In recent years ATM training has opened up to competition more and more. It has been a positive change as it has exposed old, big monolith training organisations to the impacts of market forces and made them realize how inefficient training has been. Air navigation service providers, the customers, have also woken to see how much resources they have been pouring into the services of these training organisations, who, in their monopoly positions, did not need to really care about how they conducted training pedagogically. As long as new ATCOs popped out from the end of the line, it was good enough. As long as current ATCOs went and sat through their annual refreshers, it was good enough.
The whole idea of competing in ATM training market has brought about new industrial phenomena and possibilities for customers looking for training provider partners. Service providers can now shop for schools to find the most appropriate partner to fulfill their training needs. They can openly express infidelity to their trusted long term partners they have been together with before, because it is OK to express free love today. They can organize calls for tender, CFTs, to find partner for themselves and make training organisations perform furious mating dances in hope to hook up with them.
The curious thing in these competitions is to look at the criteria, which are defined for the grounds of awarding the contract. The list is usually quite exhaustive and includes items such as quality of training facilities, simulators, classrooms, and technical arrangements, accommodation options for students, training cost, training quality and so on. The competitors are ranked based on how they scored in each of the criteria, with weighed value given to the scores. Then the scores are checked and the highest score wins.
The process sounds quite statistical and clear, but it is far from it. Which element is the most important to the customer and gets the biggest weight? How does one then evaluate what the score for any of the reviewed element is? It is relatively easy with quantitative items, like how many simulator positions, or classrooms are available, and what is the offered cost of training. It is, however, very complex and subjective to make decisions when it comes to qualitative elements of the competition, such as quality of the facilities or quality of training.
Even more fascinating is to see the explanations given by the customer about what were the criteria that actually did tip the decision the way it did. Sadly, the cost of training too often ends up as the main factor of the decision. Getting the price low can make the customer look away from quality. Getting the highest score on quality of training is by no means key to winning the contract. Important thing is that in the end all the boxes are ticked and all regulation are met. ‘What’ is important. ‘How’ is secondary. ‘How much’ matters most, because it is the simplest to quantify and express to the board of directors.
The training organisations, who try to get the contract, of course know this and they run their numbers too trying to find ways to get their own costs and overhead down. They know that their chances of success are slim if they are not able to do this and so they cut down from somewhere. It can be from number of training days, number of instructors, level of administration, scope of development work for the training, etc. There can be concrete and harmful elements, whose removal actually is beneficial, but the fact remains - something must always be taken away.
The question now becomes, how does the removed element affect the quality of training and how does it affect the customers’ decision to buy that training. In other words, does the offered low price product bring the expected value to the customer? Is the customer still getting what it wants according to the criteria which were defined in the call for tender? What is the leftover quality in the provided product?
The customer has an expectancy of how the training will pan out and that expectancy is based on their previous experiences. They know what has traditionally worked with their previous training provider and these expectations are projected to the new tender. After all, customers need a reliable product that they are sure it works.
The training providers can read all these expectations from the CFT, and try to match that in their offer. The customer gets what it wants, but in the process it muffles evolution. Training providers keep doing what they have been doing because that is what customer wants. The efficiency of resources has improved generally in the ATM training market, thanks to open competition, but surprisingly the quality of training has not seen the same boost in pedagogical sense.
The innovations and modern methods implemented in educational environments in other industries and in public domain have not been welcomed in ATM training world. ATM training quality is lagging behind the progress that is happening elsewhere. Enhanced technical skillsets and competencies modern ATCOs need in their work certainly requires that quality of training should keep up with the demands of the profession. Not to mention the fact that the trainees that enter the programs today, are not even millenials anymore. They are the next generation Z, and the ATM industry knows ridiculously little about them. Let alone understands what quality is for them in their education.
Training organisations are starting to have a little clue about the new breed of trainees, because they have good visibility to them from early on. They, therefore theoretically, could start making changes that would cater for the needs the trainees of today, but this does not happen nearly with the pace required. It is not totally the fault of actions by training organisations. There are some positive indications out in the marketplace of will to improve but even still the development is arrested.
Reason for this can be found on the pages of the calls for tender. The buyers of training define quality in the CFTs very much in traditional terms. They don’t want something new. They want what has worked before. And training organisations are offering them just that. This, unfortunately, only sustains tradition and status quo in ATM training.
If training falls behind in this development, it will have negative impact on the whole progress of aviation industry. A solution for this is to rethink benchmarking for ATM training. Traditionally, and still today, industry looks for best practices and innovations from within its own sphere. The attitude remains where only ATCOs know how to train ATCOs. No one from outside the industry is allowed any educated argument in the matter of ATM training. This is how industry’s own arrogance leads to traditionalists learning from other traditionalists, creating a loop with no way out. Unless there is courage by customers to ask different questions and demand higher quality, they will never receive anything new.
Dare to think big is a good advise. Why settle for benchmarking from within own industry, when there are thousands of elite educational institutes and models available outside. Traditional customers ask traditional questions when trying to find training providers for them. Remodeling those questions can open up the topic of what actually constitutes good quality training or what defines a high quality training organisation. Listening to, and learning from educational professionals during the tendering process is a valuable effort to get exactly, and even more from the training you are looking for. They can help formulate the problems and even evaluate the potential training providers in ways that can bring more value in the process.
To receive better quality in training, the customers first need to carefully define what exactly is the quality they want. The potential training providers jump hoops to get the contract, so it is a perfect opportunity for customers to ask for the moon. Only by asking for “crazy” things are training organisations forced to enhance their development processes and to find innovative solutions. Therefore it is largely on the customers to actually drive the development for the training quality. Training organisations do not develop unless they have to. It is not worth it for them. The only way they have to develop, is by customers demanding that.
