Safety Issue Report – Skills and Knowledge Degradation due to Lack of Recent Practice
The COVID-19 pandemic has created an unprecedented situation for the aviation industry. With significant reduction in air traffic, most aviation professionals are no longer able to perform their normal tasks. Instead, they might be doing a substantially different job, and some might not working at all or at a substantially reduced frequency.
In addition, training may not be taking place at the pace required to keep aviation professionals current. Furthermore, new or updated procedures have been developed to cope with the changes in operations.
Together, this creates a reduction in the skills and knowledge of aviation professionals, and with it associated safety risks.
This document provides guidance to support organisations and aviation professionals (in particular, air traffic controllers (ATCOs), commercial flight crew, aerodrome operations staff, ground handling staff and maintenance engineers) in managing skills and knowledge decay in the context of the COVID-19 crisis.
