A silver bullet to help defeat one of aviation’s greatest challenges
A silver bullet to help defeat one of aviation’s greatest challenges
Aviation worldwide faces a major battle – how to train enough air traffic controllers. A single apprentice doesn’t sound like much, but it signals a solution - and it was made in Gloucestershire.
Dear Readers,
Welcome to Thursday’s edition of The Railes Journal.
It’s a one-story edition today; one of those stories that gets pushed out there, but probably doesn’t really get put into context it deserves and disappears with little trace when it actually speaks volumes for those involved, about Gloucestershire and what it is achieving.
Which is where Raikes comes into its own.
It’s a story about aviation and a major challenge facing the sector worldwide. The scale of that sector is simply huge, of course. In 2023 the UK-based airlines alone were estimated to contribute £24 billion to our economy and more than one million jobs. But it’s an industry whose growth is hampered by a shortage of air traffic controllers.
As anyone who has visited the Jet Age Museum at Staverton will tell you, Gloucestershire has a rich aviation history and heritage, and it continues to be at the forefront of that sector today through its manufacturing and engineering - even the development of hydrogen-electric-powered planes.
But now it’s the turn of the training the county provides to be written into those history books, for a partnership between a county-based business and Gloucestershire College to be known; a collaboration that is helping deliver a solution to that shortage of ATC staff at airports across England.
Please send us your stories/ideas about companies/people/issues you think we should write about. Email andrew.merrell@raikesjournal.co.uk or telephone 07956 926061.
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A silver bullet to help defeat one of aviation’s greatest challenges
Aviation worldwide faces a major challenge – how to train enough air traffic controllers. A single apprentice doesn’t sound like much, but it signals a solution – and it was made in Gloucestershire.
By Andrew Merrell
When the Covid 19 pandemic decimated air travel it exacerbated an almighty challenge the sector was already struggling with – a shortage of air traffic controllers, without whom flights simply can’t happen.
In July this year the trade union Prospect warned that the UK still had fewer air traffic control officers than it did in 2019, and that issue was being made worse by the pace of retirements.
It was a view backed by the International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers’ Associations, which said there was an obvious shortage in almost every part of the world with a “clear cause for concern” in Europe.
The impact is not just on passenger flights. In July Raikes reported how Gloucestershire Airport-based Skyborne had been chosen to benefit from a £21 million spend by British Airports to train up to 200 new airport pilots.
How would its ability to take advantage of that deal be impacted by the Staverton airport’s announcement that activity at the site was restricted for the foreseeable future because of the shortage of ATCs? Skyborne did not wish to comment.
We should point out that the airport itself, under the leadership of Jason Ivey, has been doing its bit. In March it announced a £500,000 investment in its ATC facilities too.
But in August, Chris Brian, the manager of air traffic services at the airport, described 2024 as a “challenging year in ATC at Gloucestershire”, but did underline a continued focus on training and even some new recruits.
And that’s just Gloucestershire.
Only NATS, the National Air Traffic Services, seemed to have a contrary view. It told the website Airport Technology in July it didn’t have a shortage of controllers.
But then NATS only looks after 14 of the UK airports - Heathrow, Edinburgh, Southampton, Gatwick, Aberdeen, London City, Luton and London Stansted.
Which leaves something like 130 other UK airports – plus all the overseas airports airlines would like to land more planes at, but can’t.
Why are we making such a big deal out of this? What’s it all got to do with Gloucestershire?
It’s because the county has been revealed as the birthplace to a solution to the shortage – the result of a partnership between a business determined to address the crisis, based in Cheltenham, and one of our colleges - one which excels at working with companies to design and build apprenticeships.
That college is Gloucestershire College. And we think it’s achievement is worth celebrating.
We say ‘determined’ because the journey for both college and company in developing the training pathway for new air traffic controllers has been as long and almost as bumpy as the airline industry’s has been of late. In fact, almost a decade long!
“Global ATS has been pursuing an Air Traffic Control apprenticeship scheme since 2005,” said Andy Cameron, academy director for Global ATS.
“However, support for the programme only materialised in 2015 following the formation of a trailblazer group consisting of Global ATS, NATS, the RAF, the Royal Navy, and CAA.”
Julie Tegg, Gloucestershire College’s director of apprenticeships and employer training, worked alongside the firm on the project.
For Tegg it became as personal as it was for the team at Global ATS. The firm is a leading provider of UK CAA (Civil Aviation Authority)-approved and ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation) compliant ATC training for the UK and international aviation sectors.
“Global ATS is based at Gloucestershire Airport, where it delivers air traffic control training from, and it has an office on the site of our Cheltenham campus,” said Tegg, explaining the connection that sparked the initial conversation
“We were approached by its managing director, Marcus Mimms, and Andy Cameron to see if we could possibly develop an air traffic controller apprenticeship. That was 2019.
“They wanted the qualification to go across the UK. For various reasons (to do with the apprenticeship levy) we could only cover England, but we began developing the apprenticeship standard for them.
“That was then stalled because of Covid, which of course had an impact on its business and on airports across the country and beyond.”
More challenges then followed, not least rules changing around apprenticeships that made void Global ATS’s approvals as the primary programme provider. It was not quite back to the drawing board, though it was close.
But for Tegg, delivering the programme had now become as personal as it was for Global ATS and together they pushed on, finding assessors of the right calibre and clearing all the hurdles to satisfy a sector that demands the highest standards.
“It is a lovely case of experience in apprenticeship delivery – ourselves, and an experienced commercial air traffic training specialist, coming together to design a programme that really works,” she said, the passion evident in her voice.
For her, the delivery is another example of how the small team she heads up at the college, under the leadership of principal and chief executive, Matthew Burgess, excels at listening and working with business and finding solutions.
That programme quietly launched in 2023, and its first apprentice, Pena Mason, from Birmingham Airport, is completing her training. It’s expected many more will follow.
Mason said: “Not only will I earn my ATCO (air traffic control officer) license and a Level 5 Diploma at the end of the apprenticeship, but it will also open up many doors for my future career within the industry.
“The ATCO Apprentice Scheme is a major milestone for the industry and will create so many opportunities for future generations of ATCOs.”
Cameron is hopeful it is the beginning of change.
“For Birmingham Airport, the success of the apprenticeship scheme has been profound, with a clear desire to continue the progression of candidates through the apprenticeship programme to cultivate the next generation of Civilian Air Traffic Controllers; evidenced by the fact that Birmingham Airport has become the first unit to have two apprentices,” he said.
“It is still early days, we really hope that the ATC apprenticeship becomes very important to the ATC industry, as it is realistically the only source of funding available.
“This is a levy-funded apprenticeship, which only English airports qualify at present.
“This does come with additional contractual responsibilities that, depending on the size, and scale of the operation, each employer (airport) will have to review and consider if they can make it work.
“UK airports are all very different, however, the good news is that interest is growing, and more and more airports are signing up.”
Currently Global ATS provides training for every air traffic control airport in the UK, which covers some 60-plus air navigation service providers.
The apprenticeship is listed at Level 5 and £27,000 funding with the programme taking place over 12 to 15 months. Levy payers can achieve 100 per cent of funding and non-levy-payers 95 per cent.
There are additional overheads, but overall training costs are apparently reduced by approximately £12,000 per candidate.
Paul Beat, head of air navigation services at BHX (Birmingham International Airport) said: “Our apprentices are the future of our industry, and together with their colleagues are the experts that will help to drive forward the future of Air Traffic Control, all whilst keeping up with technological advancements in the aviation industry, through the introduction of next generation technology.
“We encourage young and enthusiastic apprentices like Pena to join us here at Birmingham Airport. This exciting and highly skilled career relies upon the testing and selection of talented individuals, and the apprenticeship scheme is a great example of this.”
In October 2019 Global ATS announced it had been bought by Bournemouth-based Quadrant Group, a business whose most recent set of accounts show turnover rising by 34 per cent in 2023 - from £11.6 million to £15.6 million and profits up 93 per cent from £1.36 million in 2022 to £2.6 million in 2023.
In those same accounts, for the year ending May 2023, it said Global ATS (GATS) also “saw a good growth”, not least because it had been able to “operate courses at more efficient capacity rather than the restricted volumes during the pandemic”.
“This in turn enabled credible turnaround in results back to the reasonable levels of profitability,” said David Coghlan, chairman of Quadrant Group, writing in the annual report.
“While volumes have not yet reached pre-pandemic levels, this was partly due to the large increase in air traffic movement and the need for controllers to be on station rather than training.
The directors continue to believe that much of the deferred training of air traffic controllers will still be required, and that a significant catch-up of consumer orders is emerging.
“GATS saw a much stronger second half of the year and the expectation is that this growth will continue bringing GATS ahead of pre-pandemic volumes by the end of the 2023/24 fiscal year.”