Whole-of-industry effort needed to attract, retain talent

Aviation Australia CEO Glenn Ryan AM will participate in a panel session alongside other industry heavyweights including Leidos Australia head of flight operations Jesse Young, and Pinstripe Solutions – Aviation Interview Preparation founder Kirsty Anne Ferguson about how the industry could attract the next generation into aviation.

Ahead of the summit, Ryan said general, regional, and commercial aviation sectors as well as training providers and the government must work together to attract and retain the workforce to ensure that national and regional connections continue operating effectively.

“Noting aviation is not a state-based activity, all of these parts of the industries need to come together and focus on that full career lifecycle of attract and retain, rather than one airline or one business or one training organisation doing attraction,” Ryan told Australian Aviation.

“There’s no silver bullet to attracting and retaining new talent in our industry. We need to work at this holistically to get that quality workforce that is motivated to be in the industry. Retention will follow on from that.”

Ryan added that Aviation Australia understands the pressures facing the industry, employees, and businesses, and is attempting to bridge the demand-supply gap in the labour market.

It is estimated that around 25,000 people left commercial aviation during the COVID-19 pandemic but other systemic issues have also contributed to the labour shortage over the past 15 years.

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Ryan said that while the Australian workforce is trained to high standards to meet Civil Aviation Safety Authority standards and there is demand for workers in the domestic industry, they are poached by global airline companies.

“Our workforce is primed to move overseas, which means that we’re always trying to generate pilots, aircraft maintenance engineers, and air traffic controllers. We have a national workforce problem because of local, regional, and global issues,” he said.

For its part, Aviation Australia has been supporting several programs to encourage school students to pursue a career in aviation, including hosting the Queensland government’s Gateway to Industry Schools Program for Aerospace since 2004. The program is designed to meet the Queensland government’s aim of transitioning students from school to work while completing school and gaining formal qualifications.

In addition, the training organisation offers school-to-work pathways to students in years 10, 11, and 12 to become a licensed aircraft maintenance engineer, remote pilot, and cabin crew.

“We have a strategic plan of being in schools to give people an experience and some qualifications to see if that’s what they want to do after school. It gives great exposure for young people to see what it’s like to be in the aviation industry,” Ryan said.

“This tells us whether or not an individual is motivated to continue on that pathway. If they’re motivated, the industry gets someone who’s eager to learn and wants to stay in the industry, which helps with retention.”

Education providers typically implement long-term strategies because of the number of years it takes to prepare the next wave of workers.

“For instance, it could take three years to prepare a pilot for commercial training on the 737, including meeting the regulatory requirements and accumulating the hours they’ve got to achieve in flying non passenger routes before they can fly,” Ryan said.

“We’ve got to be thinking five to 10 years.”

Another factor that could exacerbate the labour shortage woes is that 17 per cent of aircraft maintenance engineers will pass retirement age in the next decade, alongside 16 to 17 per cent of pilots and 28 per cent of air transport professionals, according to Aviation Australia’s workforce intelligence database.

“Flying instructors, air traffic controllers, aircraft maintenance engineers and pilots could be under the greatest strain, because they take the longest to train,” Ryan said.

“We’re going to see a significant supply shortfall in the coming decade if we don’t work together as an industry.”

Ryan urged the government, organisations, and training providers to focus on attracting the next generation of the workforce into aviation and create a sustainable pipeline to address the skills shortage.

“Aviation Australia is focused on building those education pathways,” he said.

To hear more from Glenn Ryan AM about how to entice the next generation to join aviation, come along to the Australian Aviation Summit 2024.

It will be held on Thursday, 29 August 2024 at The Star, Sydney.

Click here to book tickets and don’t miss out!

For more information, including agenda and speakers, click here.