 years, knowing

about 8.5% of the total aviation technicians’ workforce in the US is

employed in the Business Aviation sector, the data suggests that some

520 technicians per year join Business Aviation.

Although the number of A&P licenses granted per year does not seem to

indicate a current shortage of technicians, the Aeronautical Repair Station

Association (ARSA) reports that 86% of its members are finding it difficult

to get qualified workers while 26% say the search for qualified workers is

extremely difficult. Three specific challenges face Business Aviation

maintenance in the US.

Quality of Life

Higher pay, better benefits and greater job

security are offered by other career choices,

such as the automotive sector. In Business

Aviation, the lack of scheduled flights has a

big impact on working hours, which can be

extremely irregular with night and weekend

shifts.

Regulations

In Business Aviation, there is a lack of

personnel trained to work on sophisticated

airframes and avionics. Though some

avionics technicians may hold an A&P license, there is no FAA

exam/certification specific for avionics, which makes it harder to assess

candidates’ skills.

Although there does not seem to be a lack of technicians holding A&P

licenses, personnel that can work on sophisticated aircraft and airframes

Quality of Life

Regulations

Demographics

Figure 73: Main challenges faced by Business Aviation maintenance in the U.S.


are hard to find since the available skillsets are not in line with the rapidly

evolving technology.

Demographics

Another impending threat to the supply of technicians in the US is

represented by the fact that some 87% of the current workforce in the

overall aviation sector, including Business Aviation, is older than 40, and

30% of current technicians are eligible for immediate retirement. Less

than 1% of aviation technicians are younger than 24.

Figure 74: US technician demographics 2012 - most of the aviation technicians in the US are older than 40 and about 30% of the total workforce has reached retirement age53

Air Traffic Controllers

Although a shortage of Air Traffic Controllers (ATCs) is not a critical issue

in Europe, in the US, ATCs are understaffed and at their lowest point in

27 years, according to the National Air Traffic Controllers Association

(NATCA). Airports across Georgia, Illinois, and New York report personnel

shortages and it is not unusual to have instances of overworked staff falling

asleep during overnight shifts or working six days a week. In Texas,

staffing at the regional air traffic facility is nearly 45% lower than what is

deemed necessary.

10.4.2 WORKFORCE SITUATION IN ASIA

General Trends Across Asia

The business aircraft fleet in Asia is expected to grow over the next 10

years by a compound annual growth rate of 13% in Greater China, 12% in

South Asia and 6% in Asia Pacific. The figure below demonstrates that the

total contribution of Asia to the global Business Aviation fleet will

almost double over the next 10 years.

53 Source: AviationPros

0,00%

5,00%

10,00%

15,00%

20,00%

25,00%

30,00%

35,00%

40,00%

18-24 25-30 31-40 41-50 51-60 60+


Figure 75: The Asian Business Aviation fleet is expected to double its contribution to the global business aircraft fleet over the next 10 years. The term Asia in the chart encompasses Greater China, South Asia and Asia Pacific54

In Business Aviation across Asia, there is an entry-level skills shortage

for flight crews driven by the growing Chinese aviation sector and the

need for military pilots and technicians holding B1 or B2 licenses.

The boom in low-cost carriers in Asia has led to high demand for pilots.

Flight schools in Asia are thriving.

There is generally no shortage of rich people in Asia who can afford

paying for the flight training of their kids.

There are waiting lists of up to 9 months for getting into flight school.

The Chinese Air Force is growing rapidly and is in need of more pilots.

Recruits who join the Air Force for flight training will typically be locked

into long-term employment contracts. The same is true for airlines that

are willing to finance flight training.

Training Bonds

Companies face an additional burden in

terms of the initial investment required

to type rate and train flight crews and

technicians.

54 Bombardier Market Forecast 2014

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

2014 2024

Asia Other

Premium on Salary

Training Bonds

Regulations

English Proficiency

Figure 76: Main obstacles related to the Business Aviation workforce across Asia.


Regulations

Labour immigration laws restrict the ability of foreign Business Aviation

technicians to come to countries with a growing Business Aviation sector,

especially technicians coming from the Philippines where labour costs are

lower and where there is an active pool of available labour that speak

English proficiently.

English Proficiency

An inability to speak English proficiently is a major obstacle when hiring

skilled technicians. Improving the communication skills of the workforce is

key in ensuring that the Asian Business Aviation sector can hire the talent it

needs.

Specific Aspects by Country

SINGAPORE

• Singapore is a major player in the Business Aviation sectorbecause of its central geographic location and the presence ofseveral overhaul facilities of engine and aircraft componentmakers.

• Business Aviation traffic in Singapore has been achieving anannual compound growth of 14%.

• In order to meet the demand coming from growth, Singapore isfocusing on training the next generation of talent in BusinessAviation locally and being recognized as a center of excellencein training since both European and American companies areperforming major maintenance activities in the region.

HONG KONG

• There is a lack of skilled labor in the Business Aviation MROsector where Hong Kong has a big presence.


CHINA

•There has been a slight slow down in Business Aviation growthin China. Between 2005 and 2013 Business Aviation jet deliveriesgrew by 20% per year. In 2014 the growth was 15.5%, which wasdue to airspace restriction and the lack of infrastructure.

• Given significant growth that Business Aviation in China is stillexperiencing, both pilots and technicians are in need although localtalent is scarce.

JAPAN

• Japan's fast-aging population is a growing cause of concern in theaviation industry, including Business Aviation, with pilot shortagesalready having an impact on the industry. In 2015, Japan decided toincrease the retirement age of pilots to 67 years in order toaddress the shortage.

•The government plans to make Japanese airports more welcomingfor Business Aviation. Business Aviation grew by 14% (movements)in 2015.

INDIA

•Growth in India's Business Aviation sector has averaged 12.5%over the past 10 years.

• The Indian Business Aircraft Operators Association (BAOA) iscurrently working with the Indian Government to remove obstaclesto growth. If successful, demand for skilled Business Aviationprofessionals might increase even further.

MIDDLE

EAST

• The significant growth of Middle East carriers is luring pilots and,to a lesser extent, technicians away from Europe and North Americaand poses a threat to Business Aviation stakeholders around theglobe.

• The Middle East is predominantly dependent on the global supplyof Business Aviation pilots. The Middle East Business AviationAssociation (MEBAA) reports only minimal success in developingmore local talent as well as in branding Business Aviation in a wayto attract talent more interested in airlines.


Perception of the Business Aviation sector as limited to the super-

rich and lack of full understanding of its role in the market for the

broader public

Existence of country-specific regulations (like in China, India and

Singapore) which might represent an obstacle to the full potential

growth of Business Aviation

Lack of infrastructure or inadequacy of the existing one to

accommodate specific needs of the Business Aviation sector

Knowledge and experience typically accumulated over the years

through a strong presence in Business Aviation is also lacking in Asia

and this is associated with an increasing demand for consultants from

Western Europe and North America.

Limited availability of local talent able to satisfy all the training and skill

requirements necessary to succeed in Business Aviation. This issue is

currently being addressed in two ways: attracting talent from other

regions and implementing training programs for local talent.

10.4.3 IMPACT OF WORKFORCE SITUATION IN OTHER

REGIONS ON EUROPE

Global Workforce Movements

Expat pilots moved to Asia when

Europe and North America were in

recession. As their contracts end the

question is whether they will stay or go

back to take advantage of an improved

aviation labour market in Europe and

North America.

The significant growth of the Middle

East Business Aviation sector and the

lack of a long tradition in the field sees

the region focus on the global talent

pool and, in particular, talent from

Europe and North America.

Asia has a shortage of local talent to

satisfy the increasing workforce demand in the Business Aviation sector.

ASIA

EUROPE

NORTH AMERICA

MIDDLE EAST

Figure 7748: Major workforce movements between Asia, North America, Europe and the Middle East.


Best Practices in Other Regions for Europe

North America

Careers in Business Aviation Day: During the annual NBAA

Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition, NBAA hosts the Careers in

Business Aviation Day for middle school, high school, and college

students. Special admission pricing is available for students.

On-Demand Education: NBAA’s On-Demand Education offerings

provide web-based access to the critical information needed to enter

the Business Aviation sector. Complimentary webinars are provided to

NBAA Members.

Business Aviation Scholarships: NBAA offers a growing number of

scholarships to support students in various segments of Business

Aviation. Scholarships are available both to those seeking to enter the

industry and to those looking to advance their careers.

Business Aviation Networking: NBAA provides a comprehensive

program of industry events each year, which serve as effective career-

networking venues. Student discounts are often available.

Low-Interest Loans: Federal-aid benefit for both students and parents

to help cover educational expenses whenever a student decides to

pursue an aviation-related course of study.

Asia

One of the solutions identified thus far is the extensive use of training

bonds in Asian Business Aviation. Training bonds can be a useful

means to prevent employees from leaving a firm that has invested

heavily in the employee’s skills. The risk remains, however, that bigger

competitors buy out employees who just finished the training.

AsBAA is also engaged in making Business Aviation more attractive to

students in relevant technical areas, such as engineering or

Aeronautics & Astronautics. AsBAA is currently forming a student

chapter that has the goal of promoting jobs in Business Aviation to

these groups.


10.5 EDUCATION AND TRAINING IN BUSINESS

AVIATION: DEMANDING, REWARDING –

AND HIGHLY SPECIALISED

10.5.1 CURRENT EDUCATION LANDSCAPE AND

OFFERS

Types of providers

With the exception of small companies, companies that only provide

training targeted at Business Aviation are hard to find. However, training

and experience acquired in Business Aviation can often be valuable in the

broader aviation sector. In Business Aviation, seven big clusters of training

providers can be identified.

Figure 78: Overview of the 7 main training providers (Airports, Airlines, Manufacturers, Technical Schools, Operators, MROs and External Providers) and their training areas of focus.

The detailed types of training provided by each source are listed below.

There is a net prevalence of private training providers across Europe.

The only public provider is represented by government-funded schools,

although the necessary training to get EASA certified licenses is not offered

for free to individuals.

OPERATORS

AIRPORTS

MROs

AIRLINES – MANUFACTURERS - TECHNICAL SCHOOLS

Security Training

Ground Ops

EXTERNAL PROVIDERS

Flight Ops

Regulation Compliance

Maintenance


Three areas of training apply specifically to Business Aviation: flight

training, aircraft maintenance, and ground handling.

•Maintenance: Technical schools provide basic training for technicians and usually partner with training providers to complete practical training.

•Pilots: Some technical schools also offer a curriculum for pilots. In most cases pilot training is specifically offerered by flight schools.

•Controllers: Some technical schools partner with providers of training for controllers although this is done externally.

Technical Schools

•Maintenance: Aircraft manufacturers provide EASA certified training to their technicians.

•Pilots: Some manufacturers whose aircraft are mostly used for Business Aviation also offer flight training.

Manufacturers

•Maintenance: Provide training to employees engaged in maintenance activities.

MROs

•Security Training: Airports provide general training on security to all their staff. Safety personnel like firefighters get trained on-the-job over a few months.

•Ground Operations: Small airports used for Business Aviation provide some internal training for ground operations.

Airports

•Ground Operations: Provide training for staff both internal and outsourced. Training activities can vary significantly from simple training for baggage handling to maintenance EASA certified training.

•Flight Operations: Operators provide cabin crew training although small operators focused on Business Aviation only do not provide pilot training.

Operators

•Maintenance: Commercial airlines with activities in Business Aviation provide EASA certified training for technicians.

•Flight Operations: Airlines provide training for all the air crew members including pilots.

Airlines

•Maintenance: External training providers include programs to become an EASA certified technician.

•Flight Operations: External providers also offer aircrew training including flight training for pilots.

•Regulation Compliance: Some providers offer training for company managers on regulatory compliance.

Training Providers


Flight Training

Most Business Aviation pilots started their career as airline pilots, some as

military pilots, and only a few started in Business Aviation. Table 15 shows

an overview of a typical training programme for airline pilots in Europe.

Although not always required for Business Aviation purposes, the Airline

Transport Pilot License (ATPL) is the type of certification most Business

Aviation pilots take after working for an airline.

Airline Transport Pilot

Provider Flight Schools, Airlines

Duration 1.5 years + 2 weeks

Cost € 70,000–€100,000 + Type Rating

Funding Private

Certificate ATPL – Airline Transport Pilot Licence

Flight Hours ≥ 1,500 h

Programme

Mix of theoretical and practical training taking the candidate through specific milestones:

- Private Pilot Licence (PPL) - Commercial Pilot Licence (CPL) - Multi-Engine rating (ME) - Instrument Rating (IR)

The ATPL programme is followed by aircraft type rating

Table 15: Overview of a typical pilot training programme in Europe

Students usually pay for their flight training themselves, a huge cost to

shoulder as a young professional. To get type rating, pilots need to pay an

additional cost of €15,000-€50,000. It can take a pilot in Business

Aviation up to 10 years to accumulate the number of hours needed to get

promoted from first officer to captain; an airline pilot will only need three, a

clear advantage for young professionals.

The table below shows the kind

of career transitions between

Business Aviation, airlines, and

the military in Europe across the

four main stages of a pilot’s

career.

In order to qualify for an ATP license, 1500 hours need to be accrued by

the candidate.

Business Aviation Experts' Concerns

Slow career progression

Irregular working hours

High cost of training


Training Hour

Accrual 1st Officer Captain

Private Flight School

Table 16: Typical career transitions for pilots between Business Aviation, airlines, and the military

Additional training is necessary whenever a career transition takes place.

Business Aviation tends to hire more experienced pilots rather than recent

flight school graduates.

Maintenance

Aircraft maintenance training must comply with regulation (EU) 1321/2014.

It is offered by a variety of certified training providers or internally

administered by airlines, MROs and aircraft manufacturers, while EASA

provides the common standard. The common characteristics of these

training programmes are shown below.

Airline

Business Aviation

Air Force


Table 147: Overview of a typical aircraft maintenance technician training programme in Europe.

A certified aircraft technician’s training costs are comparable to a pilot’s –

with great disparities depending on the type of aircraft one gets certified for

(e.g. from €25,000-€30,000 for a Learjet, to about €130,000 for a G650).

The high cost of technical training in Europe is seen as a common problem

across all EASA-regulated countries. Manufacturers also drive the cost of

training up through the control they retain over the aftermarket.

The table below shows potential career transitions for technicians in

Europe, from the main stages of their training to their careers as certified

technicians.

Aircraft Maintenance

Provider Training Providers, Airlines, MROs, Manufacturers

Duration 3 Modules: 1 year + 2 years + 2 years Aircraft Type Rating: ~ 3 years

Cost €35,000-€ 130,000

Funding Public/Private

Certificate A1, B1.1, B2, Aircraft Type Rating

Eligibility 3-4 years of basic professional education

Programme

A mix of theoretical and practical training is provided in order to obtain a proper certification:

- A1 (1 year): Mechanic with release authority of small, simple tasks under line maintenance.

- B1.1 (2 years): Technician with release authority for work on engines, mechanical and electrical systems.

- B2 (2 years): Technicians working on avionics maintenance.

- Aircraft Type Rating is required to operate on a specific type of aircraft.


Figure 79: Typical career transitions between Business Aviation, airlines and other advanced industries for technicians.

Basic training in the aviation field is offered by secondary-level vocational

schools. A1, B1.1, B2 and type rating EASA-certified training is provided by

airlines as well as by

manufacturers, MROs, and

external providers in Business

Aviation.

Ground Handling

Airports or operators provide both internal and outsourced basic ground

handling training. Business Aviation ground handling staff, however,

frequently face clients, hence the critical importance of soft skills training.

The exclusive service provided by Business Aviation means it is not rare

for employees to interact with high-profile clients. Although this type of

training is not available everywhere in Europe, some operators and small

airports are investing in short training programmes of about 20 hours with

hotel staff training providers.

Business Aviation workers tend to come from different backgrounds, often

from the broader aviation sector or even from different industries. This

explains why it is difficult to restrict training programmes to a particular

target audience.

Basic Training

A1/B1.1 Level

B2 Level Type

Rating

Certified Technician

Vocational

School

Airline

Business Aviation

Advanced Industries

Business Aviation Experts' Concerns

Length of programme

Salary perspectives

High cost of training


Flight Training

Business Aviation is not very attractive for young pilots who are just

entering the professional world.

Slow career progress, due to the lower number of hours

accumulated while flying a business jet (see 9.1.2. above).

High cost of training (ibid.).

Working hours, which tend to be less regular than commercial

scheduled flights.

Maintenance Training

Programmes need to be compliant with the EASA regulation in order to be

granted A1, B1.1, and B.2 certifications. Trainees tend to come from

vocational schools across Europe. However, attracting new hires to the

Business Aviation field is quite challenging for a combination of reasons.

Length of programmes: Getting B1.1 certification takes about 6-7

years, B.2 certification takes 8-9 years. It is becoming hard to find

properly qualified technicians holding a B.2 license.

Cost of training: Although the programmes are partially funded by

the government and the companies, trainees end up paying for part

of them, i.e. about €30,000.

Salary perspectives: Future pay checks are not attractive and the

position is commonly perceived as less prestigious than that of a pilot.

Industries other than Business Aviation pay better salaries and

offer more attractive benefits.

Both people who leave or come to Business Aviation as technicians also

have experience in other industries, so maintenance workers in areas other

than Business Aviation are also targeted by training programmes and

recruiting strategies.

Differences Between Countries

Although the EASA regulation holds for all 28 EU member states and four

EFTA countries, national education systems in Europe vary significantly.

The three big types of European systems are shown below.

Figure 80: Three types of European education systems.

Binary/Dual Systems

• Academic higher education is provided by universities and professional higher education is provided by specialized institutions

Partial Unitary Systems

• Professional higher education is provided by specialized institutions inside universities

Unitary Systems

• All types of higher education are offered by the same institutions with significant crossover between academic and professional activities


European countries who notably follow a dual education system are

Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Portugal, Austria, Belgium, Finland,

Malta, The Netherlands, Czech Republic, Austria, Lithuania, and Estonia.

Although a dual education system has the big advantage of making a

student an employee for a company from their first day, some concerns

about the system also exist:

Companies that take on apprenticeships have to follow a large number

of regulations.

The training itself is very expensive.

Requirements for several positions have become quite complex and

many schools do not provide an appropriate level of education.

One country that is in the process of re-introducing apprenticeships is

the United Kingdom in order to close the communication gap between

universities and companies. Young people in the UK are not attracted

to aviation due to the high cost of getting a licence (120,000 GBP) and

the experience that has to be gained. While the training programmes in

Ground Operations have proved to be inefficient, the British Business

and General Aviation Association (BBGA) is supporting a government

effort to introduce a more structured way of conducting training through

apprenticeships.

10.5.2 ASSESSMENT OF EXTERNAL TRAINING AND

EDUCATION OFFERS

Scope

External training offers in Europe focus on Maintenance, Flight Training,

and Regulation Compliance/Management. All three areas of focus deal

with highly regulated training activities.

In Aircraft Maintenance, the European landscape can be further divided

into:

Basic Technical Education: Provided by public or private technical

schools existing in different forms in all European countries.

EASA-Certified Training: Provided by either small or large private

companies whose curricula comply with Part-147 of the EASA

regulation. Such training programmes culminate in the granting of the

corresponding certification type: A1, B1.1 or B2.

Aircraft Type Rating: Provided by private companies and focused on

a specific type of aircraft. Both small and large training companies co-

exist in aircraft type rating. While large companies tend to provide

training for the most common aircraft used in Business Aviation,

smaller companies tend to offer training on the less common aircraft.


Flight Training, when not offered internally by airlines or operators, is

outsourced to independent flight schools who can either partner with

companies or train private individuals.

Figure 81: External training in Europe is offered in Maintenance, Flight and Regulation Compliance/Management.

The last type of training offered to people working in the aviation sector

focuses on regulations and means of compliance.

Areas of Improvement

Business aviation experts report a lack of training providers in three critical

areas beyond maintenance, flight training and regulatory compliance.

Figure 82: Training areas of improvement

Ground Operations

•There is no formal training in place for people working in Ground Operations;companies just tend to provide on-the-job training only to bring the staff up tospeed;

•Ground Handling is not recognized as a real profession in Europe;

•The critical role of soft skills for staff working in Business Aviation is oftenoverlooked.

Dispatchers

•There are not enough educational offers in place for dispatchers;

•There are even less options for dispatchers focusing on Business Aviation;

• It is very expensive to train dispatchers in-house, in particular for smallcompanies.

AFISOs

•EASA is considering establishing specific requirements for the qualificationand training of Aerodrome Flight Information Service Operators;

•Regional Business Aviation airports are afraid of an increase of costs as aresult of aligning the education of AFISOs with the education of Air TrafficControllers.

External Training Offers

in Europe

Maintenance

Technical Schools

A1, B1.1 and B.2 Type Rating

Flight Training

Independent Flight Schools

Compliance

& Management

Quality Management,

Consulting Companies


10.5.3 INTERNAL TRAINING AND EDUCATION IN

BUSINESS AVIATION

Scope

In Europe, all companies operating in the aviation industry offer internal

training.

Figure 83: Internal training in Europe is offered in Maintenance, Flight, Ground Operations and Safety.

Basic technical education in aircraft maintenance is not provided since it

falls within the scope of technical schools. The other two types of training,

which are EASA-certified, are offered internally.

EASA-Certified Training: Provided by either small or large private

companies whose curricula comply with Part-147 of the EASA

regulation. Training programmes in such companies culminate in the

granting of the corresponding certification type: A1, B1.1, or B2.

Aircraft Type Rating: Provided by private companies and focused on

a specific type of aircraft. Both small and large training companies co-

exist in aircraft type rating. While airlines, operators, and

manufacturers tend to provide training for the specific types of aircraft

used by the company, small MROs also offer training on the less

common aircraft.

Flight training is offered internally to the employees of airlines, operators,

and manufacturers – in general, large companies operating their own

training facilities.

Airports or operators train staff working in ground operations internally.

No formal programme is mandated, so standards vary significantly from

company to company.

Finally, basic security training is provided by airports to all staff, while

firefighters are trained on-the-job.

Internal Training Offers

in Europe

Maintenance: Operators,

Manufacturers, Airlines and

MROs

Flight Training: Airlines,

Operators, Manufacturers

Ground Operations:

Airports, Operators

Safety Training: Airports


Quality and Adequacy

While EASA-certified training is less subject to company-wide

interpretation, major concerns have been reported in terms of training

Ground Operations staff. Basic skills are not the problem; however, the

lack of soft skills is detrimental to the Business Aviation sector (see

1.1.2. Ground Handling). Two different directions have been taken so far in

Europe to solve this problem:

Operators or airports join the network of luxury service providers and

outsource their staff training, like in the case of Sky Valet.

The institution of government-regulated apprenticeships over the

national territory can address the lack of training in ground operations.

Figure 84: Directions considered in Europe to address the lack of soft skills in Ground Ops

Differences between companies

The difference between large and small companies is a relevant factor

when it comes to expensive training programmes. While airlines and

manufacturers are usually large companies, this is not always the case with

MROs and operators, which may struggle to enter the market or be forced

to exit the market, so that a consolidation of large players is expected.

GROUNDOPERATIONS

Network of exclusiveservice providers

Apprenticeships


11 CONTACT THE AUTHORS

Christian Weiss

Senior Principal and Project Director

Korn Ferry Hay Group, Germany

E: [email protected]

T: +49 69 505055 222

Dr Christoph Wollersheim

Lead Associate & Project Manager

Booz Allen Hamilton

E: [email protected]

T: +1 202-346-9312

In addition, the following consultants from Korn Ferry Hay Group and Booz

Allen Hamilton contributed to this study:

Gabriel Werthmann

Kate Helfet

Kathrin Janz

Kishan Daivandran

Paola Libraro

Ulrike Kluge

mailto:[email protected]

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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Do not modify

or create derivative works from contents.

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and supporting materials contain trade

secrets and proprietary business

information of Korn Ferry. This information

may be photocopied by CLIENT NAME for

use in evaluating the project, but is not to

be shared with other organizations,

consultants, or vendors without the express

written permission of Korn Ferry.

About Korn Ferry

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advisory firm. We help leaders, organizations, and societies

succeed by releasing the full power and potential of people.

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