Abstract
“Future skills” increase employees’ prospects in the labor market, particularly in dynamic times, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic. (Not only) in Germany, flight attendants represent an occupational group without state-recognized vocational occupation who are particularly affected by the pandemic due to serious and long-lasting declines in air transport volumes. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that the future skills of flight attendants play an important role when applying for jobs in other industries. An empirical survey (n = 273) from April 2021 indicates that German-speaking flight attendants possess some of the future skills most frequently identified in key studies on future competencies, as well as extensive language skills, but have deficits in “working with computer systems” and “programming”. Pro-active training of employees in future skills, especially in crisis-prone professions, could facilitate future transitions into new professional fields.
Highlights
Uncertainty—The Case of Germany.The air transport industry has been and still is, severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, with global air traffic in, e.g., Germany, plummeting by over 74 percent in2020 (Statistisches Bundesamt 2021)
As it can be assumed that future skills can decisively help flight attendants to find a new job, this paper examines existing, and possibly missing, future competencies of flight attendants
The most frequently mentioned future competencies in the aforementioned studies relate to the specific ESCO skills and competencies “programming computer systems”
Summary
We compare the actual future competencies of flight attendants in Germany—determined by an online survey of n = 273 German-speaking cabin crew members and from the airlines’ job requirement profiles—with the most important future skills according to current studies in this field. Two papers from 2016 dealt with speaking skills: Limprasert and Witthawassamrankul (2016) identified accents and pronunciation as key English language issues of Thai flight attendants; and Kusumo (2016) revealed typical communication problems of cabin crew members in real-life working conditions and investigated how problem-based learning techniques could help to develop Indonesian flight attendants’ speaking skills. We compare and the future future competencies according literature skillsskills of flight attendants, determined through an analysis airline job profiles with the actuallyactual observed of flight attendants from Germany to identify skillof gaps the one and by descriptive statistics fromeach an online survey of n = 273 and to generate on a basis forhand recommendations for action.
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