Page 11 - ATC Special Bulletin Series - Training & Simulation 2022-01

DFS EUROCONTROL completed their training, both in the training academy and on- job training, and are now rated Air Traffic Controllers or Flight Service Operators. Two new cohorts of ab initio students have begun training with Airways following the Covid-19 restrictions – the first cohort started in October 2021 and has now commenced ICAO 053 Approach Control Procedural, and the second cohort commenced training in May 2022. A third cohort is about to be selected, to start in October 2022. Numbers of students in both cohorts have doubled from the numbers previously required by Airways prior to the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. The interruption of training and the cancellation of new classes due to the shutdowns in 2020 and 2021 continues to have an effect on the training volume. Ongoing quarantine regulations and illness-related absence of trainees and staff still have an impact on the workload of teachers and product owners. However, with declining COVID-19 infection numbers in Germany the situation is improving step by step. Fortunately, although our organisation was impacted by the pandemic, it was still able to continue its training activities thanks to the commitment of the whole training team. Of course, there were many changes, especially resulting from the delays in the first weeks of the pandemic. The situation was unexpected and new for everyone, so like many others, we had to pause for a moment and see how things evolved and how we could best adapt. When we drew up our training plan for 2020 and beyond, we expected extremely high traffic demand, which didn’t materialise because of COVID-19. We took this opportunity to reduce the planned three new ab initio courses per year to two courses per year, all the while continuously observing both traffic and staff developments in order to be able to react to the situation as promptly as possible (bearing in mind that the lead time for such training can be four years). Ab initio training was affected due to the COVID-19 pandemic; however, recruitment was not directly affected as none was planned in that period. Training volume was affected, as such On-the-Job training had to be delayed or suspended. LVNL decided to continue the influx of new trainees to avoid a future negative backlog. This is of great importance because, partly due to COVID-19, we are dealing with a shortage of staff now and in the future (due to retirement). However, due to the severity and mainly the duration of the COVID-19 crisis the OJT period was seriously affected. There was not enough live traffic to complete the OJT training and progression of JCAA ANS (JAMAICA) LVNL | 01 | TRAINING & SIMULATION | 11 |