With vaccination programs showing signs of success, governments are signaling the easing of travel restrictions later this year, prompting operators and air navigation service providers (ANSPs) to start gearing up for a return to “new normal” operations.
With this comes a multitude of complex and competing challenges across every aspect of the air transport system. Industry restart requires an enormous collaborative effort, and to that end, it’s encouraging to see industry organizations and regulatory authorities taking positive steps to analyze the safety implications and manage the associated risks.
Among the resulting guidance, however, one small but important safety issue that appears to have received little attention is that of loss of language proficiency. “Use it or lose it,” as the adage goes.
This loss of proficiency, known as “language attrition,” can occur in a number of circumstances, one of which, as classified by Dutch linguist Theo …
