Looming labor shortages may threaten air safety

"More planes are flying than ever before, but the number of people who do everything from piloting them to fixing them isn't keeping pace. The growing shortage is raising fresh concerns about air safety." That's from The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), which runs an in-depth story today on the subject. The paper says both industry insiders and government officials are expressing concern over looming labor shortages, expected to hit positions ranging from pilots to aircraft inspectors to air-traffic controllers. The Journal adds a big fear is a lack of "experienced personnel" over the next five years.
After two decades of progress in making air travel safer, some say they fear shallow pools of key personnel could put some of those safety advances at risk. "We know how to make the system even safer than it is, but we're going to lose ground if we fail to manage growth within the limits of our human resources," Bill Voss, president of the Washington-based nonprofit Flight Safety Foundation, says to the Journal. The Journal adds "some of the strains have already begun to show. Recent independent safety audits found a glaring need for technical personnel in countries including India, Israel and Belgium. In India, one of the world's fastest-growing aviation markets, half of the jobs in some government aviation-oversight offices were vacant."
08/05/08 USA Today

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Categories: Safety May 2008