Skills retention in aviation industry a major challenge

The loss of highly competitive
and necessary skills in the
aviation industry remains of
major concern to government,
says Anwar Gany, chief
director: civil aviation in the
Department of Transport.
Speaking at the monthly
Transport Forum in
Johannesburg recently,
Gany said training for the
aviation industry was not
just an extremely expensive
endeavour, but was also posing
a challenge in how the country
was to keep the trained skills.
“We are competing with
dollars and euros, and it is
human nature to go where
the wage package is the
best. Because our training in
South Africa is of such a high
calibre, we are finding that our
skills are being depleted by
other countries.”
He said while South
Africa had enough capacity
to address its own needs, it
was however imperative that
the aviation industry looked
at ways of keeping skills in
South Africa.
“And we are not just talking
pilots here. When we take
air traffic controllers, South
Africa has become renowned
for its training and we have
some of the best controllers
in the world. But we are
finding ourselves investing
in an individual for several
years, just for that person to
be snapped up by another
country.”
He said this was not an
issue the transport industry
faced alone, with nurses,
doctors and teachers also
being poached on a
large scale.
Gany said much dialogue
was taking place within
the DoT to find long-term
solutions to the loss of skills
in the aviation industry, where
specialised training was
imperative.
“Government is not sitting
back and watching this
happen. There are processes in
place to address this problem
and to find a workable solution
for everyone involved.”