Commercial aviation is critical to the global economy. In 2019, it supported more than 65 million jobs and had a global economic impact of US$2.7 trillion. The COVID-19 pandemic has been unlike any crisis, both in terms of depth and duration, and damaged the aviation industry more than most sectors.
The collapse in traffic was mirrored in the number of flights handled by air navigation service providers. These service providers are responsible for the safety of flights on departure from and arrival at airports and in transit. In North America, losses exceeded US$448 million in 2020. Nonetheless, as airlines and their passengers are the most direct recipients of air navigation services, many air navigation service providers have adopted a “user-pays” model. The user-pays model is an approach to funding where customers pay the full cost of the good or service they consume.
Labour challenges These models have proved inadequate in the face of a crisis, like the one created by the pandemic. Consequently, staff costs were cut, resulting in job losses, recruitment freezes and a reduction in training. These measures might achieve cost savings in the short term, but they also create a problem for the organization when passengers return and traffic increases.
It would be disastrous to both stop recruitment and to reduce headcount in such circumstances, because the training of new air traffic control officers is a long process. In fact, rising traffic delays across Europe prior to the pandemic were attributed to the declining number of air traffic control officer trainees.