What. A. Summer.
UK aviation crisis reaches breaking point.
6,500 UK passengers suffer ATC delays.
UK taskforce calls for disability training for all airline and airport staff.
Parents aren’t the only ones desperate to see the back of the summer holidays. As their kids return to the confines of the school playground, colleagues at airlines and airports are breathing a sigh of relief.
Unfortunately, thinning queues only bring a brief respite in the chaos. So, what can we do to avoid further disaster, now and in the future? It’s going to take more than robust systems and the latest ‘resilience’ training course. Much more…
In late 2023, 27% of customers reported that they do not trust airlines to act in their best interests.
That means passengers are already entering the terminal with a bee in their bonnet. This isn’t going away on its own; if aviation continues to try to engineer the solution through operational efficiency, this trust, and any wafer-thin goodwill, will erode further.
And combine diminished goodwill with travel disruptions, and you create a pressure cooker unlike almost any other industry. This leads to:
72% of airline or airport staff report being intimidated, shouted at or physically hurt during disruptions to customer travel, with 55% of the travel sector workforce reporting having seen their mental health negatively impacted by the “fallout of disruption”.
There’s already an incredible amount of pressure on your people. When you couple this with unrealistic expectations and growing internal frustration, it’s no wonder that turnover rates for roles such as ground handling reach as high as 50%.
Something needs to change. It’s time for a human-centred approach.
1. Uncertainty caused by flight delays, cancellations and ATC disruptions
Flight delays and ATC disruptions are nothing new, but this summer proved yet again that people aren’t just frustrated by the wait; they’re frustrated by the silence.
Behavioural science tells us that not knowing why you’re waiting often feels worse than the waiting itself. A lack of information creates anxiety, fuels anger and makes the queue feel longer.
Anyone who has stood in a snaking security line without updates knows the feeling all too well. It’s not the clock that’s unbearable; it’s the uncertainty. This is where airports need to change things up. Stop hiding behind operational efficiency and start building trust through empathy and transparency.
That doesn’t mean making up answers. It means giving staff the confidence to say, “Here’s what we know, here’s what we don’t, here’s what we’re doing.”
Human-centred programmes can recreate the tension of disruption, giving people practice at communicating under pressure and prioritising with confidence. Traditional training can’t replicate that emotion – it has to be experienced.
At Solvd, we address this using our solution scale.
Put simply, you need to adapt your development approach depending on how much your people actually care about the issue in front of them.
An accident where someone’s seriously injured? People naturally care about this; you don’t need to nurture mindsets, just skills (how to help).
Something a little more dull? Say, passenger flow? That’s a whole different kettle of fish. You need your team to feel that frustration, that intense emotion that comes when the little things are ignored, so they can empathise and see the bigger picture.
At Solvd, we design bespoke crisis simulations that make people feel this pressure in a safe environment. By recreating the stress and forcing prioritisation, teams develop the resilience and decision-making agility needed when disruption hits. There is no way that traditional training can recreate this emotion – it needs to be felt, not taught.
You can see how this works in practice by clicking here, where we share our work with Heathrow’s security team, and how scenario-based exercises helped staff prepare for practical assessments.
The lesson here is simple: your airline needs to dial up the human and care less about the bottom line if you want to create long-term value and trust.
2. Seasonal surges and rushed onboarding
Every summer, seasonal staff are drafted in at speed. Too often, they’re handed a manual and a lanyard and chucked into the terminal. The result? Inconsistent service and confused new starters who feel like outsiders from day one.
Most organisations design onboarding around what the business needs: the rules, the regs, the values. But what about the human side of joining? How it feels to walk in on day one, to wonder where the break room is, who’s who, or how the hell to get the coffee machine working. These little things shape whether someone feels like they belong.
Human-centred design creates empathetic onboarding experiences that answer the questions new hires actually have:
When people feel they belong, they learn faster, deliver sooner and contribute more confidently. People who feel properly prepared are far more capable of dealing with disasters and will be far more resilient when dealing with fallout.
People who are improperly onboarded will check out early, absenteeism rates skyrocket, and you spend more time recruiting to replace burnt-out employees.
3. Middle managers are under stress during operational peaks
Middle managers sit squarely in the blast zone – they are the front line when it comes to escalating passenger issues and are the first line of defence in ensuring staff wellbeing.
No pressure.
Unfortunately, middle managers often defer to policy rather than managing things using common sense. Why? Because they’re scared of getting it wrong. In a highly unionised environment, one misstep can spiral into a huge issue.
The problem? Policy has never calmed an irate customer down (it’s probably the best way to piss them off more).
You need to give middle managers the space to practise the messy stuff. Imagine a flight simulator, but instead of landing a 737, they’re de-escalating a check-in fiasco, mediating between tired staff, or managing a security bottleneck. These safe practice spaces build confidence where it’s needed most.
The best approach? Apply a COM-B model lens to your research into the problem. When you observe your colleagues’ behaviour:
This systemic view changes the solutions we design. It is not only about providing managers with coaching skills or resilience frameworks. It’s about reshaping the way performance is measured and supported.
That could mean integrating staff wellbeing indicators alongside throughput metrics. It could mean creating peer networks, so managers have safe spaces to reflect and learn from one another. It could mean senior leaders modelling the balance of care and performance in their own decision making.
When your leaders are nurtured, your whole organisation benefits. Strong leadership filters down through your entire team, ensuring that staff know who to turn to when the going gets tough (AKA, when disaster strikes).
Take Heathrow as an example:
They acknowledged that the way they develop their leaders needed to change. We worked with them to develop their future leaders with our Lead the Way programme.
Now that the summer’s over, you have a unique opportunity to focus on reevaluating your L&D processes.
Time is, however, of the essence. Mindset shifts take time, and before you know it, it’ll be July again, and it’ll be time to start your engines once more.
Will you learn from this year, or will you repeat the same mistakes?
If you’re interested in trying a new way, then the first step is talking to our team at Solvd. We work with aviation organisations to look for new ways to engage your people; to tackle problems that traditional training cannot solve.
Our unique human-centred design (5Di) approach puts the human first, hence the name. We do this so that we can create targeted learning solutions that tackle real business challenges head-on. By working this way, we help L&D teams shift from reactive order-takers to strategic partners delivering measurable business impact.
Want to learn more about human-centred design?
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When you’re ready to accelerate change and make a positive difference to your bottom line, we’ll be ready to talk.
We've all suffered through lacklustre corporate learning. The futility of education and training has switched us off at one point or another.
We want to change this. It starts with you and I discussing what needs to change at London Gatwick, and how change can fit within your time and budget limitations.