Balance Demand With Pilot Wellbeing: The Pressures

with the consultant arguing there’s a need for the maintenance workforce to increase. “However, [the number of] maintenance employees are more-or-less the same as before, if not fewer – which means there’s a need to plan for maintenance slots several months ahead of time – even for simple maintenance.”

The demand for Business Aviation over the past couple of years has come from a wider consumer base. “Much of the increased demand for flights is for leisure [travel] with family or friends”, the consultant notes, adding that this is a clientele-type that can pose challenges to operators.

“Last-minute requests, or passengers showing up with a lot of luggage to fit onboard a small airplane,” are just a couple of examples, the consultant suggests. “While operators try to accommodate these challenges, bottlenecks are inevitable given the current constraints on airplanes, crews, flight time limitations (FTL), and maintenance.”

That means operators may need to quickly hire copilots – potentially including those with far less experience than they might have hired previously – to avoid not having enough crews available for duty. “Currently, it is not unusual for a small [charter] business aircraft to accomplish up to six flights daily,” the consultant says. Thus, the environment is one of high pressure. Other Factors Increasing Pressure on Operations

With the cost of fuel almost doubling over the last six months, “to maintain profit margins some operators could be strongly motivated to tanker, which implies specific considerations for planning and conducting flights,” thereby increasing demands on flight crews.

And with the increased flight activity, difficulty in finding slots can add pressure on crews. “If the demand for Business Aviation increases further, there will be increasing pressure on ramp space to park, and also on ground handling services,” the consultant adds.

“Ground operations is a risk area in its own right,” he elaborates. As pressures build on the services offered at a known, preferred destination airport,