CAT Editor-in-Chief Rick Adams, FRAeS has some modest suggestions for improving the civil aviation industry’s path to recovery.

While politicians fiddle, airlines are burning through cash. US$51 billion in Q2. Another $77B expected in the second half of the year. A further $5-6 billion per month through the end of 2021, according to IATA’s current forecast.

Some governments have continued to prop up their nation’s airlines, such as Japan and Australia, but others have become preoccupied with elections and second-surge pandemic restrictions, ignoring pleas from aviation leaders while tens of thousands of talented, experienced airline employees are furloughed or released.

Under the radar, thousands more jobs are being shed throughout the airline supplier community – aircraft manufacturers and component builders, MROs to an extent, catering companies, ground transport, airport retailers, and aviation training organisations.

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Training to restarting operations at an airline requires collaboration of pilots, cabin crew, trainers, regulators and others. CAT Europe Editor Chris Long, FRAeS, relates the story of how Emirates is meeting the challenges.

The world reeled at the speed and depth of the onset of Covid-19. As we all know, the aviation industry was one of the hardest-hit sectors, and the reaction to it also needed to be both rapid and profound.

Tim Clark, President of Emirates airline, made it clear that despite the challenges which the pandemic brought, the airline will not compromise on the safety of passengers or crew.

Emirates is in a unique situation as the largest operator of exclusively wide-body fleets, and in theory, could have taken the biggest hit. But, as Captain Martin Mahoney, Emirates SVP Flight Training says, whilst practically all the A380 fleet was initially grounded, the B777 fleet continued to operate.

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CAT Editor-in-Chief Rick Adams, FRAeS, talks with Kit Darby, one of the leading experts on professional pilot careers about the state of the North American aviation market - recovery, retirements, furloughs, pay packages, and advice for moving to the head of the queue when hiring restarts (perhaps sooner than you think). The third section of this five-part series is on Aircraft Utilization, Pilot Work Schedules, and Pilot Demand.

Kit addresses the effects of aircraft utilization, pilot workload, and pilots-to-aircraft ratios in determining pilot staffing requirements.