The COVID-19-triggered deficit in training capacity is temporary. Growth, and the pilot shortage will eventually return. Now is the time to develop the Flight Academy of the Future, suggests Captain John Bent, FRAeS.

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With the appropriate steps to improve the sanitary situation in airports and aboard aircraft, airlines around the globe are looking to restart passenger activity. The way forward is unclear, and indeed not easy.

CAT Editor-In-Chief, Rick Adams, FRAeS, and Capt Jacques Drappier look at how COVID-19 has impacted the maintenance training sector.

The International Federation of Air Line Pilots Associations (IFALPA) has published a position paper "Training Considerations for Return to Operations".

Robert Luthy, General Manager of L3Harris Commercial Training Services, noted while the schools remain open, his team has been in regular contact with federal and state governments and are taking preventative measures to ensure the health and safety of employees, including enabling employees to work remotely where possible.

Jörg Schönfeld, Senior Director Pilot Training at Lufthansa Aviation Training, is presently deeply involved with his team in adjusting to the new challenges in training.

Calling aviation “a key driver of the economic recovery,” Alexandre de Juniac, Director General and CEO of IATA, vowed that “aviation will always put safety and security first” in unveiling a proposed, temporary, layered approach to biosecurity for re-starting passenger flights amid the COVID-19 crisis.

Our last MS&T was published at the end of February. Although we were already in the shadow of COVID-19 we could not know how the world would change in just a few weeks and its impact on military S&T.

Group Editor Marty Kauchak reports on how CAE is responding to COVID-19 in its civil and defense sectors together with reporting on wider S&T Industry initiatives from Thales, VT MAK, Bohemia Interactive Simulations and Pitch Technologies.