What is it?

The Air Sector Skills Transformation Map is a web platform for newcomers and professionals in the air sector. It explores the key technological transformations, future operational scenarios and skills changes expected in the next years. It also provides a list of free training materials and resources for soft skills acquisition and upgrading.

Who is it for?

It is aimed at new entrants and professionals in the air sector such as Air Traffic Controllers, Commercial Pilots, RPAS pilots and Airport operators, who can use the web platform to learn about the evolution of the air sector and the new skills required in the future.

In a later version, this tool will also be useful for training providers and companies in the sector who may need to gain insight into major sector trends and changes in skills in order to design new training opportunities and to adapt the current training programmes to the market needs.

About skill-UP

The skill-UP project (skilling, upskilling and reskilling in future Air Transport), co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme, aims at defining future knowledge, skills and competences required in the aviation sector by different professional profiles, including Air Traffic Controllers, Commercial Pilots, Airport operators and RPAS pilots. By identifying the needs, major trends, and technological transformations of an evolving labour market, skill-UP has developed a set of training programmes for skilling, upskilling and reskilling of the air transport workforce. To discover more about the project, visit our website.

Our Approach

Skill-UP has adopted a back-casting technique to identify the needs, major changes and technological transformations expected in the air sector in the upcoming years. The back-casting methodology is a planning method designed to actively guide changes in complex contexts through the analysis and the assessment of new trends, new profiles and future needs from a present-future perspective. The project has followed a three-step process.

Analysis of trends and technological transformations in the aviation sector.

Skill-UP started by analysing the major trends, innovations and changes expected in different areas of the aviation sector and their impact on operators' roles and activities. This process led to the development of four future operational scenarios namely: Single and multiple remote towers, Single pilot operations, Automated check-in operations for passengers' flow management at the airport and RPAS integration into the U-SPACE.

 
Identification of new profiles and changes in skills and competences.

As a second step, twelve future personas representing new entrants and professionals in the air sector and their related study pathways have been developed in order to describe the new competences, knowledge and skills required by these profiles.

Design of training courses for skills acquisition and upgrading. Finally, skill-UP has developed a set of transversal and specific training modules for soft skills acquisition and upgrading. The training modules have been designed for Air Traffic Controllers, Pilots, RPAS operators and Airport operators to support and optimise their transition process towards more automated and digitalised operational scenarios. The complete portfolio of the Skill-UP training modules is available here.

Back-casting methodology

How to prepare the workforce for the work of tomorrow?

External experts and key stakeholders in the sector have been iteratively involved at key stages of the process through interviews, surveys and focus groups to validate the future scenarios, personas and study pathways. The Air Sector Skills Transformation Map integrates all the key outcomes developed within the three-step process.