In this week’s look into the world of aerospace and defence across the Middle East and Africa, Peter Mohring, managing director of transport at Serco Middle East, explains why it has never been timelier for the air transport sector to embrace outsourcing to help with post pandemic recovery.
Serco provides services across the Gulf from the UAE to Iraq including air traffic management services in Dubai, Sharjah and Baghdad.
Mohring says as one of the first industries affected, overnight the pandemic sent the aviation industry into crisis mode, with overall air traffic levels down by about 80 percent globally. This obviously came with a huge economic price tag for the industry and all its adjacent segments, such as tourism, hospitality and supply chains that depend on and support the sector. Unsurprisingly cost cutting measures have seen the halting of recruitment and training, reducing workforces, and the cancelling of contracts.
“But despite this, what we have seen is the resilience and adaptability of the sector. It has forced us as well to reimagine outsourcing, and it has stressed the need for service providers to adapt to deliver even greater value than ever.”
Meanwhile Space Editor, Steve Nichols, finds out about the latest plans for another UAE satellite and Chuck Grieve learns about remarkably hi-tec tools that are now necessary for non-destructive testing in the MRO arena.
This plus all the news from the industry across the region