UK proposes speeding up aviation industry recruitment

The UK is proposing measures to help speed up the recruitment of workers at airlines and airports in an effort to ease staff shortages that have led to hundreds of cancelled flights and big queues. Aviation minister Robert Courts has written to aviation industry executives, saying the government would, by the end of April, aim to drop a requirement that companies must have completed background checks on new hires’ past employment before they begin training courses. The move comes as the sector struggles to cope with Britons seeking to go abroad after the lifting of coronavirus restrictions because companies slashed workforces when travel ground to a halt at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. UK airlines have cancelled as many as 1,000 flights a week recently because of staff shortages caused by a combination of Covid-19 infections and longer-than-expected times completing background and identity checks on new starters, and obtaining security clearance for them. Travellers using airports including Heathrow, Gatwick and Manchester have experienced lengthy delays. “All of us will be concerned about the situations some passengers have experienced over the past couple of weeks,” said Courts in his letter to industry executives on April 8. “The Department for Transport has been working hard to identify solutions to help ease the current difficulties that you are facing in what is a competitive labour market.” Since the UK retained EU laws on background checks after Brexit, ministers are now proposing legislation known as a statutory instrument to loosen the requirements.<br/>