<p>“Aviation should be a lot more accessible and a lot more achievable for people.” So declares Simon Witts, founder of Aviation Skills Partnership, as he explains the reasons he set up the organisation in 2010.</p>
<p><img alt="IAA Norwich Boeing 737" src="/getasset/953b169a-bee5-4003-b9b8-07b808351bdd/" /></p>
<p>“In terms of the original motivation, I grew up in an environment where the UK could do everything. We held the land speed record, the water speed record, the air speed record. It was that whole era of ‘can do’, with the aviation industry thriving and people making that whole thing work.</p>
<p>“Virtually everything that happened to me in my career went into Aviation Skills Partnership as ingredients,” Witts explains. That career involved a degree in avionics, followed by positions covering engineering, operations, safety and training at Bristow Helicopters, Racal Avionics, UK CAA, British Regional/Manx Airlines, British Airways CitiExpress/Connect and Flybe.</p>
<p>“Creating something new provided the spark to say, ‘What would Aviation Skills Partnership do? How would an organisation sitting in the middle of this space make a difference and be able to create a supply of skilled people for the industry?” he muses. “Among the ingredients my experience provided, probably the overriding one was, ‘Why can’t we get back to a position where we can become a net world supplier of skilled people?’” Such was his success that ASP was acquired by Pennant International Group in February 2019.</p>
<p>In ASP’s Aviation Skills Manifesto, Witts set out seven areas that needed to happen to make all the desired elements come together. “The first was to put an aviation skills policy on the national agenda, a policy defined by six areas – pilot, air traffic, airport, operations, cabin crew and engineering – that needed to happen to an aircraft before any type can fly. It deliberately did not cross into aerospace, the design and manufacturing of aircraft.</p>
<p>“Second was to find the right partners,” Witts continues, “because ASP is not – and didn’t set out to be – a training provider. What it’s sought to do is to set out the environment for partners to come together and train people.</p>
<p>“The third area is pathways and programmes and their simplification. Under the regulations, there’s generally only one way of becoming a pilot. There might be multiple routes as part of that pathway, but actually – and ideally – only a single pathway. To simplify that, we worked back from the outcome of being a First Officer in a commercial aircraft, saw what skills are needed at each point in a career, right the way back to age seven, so that you could start to simplify the information to people in the same way as the legal, medical or accountancy professions.</p>
<p>“The fourth area is the facilities in which to train. I grew up in the era of RAE Farnborough, RAE Bedford and other national training facilities, which we’ve dismantled or privatised/commercialised. We haven’t made them accessible to people to train up to what I describe as the 80% point. In the industry, 80% of the training is common, no matter what you fly, fighter aircraft or light aircraft.</p>
<p>“So we’re actually creating the facilities that could be accessible to people in the education sector. You don’t have to join a company to access them. They’re independent, so nationally run. That’s what led to the first International Aviation Academy in Norwich,” he emphasises.</p>
<p>“Areas five, six and seven are around knowledge and information. Number five is making sure everybody knows about it and how to access it. Six is about inspiring the future from the past, helping people to know that we have been good at doing this before, therefore we can continue to be good at it. Finally, number seven is about making sure that everything is accredited and awarded,” Witts confirms.</p>
<p>As the new regime invests in ASP, those parts of the Aviation Skills Manifesto are being combined to create the new five-part Charter for Aviation Skills.</p>
<p>“The first pilots graduated just under two years ago and the first engineers have just graduated from the engineering pathway,” Witts reports. “We’re now at the stage where the ‘proof of concept’ if you want to call it that – and I like to think it’s much more than that – has gained legs and ceased to be a ‘new kid on the block’.</p>
<p>For potential students wanting to know the chances of getting a job after their training, Witts has excellent news. “Every pathway created so far, starting with the pilot and engineering pathways, is entirely based on a route to a job. Therefore the only way you can graduate is in a job,” he remarks.</p>
<p>“I can be so bold because we’ve taken the pathway that leads people into employment and we’ve worked back from the job, the entry skills and we’ve mapped those into the pathways, so any pathway being followed is one that leads to a job.</p>
<p>“ASP took commercial pilot training and deconstructed it into a practice-based degree. The actual training that you’ll find within that practice is the training you need to become a commercial pilot. It’s not a simulated course alongside pilot training, it <em>is</em> pilot training. Whichever way you look at it, from the regulator side or the industry side, the pilot side or the approved training organisation (ATO) side, what you see is the regulated training to be a pilot. That avoids anyone reaching the end of their course thinking that they’ve then got to look for a job, because they are in the pathway to a job.</p>
<p>“We took the same approach with the engineering programme, which is why we had to provide the Academy in Norwich,” he adds. “We had to provide the level of what we call ‘emulation’ – that a pilot would get in a full-flight simulator – for the other areas of aviation. The reason we commissioned a live, operational and fuelled 737 at the Norwich Academy was to give people the hands-on and task-outcome skills that they needed to walk into a job.</p>
<p>“What we’ve created is a way for the aviation industry to work with a national system to which they can then provide their input, regardless of what type of operator they are. They can say, ‘I need 50 of this type of person every year’ and the system produces them.</p>
<p>“The key is to make sure we don’t settle back,” Witts warns. “Some initiatives get a bit of air time and then fall away. We’re being disruptive in a positive way, which is good. It can be very confusing looking at the information out there and it shouldn’t be. As I said, aviation should be more accessible and more achievable for people.”</p>
<p><a href="https://jobs.flightglobal.com/register/?utm_source=website&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=FJ_register"><img alt="Register with Flight Jobs" src="/getasset/a95f9bbd-4d54-40bd-91fb-e090dc9d5295/" /></a></p>
<p><img alt="IAA Norwich Boeing 737" src="/getasset/953b169a-bee5-4003-b9b8-07b808351bdd/" /></p>
<p>“In terms of the original motivation, I grew up in an environment where the UK could do everything. We held the land speed record, the water speed record, the air speed record. It was that whole era of ‘can do’, with the aviation industry thriving and people making that whole thing work.</p>
<p>“Virtually everything that happened to me in my career went into Aviation Skills Partnership as ingredients,” Witts explains. That career involved a degree in avionics, followed by positions covering engineering, operations, safety and training at Bristow Helicopters, Racal Avionics, UK CAA, British Regional/Manx Airlines, British Airways CitiExpress/Connect and Flybe.</p>
<p>“Creating something new provided the spark to say, ‘What would Aviation Skills Partnership do? How would an organisation sitting in the middle of this space make a difference and be able to create a supply of skilled people for the industry?” he muses. “Among the ingredients my experience provided, probably the overriding one was, ‘Why can’t we get back to a position where we can become a net world supplier of skilled people?’” Such was his success that ASP was acquired by Pennant International Group in February 2019.</p>
<p>In ASP’s Aviation Skills Manifesto, Witts set out seven areas that needed to happen to make all the desired elements come together. “The first was to put an aviation skills policy on the national agenda, a policy defined by six areas – pilot, air traffic, airport, operations, cabin crew and engineering – that needed to happen to an aircraft before any type can fly. It deliberately did not cross into aerospace, the design and manufacturing of aircraft.</p>
<p>“Second was to find the right partners,” Witts continues, “because ASP is not – and didn’t set out to be – a training provider. What it’s sought to do is to set out the environment for partners to come together and train people.</p>
<p>“The third area is pathways and programmes and their simplification. Under the regulations, there’s generally only one way of becoming a pilot. There might be multiple routes as part of that pathway, but actually – and ideally – only a single pathway. To simplify that, we worked back from the outcome of being a First Officer in a commercial aircraft, saw what skills are needed at each point in a career, right the way back to age seven, so that you could start to simplify the information to people in the same way as the legal, medical or accountancy professions.</p>
<p>“The fourth area is the facilities in which to train. I grew up in the era of RAE Farnborough, RAE Bedford and other national training facilities, which we’ve dismantled or privatised/commercialised. We haven’t made them accessible to people to train up to what I describe as the 80% point. In the industry, 80% of the training is common, no matter what you fly, fighter aircraft or light aircraft.</p>
<p>“So we’re actually creating the facilities that could be accessible to people in the education sector. You don’t have to join a company to access them. They’re independent, so nationally run. That’s what led to the first International Aviation Academy in Norwich,” he emphasises.</p>
<p>“Areas five, six and seven are around knowledge and information. Number five is making sure everybody knows about it and how to access it. Six is about inspiring the future from the past, helping people to know that we have been good at doing this before, therefore we can continue to be good at it. Finally, number seven is about making sure that everything is accredited and awarded,” Witts confirms.</p>
<p>As the new regime invests in ASP, those parts of the Aviation Skills Manifesto are being combined to create the new five-part Charter for Aviation Skills.</p>
<p>“The first pilots graduated just under two years ago and the first engineers have just graduated from the engineering pathway,” Witts reports. “We’re now at the stage where the ‘proof of concept’ if you want to call it that – and I like to think it’s much more than that – has gained legs and ceased to be a ‘new kid on the block’.</p>
<p>For potential students wanting to know the chances of getting a job after their training, Witts has excellent news. “Every pathway created so far, starting with the pilot and engineering pathways, is entirely based on a route to a job. Therefore the only way you can graduate is in a job,” he remarks.</p>
<p>“I can be so bold because we’ve taken the pathway that leads people into employment and we’ve worked back from the job, the entry skills and we’ve mapped those into the pathways, so any pathway being followed is one that leads to a job.</p>
<p>“ASP took commercial pilot training and deconstructed it into a practice-based degree. The actual training that you’ll find within that practice is the training you need to become a commercial pilot. It’s not a simulated course alongside pilot training, it <em>is</em> pilot training. Whichever way you look at it, from the regulator side or the industry side, the pilot side or the approved training organisation (ATO) side, what you see is the regulated training to be a pilot. That avoids anyone reaching the end of their course thinking that they’ve then got to look for a job, because they are in the pathway to a job.</p>
<p>“We took the same approach with the engineering programme, which is why we had to provide the Academy in Norwich,” he adds. “We had to provide the level of what we call ‘emulation’ – that a pilot would get in a full-flight simulator – for the other areas of aviation. The reason we commissioned a live, operational and fuelled 737 at the Norwich Academy was to give people the hands-on and task-outcome skills that they needed to walk into a job.</p>
<p>“What we’ve created is a way for the aviation industry to work with a national system to which they can then provide their input, regardless of what type of operator they are. They can say, ‘I need 50 of this type of person every year’ and the system produces them.</p>
<p>“The key is to make sure we don’t settle back,” Witts warns. “Some initiatives get a bit of air time and then fall away. We’re being disruptive in a positive way, which is good. It can be very confusing looking at the information out there and it shouldn’t be. As I said, aviation should be more accessible and more achievable for people.”</p>
<p><a href="https://jobs.flightglobal.com/register/?utm_source=website&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=FJ_register"><img alt="Register with Flight Jobs" src="/getasset/a95f9bbd-4d54-40bd-91fb-e090dc9d5295/" /></a></p>