Aviation is in the midst of a workforce crunch, and the ground handling sector of the industry is no exception. With staffing a key part of delivering an efficient operation and passenger service, we sat down with decisionmakers from the Airport Services Association and Menzies Aviation for their perspective on the situation in which the airline industry finds itself — and how to remedy it.
“The changing dynamics within labour markets has posed challenges for our industry, as was evidenced by the widespread airport disruption due to labour shortages,” says Juliet Thomson, chief people officer at Menzies Aviation. “This is an issue being seen globally, however some regions where we operate have been impacted more than others.”
As one example, “a UK specific issue is that the security clearances required to onboard new employees were taking up to six months, which created a gap between hiring someone and being able to fully onboard them,” Thomson tells us. To solve the issue, “recognising aviation as a special case by adding aviation workers to the shortage occupation list would help with recruiting workers from beyond the UK.”
Elsewhere, including in the US, the challenges are different, she notes: “we are competing with other industries that offer similar roles such as retail, ecommerce or hospitality where people don’t necessarily need a qualification.”
Thomson is bullish about the opportunities, however. “There are good career prospects in aviation for anyone with the right mindset and willingness to learn. Our industry is fast paced and exciting and is expected to grow significantly over the coming years,” she says. “As an industry we need to get better at explaining the types of roles and career development on offer.”
The ladder of career progression, from entry-level or manual work through a company to management and leadership, is particularly important to develop — and then to demonstrate. Ground handling work requires many of the critical skills that employers are looking for, and this is both an opportunity (in that developing them is an attractive experience for workers) and a risk (in that those workers may choose to progress outside the company and the industry if their overall satisfaction would be higher elsewhere).
“We have a number of initiatives in place to combat the challenges,” Thomson explains. “For example, we partner with different universities globally to offer international internships in our business, which provides a great springboard for a career in the aviation sector. The success of the programme is demonstrated by the many senior leaders at Menzies who progressed through our internship programme. We are also proud to be recognised for our dedication to armed service veterans under the UK Ministry of Defence’s Armed Forces Employer Recognition Scheme.”
Critically, however, aviation — and particularly ground handling — must rebuild its image around stability, which was heavily impacted during the industry’s shutdown in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Specific impacts varied substantially across geographies, and sometimes in ways that the industry was no longer used to.
For example, while European aviation is largely used to supranational regulation via EASA, support for companies and industries during the shutdown was almost entirely on a national government basis, with countries deciding to implement support schemes in different ways: economy-wide, industry-wide, or in some cases restricted to certain companies (airlines, for example) within the aviation industry.
Ground handling also needs to paint more of a picture of its digital and automated future than its analog and manual past.
“Embracing innovation and new technologies is vital for Menzies’ continued success,” Thomson says. “There are efficiencies to be gained when dealing with rising volumes that will enhance productivity and passenger experience. Crucially, technology will improve safety and security while also offering sustainable solutions to reduce our carbon footprint and achieve our goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2033.”
To that end, she notes, “we are reducing our paper use in our corporate offices and operations by digitising processes. We’re piloting an autonomous cargo tug in the US and we’ve also welcomed a new robot recruit at our cargo facility at Heathrow which enables employees to concentrate on more complex and less repetitive tasks. Similar advances can be applied to ground handling operations and we are currently investigating new technologies in this space.”
Salary, terms and conditions are the elephant in the baggage room
Fundamentally, though, a key part of the attractiveness of jobs in the ground handling sector — particularly manual jobs that might be in outdoor conditions and often outside daytime working hours — is the overall remuneration package. Wages, benefits and support are a critical part of this, says the Airport Services Association’s director general Fabio Gamba.
The entire aviation industry, Gamba tells us, needs to stop “the haemorrhage of people leaving [and] to think in terms of attractiveness to the workforce.”
“With the liberalisation of the sector and with cutthroat competition, there was a race to the bottom and of course, the [ground handling company] who would offer the same service at a lesser price would win the contract. I think we’ve come to realise that there was more than this: we cannot only lean on pure competition. There has to be a competition that is accompanied by a number of measures. And if you discuss with the airports and with the airlines, you realise that because they are in the same situation, they understand.”
Inherently, he suggests, this requires a rethinking of the entire dialogue and industrial social contract between airlines, airports, ground handlers, and staff.
“We need to have wages that are more attractive — that means that the cost will increase. The whole value chain needs to accept this and make it a strength rather than weakness,” Gamba says.
In essence, if ground handlers invest in their workforce by improving their staff offer and thus increase their costs, airlines need to resist the short-term financial temptation to flee to the lowest competing bidder.
Instead, Gamba suggests, “sign longer term contracts with us, rather than a one or two year contract. Sign a five year contract so we know that our investment will pay off.”
“A number of airports in Northern Europe, and also in southwestern Europe, have decided to enter into collective bargaining agreements, and hence, allow this holistic approach with respect to the attractiveness of the airport, ground handlers, and the airline, in a joint way, rather than individually,” Gamba notes.
For aviation, where the interest in an efficient operation remains critical, a full-picture approach to these challenges is certainly an option to consider.
Author: John Walton
Published 9th February 2023
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