Industry Voices: Moving Beyond Covid?

Simon: "There are real signs that the recovery is gathering pace. It highlights just how well individuals and organisations have done in the face of adversity. We have been resolute against the toughest of challenges, learned from our experiences and grown stronger.

It is just as well because there are some big challenges ahead. The two that spring immediately to mind are sustainability and safely integrating new airspace users. Those two challenges alone will ensure that we keep pushing the boundaries of innovation and agility.

Sean: "We’ve started our climb-back to 2019 levels and we know that our customers want to travel.

Demand is recovering with forward bookings looking strong for the summer.

There is no denying that as we’ve ramped our schedule back up that we’ve faced challenges, some more in our control than others.

James: "Travel has changed since the pandemic and that is most certainly a challenge for both airports and passengers.

Despite the challenges, airports have achieved a lot since borders have reopened. They have managed to facilitate a sudden turnaround of services, changing routes, aircraft types as well as new health or government protocols and procedures, often at very short notice.

Karen: "Obviously, the rapid return of passengers after the restrictions fell away in February and March this year has meant recruitment of staff has not always been able to keep up with the increased numbers of travellers.

While the vast majority of passengers has been able to travel with minimal disruption over Easter and since then, airports have not always been able to deliver the services passengers have come to expect from us as a sector pre-pandemic.

Simon: "We must keep on being adaptable, sustainable and resilient. In particular, we have to be ready for the speed of change. Because it is only going to get faster.

Sustainability is now essential to every business. CANSO is introducing its GreenATM Programme, an environmental accreditation programme that provides air ANSPs with an independent, industry-endorsed accreditation of their environmental efforts. And we must safely integrate drones and commercial space traffic under a total traffic management framework.

Sean: "One of the key priorities is building back sustainably. Our customers, our colleagues and our investors care about sustainability, and so do we.

As the industry re-builds, we’re all focused on and committed to a sustainable recovery – despite the immense financial challenges we’ve all faced and will continue to face for some time to come. Because there is no greater priority.

James: "Our priority is to address the workforce shortages and support those entering the aviation industry to ensure we continue to have a high level of skilled staff. This is vital to retain our great reputation for safe and secure travel.

We also will continue to ensure passengers feel safe and confident to travel again and help everyone to enjoy getting back to normal. As always, advocacy is vital for our airport members to ensure their voices are heard among decision makers so they are aware of our issues."

Karen: "For the immediate term, our focus must be on re-building our teams to ensure we can provide the excellent service passengers have come to expect. We are making good progress on this so I am very hopeful.

After that, industry will expect Government to support our recovery by providing a positive, supportive policy and fiscal environment which allows UK aviation to re-claim its place as world leaders in aviation."

Simon: "The focus on our customers’ needs has to be laser like. But to get to the right solutions and services, we need to be inclusive. No single organisation has all the answers so bringing different perspectives and expertise together is vital.

Rather than silos of information, systems will need to talk to each other in a standardised manner. If data is shared, then all aviation stakeholders will benefit."

Sean: "We must continue to tackle air traffic control and environmental inefficiency and we’re committed to working closely with NATS to help make our airspace operations more efficient.

One of our key asks of Governments is to progress the Single European Sky programme to improve air traffic management where we believe that emissions could be improved by 10% by moving to best practice air space management – equivalent to 18 million tons of CO2 saving every year for Europe."

James: "It is essential that Airservices Australia continues to engage and consult with industry on the reliability and flexibility of their services.

It is also important all those involved in air traffic management acknowledge the role they play in the aviation sector’s social licence. Working with industry on effective airspace design and managing community concerns will be to everyone’s benefit."

Karen: "One immediate opportunity is airspace modernisation. We must not let work to date to be undermined as a result of the pandemic. The UK Government helpfully provided funds to help airports complete phase 2 of the process, but there are some risks to phase 3.

We are continuing to work with the DfT and others to see what the possibilities are for some limited funding to help airports complete phase 3, at which point we would expect them to be able to pick up the process again themselves."